2. The Karaim language of the translation
2.1 Nominals
2.1.1 Nouns
2.1.1.1 Gender: grammatical and biological
The present section deals with a typological difference between Biblical Hebrew and Halich Karaim, namely grammatical gender. Examples will also be given of expres-sions that denote biological sex differences.
Turkic languages have no gender system (Johanson 2002a:31); thus, they do not show “different agreements ultimately dependent on nouns of different types”
(Corbett 2011a). However, they have lexical items denoting males and females, as will be illustrated by Halich Karaim examples, though “this is a matter of lexical semantics, and not a gender system” (Corbett 2011a).
The Model Code of the Karaim Bible translation, Biblical Hebrew, has a gender system in which both the meaning and the form of a noun determines the gender.1 Basically, animate objects are differentiated by biological sex, whereas inanimate nouns may be in any gender (Waltke & O’Connor 1990: 101).
In the following, the strategies used by the Halich Karaim translator to render the Biblical Hebrew gender system will be described. There are certain overlaps be-tween the two languages concerning the use of qualifying items like ‘male’ and the sex-differentiation of some animate objects. On the other hand, there are some dif-ferences, e.g. sets of animal pairs which cause problems for the translator. The in-stances below represent possible solutions of the translator.
2.1.1.1.1 Turkic characteristics of the corpus
Though gender features can be copied (Stolz 2011), no copying of the Hebrew grammatical gender has taken place in HKB. Neither animate nor inanimate nouns are marked for grammatical gender. For example the animate noun yilan ʻserpent’ in (2) and the inanimate tas ‘stone’ in (3) in Karaim are unmarked for gender.2 The Hebrew correspondences, on the other hand, are grammatically masculine (ʻserpent’) and feminine (‘stone’) nouns.
1 Although, WALS uses Modern Hebrew data, the description of the gender system is also valid for Biblical Hebrew. See Map 32A in Corbett 2011b.
2 As mentioned in Chapter 1.8, the translation provided of the Biblical Hebrew instance is that of the RSV (1952). I give a literal English translation of the Karaim text. In cases when the literal translation would not differ from the RSV translation, the latter is given.
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Biblical Hebrew
wühannäHäš häyâ `ärûm
and the serpent.CONJ.DEF.N:MASC.SG.ABS was.V:QAL.PRF.MASC.SG shrewd
‘now the serpent was more subtle’
Gen. 3:1 Halich Karaim
da ol yilan ustat:raḵ e:di
and that serpent clever:COMP be:DI.PST.3SG
‘and the serpent was more clever’
Gen. 3:1 (5/21) (3)
Biblical Hebrew
wayyiqHû- ´eºben
and they
took.CONJ.V:QAL.W.CONS.IPRF.MASC.3PL
stone.N:FEM.SG.ABS
‘so they took a stone’3
Exod. 17:12 Halich Karaim
da al:di:lar tas and take:DI.PST:3PL stone
‘and they took a stone’
Exod. 17:12 (165/6)
Since Hebrew grammatical gender is not subject to copying from Biblical Hebrew into Karaim, no Hebrew gender agreement patterns are reflected in HKB. See, for instance, (4), in which the adjective yangi ʻnew’ appears with different heads, i.e.
keḵ ʻheaven’ and yer ʻearth’, without showing any agreement. Yangi is the transla-tional equivalent of the Hebrew adjectives Hádäšîm ‘new (PL)’and Hádäšâ ‘new’. The adjective Hádäšîm is the masculine plural form which follows the masculine plural noun ‘heaven’, whereas Hádäšâ is a feminine singular form following the feminine singular noun ‘earth’. As the example illustrates, as a rule, in Biblical He-brew the adjective agrees in gender with the noun. See more about agreement be-tween noun and adjective in Section 2.5.2.2 (Copied agreement features) in Chapter 2.5 (Adjectives).
