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E 0431 HE
The word " he " is of
Germanic origin .
H 0408 א ו ה
Concept of root : H as defining element
Hebrew word
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pronunciation
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English meanings
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א ו ה
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hu
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he
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Related English words
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he
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Comparison between European words and Hebrew
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Languages
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Words
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Pronunciation
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English meanings
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Similarity in roots
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Hebrew
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א ו ה
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hu
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he
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h (u)
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Greek
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ό
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ho
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he
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h (o)
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English
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he
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he
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h (i)
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Dutch
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hij
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h(ei)
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he
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h (i)
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Norwegian
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han
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han
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he
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h . n
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Proto-Semitic *HŪ --- *HĒ, *HĪ Proto-Germanic
The vowels in the words in Greek and Hebrew are of the same little family composed of O, U and Ü, that is related to the consonant W.
Note:
- Greek uses this pronomen also as article.
Note:
- Germanic and Hebrew have several pronomina and articles that begin with H. :
English Dutch Norwegian Hebrew language
1 3,4 1 3,4 1
3,4 1
3,4 cases
he him hij hem han ham hu
lo(le ho)
they them zij
hun de dem hem
lahem
hen
One may suppose that the H with which so many pronomina begin , (and also the Dutch definite article "het" = "it" ), is akin to the Hebrew definite article "H". Thus also English "he" ands "him" are derivations from composed words. As is known in Old English "it" was still "hit".
Note:
- Hebrew with the letter L forms prepositions of direction. An interesting example is the use of
this preposition to form the infinitive of verbs, exactly as English does with the preposition of
direction "to".
In the example of this entry Hebrew uses the L to indicate the third and fourth case. It is
helped by a vowel ( A in "lahem") that in the case of the single form "lo" has been absorbed
together with the H of the first case, as the example shows.
Note:
- Proto-Semitic. The use of the " H " as the basic element of personal pronouns in the third persons must have been present in Proto-Semitic, as it is found in many languages : Phoenician, Moabite, Aramaic, Ugaritic, Arabic etcetera, often with the "U"-vowel seen in Hebrew. A hypothesis "*H Ū " is possible.
It is very interesting to see that in some Semitic languages an " S " or " SH " is used. Mahri has " he " and " se " and Akkadian " shū ".
Note:
- Proto-Germanic. The use of the " H " as the basic element of personal pronouns in the third persons must have been present as well in Proto-Germanic, as it is again found in many languages : Old Saxon, Old English, Old Dutch and Old Frisian all had "HĒ , Hī", besides extended forms. In Gothic "himma" = "to him" and "hina" = "him" the first part corresponds with the just mentioned languages.
Note:
- Indo-European. There is a hypothesis of "*ki", based on Latin "cis"= "on this side"and several words for "this", as Old Irish "cē", Old Slavic "sĭ" and Lithuanian "shìs". Further is added Greek "ekei" = there". A problem perhaps is that the personal pronouns are not much used in many languages. But for example Latin has "is" = he". Russian and sister languages have "on". It is difficult to find a common origin for these Indo-European words.
We must prefer to point out the more clear similarity between Semitic and Germanic, as so often is the case.
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Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 24/10/2012 at 14.38.46 |
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