Hebrew legalities

As a professional legal translator, I often have to cite Israeli laws, specifically their name, articles or both. Just to make it clear, Google translate is of no use here in this language combination. The reason is that that certain idiosyncrasies typical of Hebrew affect some basic elements of the legal language and require some cross-cultural thinking in order to produce a proper translation

The first striking difference is the name of the law, specifically compound noun constructions. In English, if two nouns are joined together, the s for the plural is only added to the last noun, e.g., party conventions or Board of Director meetings. By contrast, Hebrew grammar allows either noun to be plural as relevant. Since a country can name its laws, including in English, in any way it wants, granted “informally”, the recognized English name of many Israeli laws sounds strange to English ears.  A few examples are the Companies Law and the Animals Manure Law. The translator is thus obliged to search, either through the Israeli Ministry of Justice or other site, and accept the recognized name, however awkward that may sound in English.

The name of the law is always followed by the year of its enactment, which presents its own issue.  In Israel, there are two calendars, the Hebrew, which is lunar based, and Gregorian, which is sun based. To make matters more interesting, the Hebrew year begins sometime in September or October on a varying basis. Accordingly, the name of the law in Hebrew notes both years, e.g. 5779 – 2019, in that order.  Having the identical ending digit is not automatic as a law passed between October and December could carry a Latin calendar year with final digit one less than the Hebrew one, admittedly a rare occurrence. The bigger problem in translation is what to do with the Hebrew year. Outside of Israel, nobody cares about the Hebrew year. Some translators insist on writing it, probably due to due diligence. I personally ignore it and only write the only one that a foreign audience will understand and need to know, the Gregorian one.

The numbering of articles and subsection within the law is a bit tricky due to Hebrew use of letters for numbers. To explain, each letter in Hebrew has a numerical value. The first nine letters are 1-9, the next nine digits are 20-90, etc. As an example, יד [yud-daled] is 14, i.e., ten and four. When a law in Hebrew has a short series of subsections, the first nine Hebrew letters, the translator has to choose which English equivalent to apply, letters or numbers. Is ד (daled] 4 or d?   Afterwards, it become easier to choose as the Hebrew will be marked as a number or letter, as in יד or נ [nun].  Generally, the letters are translated as letters but sometimes numbers may be used if lower level subsections exist, which require the use of the letters, i.e. Article 26(a) as compared to Article 26(1)(a).

Finally, the modal of legal necessity does not exist in Hebrew. English has an historical, albeit misused, word shall and a simplified modern word must to express the legal duty of a party. Hebrew uses the future tense in most cases. When translating statures, the translator must avoid the trap of maintaining the Hebrew structure and apply the English structure, i.e., the police must (shall) submit an indictment within 48 hours of arrest, not the police will submit an indictment within 48 hours of arrest. The future tense is a false friend in this case.

Thus, the job of a translator, legal and otherwise, is to transmit the words and culture of one language to another vocabulary and culture, not always a simple task. It is possible to disagree on the manner of doing it but all translators recognize its necessity. In legal translation, where precision and understanding are vital, the details make the translator.

Is it a boy or a girl?

Once of the challenges of  the new global village is trying to determine whether your correspondent is a male or female. When interaction was limited to the local and known culture, the gender of the name was almost always known just through passive experience.  For example, in England, Jim was man while Jane was a woman.  Today, as a translator, I communicate with people worldwide, often leaving me clueless whether my interlocker is male or female. Googling the name in pictures often clears up the issue, but not always.  The cultural / language basis is also sometimes helpful.

For example, English names for girls often end in the ee sound, i.e. Julie, Mary, Stacie, Stephanie and Nancy.  Most other female names are traditional, such as Jane and Susanne.  Interestingly, it is very rare that a “girls” name is given to a boy, maybe for reasons expressed in Johnny’s Cash’s famous song “A Boy Named Sue” (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOHPuY88Ry4  if are not familiar with this classic song.). Given the omnipresence of Anglo-Saxon culture, most people can distinguish the women from the men.

In Metropolitan France, the letter e at the end of the name feminizes it.  Examples include Jean and Jeanne, Paul and Paulette, Henri and Simon and Simone, to name a few.  Also, since it was traditional to name children after saints (partly as part of policy to eliminate langue d’oc, a common language in France several centuries ago), French French names are easily identifiable.  Interestingly, African French names are wonderful hodgepodges of the two cultures: typical French first names and exotic (to Western ears) African last names. So, gender identification is generally not difficult for French names.

By contrast, Hebrew is quite a challenge, even for Hebrew speakers.  First, many names are unfamiliar to Western cultures, including Idan and Shiran.  Some names have specific and humorous meanings in English, such as Moran and Pines (a girl and a boy, respectively).  The only rule is that generally if a name ends in an a sound, it refers to a female.  Examples include Yosef/Yosefa, Ziv/Ziva, Ayal/Ayala and Michael/Michaela. Also, names ending in it are feminine, e.g. Ronit, Sigalit, etc.  The major problem is that, consistent with the stereotypical macho culture, girls are often given many traditional boy names (but not the other direction), creating mass gender confusion.  Some of the androgynous names include Tal, Chen, Gal and Chen. To given an idea of how confusing this is, I teach one class with three students named Mor, two of them female.  Alas, guessing the gender of a Hebrew name can be a crapshoot.

So, faced with foreign name without a gender-identifying title, correspondents have few alternatives. They can google the name as a word or picture; they can make a guess based on the ending of the name; or they can simply ask as politely as possible if the person is a boy or girl.  Hopefully, the respondent will understand that nothing is obvious in a global village.

A Time for Names

Parents have the right in most countries to name their children as they wish.   Some names are chosen for their popularity while others for their meaning.  Calling a girl Yaffa or Tova, Hebrew names, may place a burden on her because they mean pretty and good, respectively.  Of course, there is little worse than Cher calling her daughter Chastity.

A curious serious of selective names involve the seasons.  Some Israeli parents name their children Stav and Aviv, meaning autumn and spring.  By contrast, kayitz and horef, summer and winter, are unheard of.  By contrast, in English, Summer and Autumn as first names exist, but are rare where as spring and winter are basically ignored.

In terms of months, the spring months are generally preferred as sources of first names, specifically April, May, and June.  Although July and August are named after Julius Caesar and Augustus, they don’t seem to have caught on with the general public unless all those Julies and Julias are actually named after a month, which may be technically true.  The fall and winter are dead as far as names go.

The only names of days that pop in the mind are Wednesday  as a first name in the Adams Family series and Friday as a last name in the Dragnet series. 

It can be safely said in English and Hebrew that there is basically no good time for a name.