3 ERV translation: ‘and they took a stone’.
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Biblical Hebrew
bôrë´ šämaºyim Hádäšîm
I create.V:QAL.PTCP.MASC.SG.ABS heaven.N:MASC.PL.ABS new.ADJ:MASC.PL.ABS
wä´äºrec Hádäšâ
and earth.CONJ.N:FEM.SG.ABS new.ADJ:FEM.SG.ABS
‘I create new heavens and a new earth’ Isa. 65:17
Halich Karaim
yạrạt:i:mẹn yangi keḵ:ler dạ yangi yer create:R.NPST.1SG new heaven:PL and new earth
‘I will create new heavens and new earth’
Isa. 65:17 (474/3)
In order to differentiate male and female biological sex, sex-identifying items may be used in Karaim (Musaev 1964: 123–124). For instance, in the corpus, the noun erkek ‘man’ is used for this purpose in the case of human beings; see (5) in which the word erkeḵ ‘man’ occurs as the translational equivalent of the Hebrew noun zäkär ‘male’.
The sex identifier erkek is used with nouns which refer basically to males. The noun uvul today means ‘son’ (KSB p. 69; KRPS p. 572). The use of the sex-identi-fying noun in (5) shows that it is used here in the sense of ‘descendant’. Uvul is the Halich Karaim translation of the Hebrew noun Bën which has the primary meaning
‘son’ but also the sense ‘descendant’.
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Biblical Hebrew
Kol- zäkär
every.N:MASC.SG.ABS male.N:MASC.SG.ABS
Bibnê ´ahárön
among sons of.PREP.N:MASC.PL.CONST Aaron ʻevery male among the children of Aaron’
Lev. 6:18
Halich Karaim
bar erkeḵ ubul:lar:i:ndạ4 ahărn:nun all male son:PL:POSS3SG:LOC Aaron:GEN
‘every male among the sons of Aaron’
Lev. 6:18 (237/3)
When the female or the male animal of a collective or a pair is intended to be ex-pressed explicitly, sex-identifiers such as the word tisi ‘female animal’ or erkek
‘male’ are added to the noun phrase (Musaev 1964: 124). The identifier tisi ‘female animal’ is also attested in HKB, for example in the expression tiši:ni ol ḵoy:dan [female:ACC that flock:ABL] ‘a female animal from the flock’ in (6).
Consider also the Hebrew correspondence of the word ḵoy ‘flock, sheep’ in (6).
The Hebrew noun cö´n ‘flock’ is a so-called epicene noun, i.e. one “used for a male or female animate, or for a mixed group”, therefore it has common gender (Waltke
& O’Connor 1990: 107).5 (6)
Biblical Hebrew
nüqëbâ min- haccö´n
female.N:FEM.SG.ABS from.PREP the flock. DEF.N:BOTH.SG.ABS
KiSBâ
female lamb.N:FEM.SG.ABS
´ô|- Sü`îrat `izzîm
or.CONJ female goat. N:FEM.SG.CONST goat.N:FEM.PL.ABS
‘a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat’
Lev. 5:6 Halich Karaim
tiši:ni ol ḵoy:dan ḵozu:nu
female:ACC that sheep:ABL lamb:ACC
4 The use of the word ‘son’ with the locative suffix is unusual and is based on the Hebrew form, where the expression contains the bǝ- prefix. This prefix usually has a locative sense, but here it is used in the meaning ‘among’ (Lev. 6:18 Bibnê ahárön [among sons.PREP.N:MASC.PL.CONST Aaron] ‘among the sons of Aaron’). The modern Turkish translation used by Bible Works 8 is as follows: Harun soy:u:ndan gel:en her erkek [Aaron tribe:POSS3SG:ABL come:PART every male] ‘every male coming from the tribe of Aaron’.
5 The common gender is glossed as BOTH in the examples.
yẹmeše tiši ulag:i:n ecki:ler:nin or female kid:POSS3SG:ACC goat:PL:GEN ʻa female from the flock, a lamb or a she kid of goats’
Lev. 5:6 (234/3)
As can be seen in (6), the Halich Karaim translation differs from the original He-brew text with regard to ‘goat’. Although the original HeHe-brew expression refers to a female goat, the Karaim translator interprets it as a young female goat. Most proba-bly, the mention in the context of a female young sheep, i.e. a female lamb, has an influence on the translation, so that the female goat is also interpreted as a young animal in HKB. In this case, the translator does not give a literal translation but an interpretation of the original text.
