Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Cheshvan or Marcheshvan?

I really liked this post by On the Main Line. It talks about whether our current month is Cheshvan or Marcheshvan. Here is a quote:


It happened again. Sure enough, the hazzan in shul announced the coming of the
new month in this way: ... ראש חודש חשוון יהיה ביום הראשון. I was half expecting it, actually. The issue? חשוון, rather than the actual name of the month, מרחשוון... Put plainly, the issue concerns the 'fact' that the name of the eighth month on the Hebrew calendar is Marheshvan, while many people call it instead Heshvan or think that it is really two words, Mar Heshvan ...it is clear that the month Marheshvan comes from the Akkadian Varahshamnu. What is that month's etymology? It seems that is is a compound of two words ורח שמנה, its Hebrew equivalent nothing more than ירח שמנה, the eighth month.


He also refers to an article by Ari Zevitovsky on the topic.

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