kaddish

The mourner's prayer is named with an Aramaic word for 'holy' because the prayer itself is in Aramaic, the everyday language of Jews in late antiquity, not in Hebrew. Its Aramaic sibling qaddīšā, 'saint', lives on in Syriac, Arabic and Maltese churches.

Weakest linkProbable

The road to English

From Medieval Hebrew to Yiddish

From Medieval Hebrew to Modern Hebrew

From Aramaic to Syriac, Arabic, Maltese

3000 BCEProto-Semitic

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.

Jewish life