In the examples above, the natural sex of a given animal is specified by a sex identifier both in the Hebrew text and in HKB. In both languages there are lexical items which denote the female or the male member of animal pairs. However, these items do not always cover each other in the two languages. For example, the pres-ence or abspres-ence of a female marker on the same stem makes it possible in Biblical Hebrew to refer clearly to the sex, e.g. Sü`îrat ʻfemale goat’ and Sü`îr ʻmale goat’;
see Table 15 below. Due to the lack of grammatical gender in Karaim, there is no such possibility in HKB. Thus, ecki occurs in the collective sense, and can denote a female or a male goat.
Table 15. Animal pairs in Biblical Hebrew and in HKB
Biblical Hebrew HKB
ʻram’ ´aºyil kockar
ʻfemale lamb’ KiSBâ kozu
ʻmale lamb’ keºSeb kozu
ʻewe’ rāḥel kozu
‘flock, sheep’ cö´n koy
ʻgoat’ ʻēz ecki
ʻfemale goat’ Sü`îrâ ecki
ʻmale goat, buck’ Sü`îr ulak, ulagi eckinin6
ʻfemale lion’ lübiyyä´ arislan
ʻmale lion’ läbî´ arislan
6 The noun ulak means ‘1. offspring, 2. kid of a goat’ according to KRPS (576). In HKB, however, this word is the translational equivalent of Hebrew Sü`îr ‘male goat, buck’ together with the expression ulagi eckinin (literally ‘kid of the goat’).
In the following, some instances will be given in which the items of Table 15 are used. For example, the Halich Karaim item ḵocḵar ‘ram’ is used in (7), and ḵozu
‘ewe’ appears in (8). The Hebrew originals of the animal pair are in this case rüHëlîm [FEM.PL.ABS]‘ewes’andwü´êlîm [MASC.PL.ABS]‘rams’.
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Biblical Hebrew
´aºyil Tämîm min- haccö´n
ram.N:MASC.SG.ABS complete.ADJ:MASC.SG.ABS from.PREP- the flock.
DEF.N:BOTH.ABS.SG ʻa ram without blemish out of the flock’
Lev. 5:15 Halich Karaim
ḵocḵar:ni tigel:ni ol ḵoy:dan ram:ACC perfect:ACC the flock:ABL
‘a perfect ram from the flock’
Lev. 5:15 (235/1) (8)
Biblical Hebrew
rüHëlîm mä´taºyim
ewes.N:FEM.PL.ABS two hundreds.CARD:FEM.DUAL.ABS
wü´êlîm `eSrîm
and rams.CONJ.N:MASC.PL.ABS twenty.CARD:BOTH.PL.ABS
‘two hundred ewes and twenty rams’
Gen. 32:15 Halich Karaim
ḵozu:lar eki iz dạ ḵocḵar:lar egirmi ewe:PL two hundred and ram:PL twenty
‘two hundred ewes, and twenty rams’
Gen. 32:15 (78/9)
Although the sex of the lamb is important in the following instance,7 the Halich Karaim translation does not add any identifying word for ‘male’ to emphasize it, which would be a solution for reflecting the semantics of the Hebrew expression in HKB.8 Thus we find yilliḵ balasi ‘one-year-old offspring’ as the translational 7 The Halich Karaim example is not part of the corpus.
8 Compare the Turkish translation of the two quotations with the noun ‘lamb’. Lev. 7:23 iste:r koyun [want:AOR3SG sheep] ‘if he wants a sheep’, Num. 6:12 bir yaş:ı:nda bir erkek kuzu
equivalent of Ben-šünätô ‘one-year-old son’, see (9). Considering the expression tiši ulagin eckilernin ‘she-kid of goats’ in example (6) and yillik balasi ‘one-year-old offspring’ below, we can see that when the sex of an animal matters the words bala
‘offspring, kid’ and ulak ‘offspring, kid’, refer to a male offspring, whereas the identifying word tiši ‘female’ is used when referring to the female offspring of an animal.
