language is cool.

“Each language builds a fence around those who speak it from birth, imprisoning our thought within its vocabulary (and grammar) unless we find a way out. Freedom is achieved by becoming familiar with a second language. This new knowledge enables us to view our first language objectively from without, creating fresh insight while further enhancing the interplay between language and thought.”
-Adeline Yen Mah, Watching the Tree

Something really cool dawned on me today. In Hebrew, verbs fall into something called binyanim, literally ‘buildings’, and the same root will have two different meanings depending on which binyan it falls into. Two of these so called buildings are paal and hitpael. In paal, the three letters כתב mean to write. In hitpael, the same root means to correspond. Not all root patterns fall into all of the buildings, but you get the idea I hope.
It just so happens that the verb pattern hitpael generally contains verbs which denote reciprocal action (this fits the example I gave you before – to correspond essentially means for two or more people to write reciprocally). So, finally, what dawned on me today was that the verb that means to pray, להתפלל, l’hitpalel, falls into this pattern. In Hebrew prayer is an action that is taken between oneself and another entity – God? Does that mean that whenever you engage in this activity there is something on the other end – or is its placement here just expressing a human desire for that to be the case. Well, of course it is a human creation – the Hebrew language is a human creation. But still, pretty neat eh? Of course, hitpael verbs can also be those which are reflexive – so you could also interpret it to mean you are doing the action to oneself. But that isn’t nearly as interesting, although perhaps a lot funnier to the cynics among us. Anyway, I’ll stop pontificating now. I’m sure to most of you reading this you either know that already or aren’t too interested to begin with.

Be well.