On Wed, 22 Jan 2003, Adina Adler wrote: >> >>On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Adina Adler wrote: >> >>>David Silberstein wrote: >> >> "emma" is /derived/ from the Hebrew for "mother". > The sources that I checked say that "emma" comes from the German >word for "strong". (Google) It looks like I am completely wrong about the etymology and origin of the name "Emma". I die. Linguistic confusion leads to social breakdown, total general chaos and global warfare (and that damn big tower never does get completed). All die. O the embarrassment! > When I learned Hebrew I was taught that "eema" and "em" were both >equally correct versions of "mother", and "eema" is what my brothers >and I always called our mother. For Aramaic "eema" vs Hebrew "em", I am pretty sure I remember reading that in "How the Hebrew Language Grew", by Edward Horowitz (an excellent resource, by the way). Note also these web pages: http://www.jewishbookmall.com/books_on_Aramaic.htm For example, "father" in Aramaic is abba. Wait a minute, you say? That's Hebrew? No, it's really Aramaic. The Hebrew word for "father" is av. But just to confuse you, or so you might be excused for thinking, modern Hebrew borrows abba and ima ("mother") from Aramaic! http://www.tau.ac.il/~itamarez/ps/hebcult.html Such familiar designations as aba for papa and ima for mama were introduced from Aramaic, since the Hebrew words ab (father) and em (mother) belong to the more official register (i e., "father and "mother"). But even these often were felt as stilted, subsequently taking the Yiddish diminutive suffixes, thus generating such forms as aba-le and ima-le. Whew! I at least got *something* right.