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Biblical Hebrew
wühëbî´ KeºbeS
and bring.CONJ.V:HIPH.W.CONS.MASC3SG lamb.N:MASC.SG.ABS
Ben- šünätô
son.N:MASC.SG.CONST his year.N:FEM.SG.CONST.SUFF:MASC3SG
‘and bring a male lamb a year old’
Num. 6:12 Halich Karaim
da keltir:šin ḵozu yilliḵ bala:si:n and bring:VOL3SG lamb one year old kid:POSS3SG:ACC ʻand he shall bring a one-year-old lamb’
Num. 6:12 (313/22) 2.1.1.1.2 Copies of foreign markers of female items in HKB
The lexical items referring to specifically males or females are all of Turkic origin.
Foreign morphological elements may, however, appear in rendering gender in HKB.
For example, the Slavic suffix -ka has been globally copied into Karaim, where it is used for denoting female representatives of nationalities or of professions, e.g.
karay:ka [Karaim:FEM] ‘Karaim woman’; see for example the spoken Trakai Karaim example given in Csató 2001b: 18. Musaev mentions that the -ka suffix may also be used to denote female animals, for example бузовка ‘теленок — самка’ from the noun бузов ‘теленок’ (1964: 123). He also gives examples with the suffix -ČA for marking females, e.g. ÿбийчя ‘домохозяйка’ from the noun ÿбий ‘хозяин’ or for nouns formed from adjectives with the help of –ČA, such as керклице ‘красавица’
from керкли ‘красивый’ (1964: 123).
In HKB, the Slavic suffix -ka may also be attached to a noun in order to mark femininity, as in the case of the word yišra’ẹlḵa ‘Israelite woman’; see (10). The suffix -ka, does not, however, occur with any other noun in the corpus. The distinc-tion between an Israelite woman and an Israelite man is indicated in the Hebrew Bible. The noun `ibrîis used when the text refers to a male, whereas the `ibriyyâ
getir:ecek [one age:POSS3SG:LOC one male lamb bring:FUT3SG] ‘he shall bring a one-year-old male lamb’.
occurs in the meaning ‘Hebrew woman’. The plural form of ‘Hebrew woman’ takes the feminine plural marker -öt; thus the plural form ‘Hebrew women’ is `ibriyyöt. (10)
Biblical Hebrew
wayyöº´mer meºlek micraºyim
said.V:QAL.W.CONS.IPRF.MASC king.N:MASC.SG.CONST Egypt
la|myallüdöt hä|`ibriyyöt
to the deliverer.PREP.DEF.V:PIEL.PTCP.FEM.PL.ABS the Hebrews.DEF.N:FEM.PL.ABS
‘then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives […]’
Exod. 1:15 Halich Karaim
dạ ayt:ti mẹlẹk:i micri:nin anạci:lar:gạ
and say:DI.PAST3SG king:POSS3SG Egypt:GEN midwife:PL.DAT ol yišra’ẹlḵa:lar:gạ
that Israelite woman:PL:DAT
‘and the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives’
Exod. 1:15 (127/1)
Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian lexical items with feminine markers were globally copied into HKB, e.g. dunya ‘world, people’ of Arabic origin, micvah ‘command-ment’ of Hebrew origin. The foreign grammatical gender markers have no function in Karaim. The copied lexical items are phonologically, grammatically, and seman-tically adapted to the Karaim grammar. Thus, for example, the Arabic word dunyaa
‘universe, world’ containing the feminine marker called ʼalif Tawiila (Ryding 2005:
123) has been copied as one formal unit with the gender marker. However, the gen-der marker has no differentiating function in Karaim. The word is fully adapted to the Karaim system. Therefore, it can for example take case markers, e.g. Lev.
269/24 dunya:da [world:LOC] ‘in the world’. Similarly, the Hebrew word micwâ
‘commandment’ has been globally copied and behaves as a regular Karaim lexical item disregarding the Hebrew grammatical feminine marker -ā (Waltke & O’Connor 1990:96), e.g. Isa. 477/18 micvah:ni [commandment:ACC] ‘commandment’.