# קיר   kir   חומה  choma  and other "walls"



## Zeevdovtarnegolet

There seem to be so very many words for wall in Hebrew! Is there a sort of default noun for wall in general.  I assume some might have a particular specific meaning, such as (of a fort) or something.  


Are these also common and mean wall?

דופן
כותל
נד
שור
קותל


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## Carrot Ironfoundersson

*קיר* is the most common one: סוף סוף מצאנו זמן לצבוע קירות בסלון - At last we found the time to paint the walls in the living room!

The Wailing Wall is called *הכותל *המערבי in Hebrew. Also it's used in expressions like 
"אזניים ל*כותל*" (the walls have ears) and such.

*חומה* - a wall that's used for protection: חומות מבצר - fortress walls, חומות בית סוהר - prison walls etc.

*נד* - personally, I came across this word only in crosswords. Don't think it's used much. But the meaning is "wall", yes.

*דופן *is pretty close to "partition" (dividing wall).


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## Aoyama

Come to think of it, English is quite poor concerning "walls".
Just ONE word in fact.
French, German, Japanese (for example) would have different words for fortress/castle walls, garden walls, high or low walls etc.
This being said, we know that :
*kir* is basic for wall
*kotel* is (for example) for the Wailing/Western Wall (beside this use and the proverb, I have never heard it elsewhere)
How is the "wall" between the West Bank and Israel called ?
How was called the "wall" in Jericho ?
And how was called the "Wall" in Berlin (different from ... the Iron Curtain) ?


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## Carrot Ironfoundersson

Aoyama said:


> Come to think of it, English is quite poor concerning "walls".
> Just ONE word in fact.
> French, German, Japanese (for example) would have different words for fortress/castle walls, garden walls, high or low walls etc.
> This being said, we know that :
> *kir* is basic for wall
> *kotel* is (for example) for the Wailing/Western Wall (beside this use and the proverb, I have never heard it elsewhere)
> How is the "wall" between the West Bank and Israel called ?
> How was called the "wall" in Jericho ?
> And how was called the "Wall" in Berlin (different from ... the Iron Curtain) ?



The wall between the West Bank and Israel is called *גדר *ההפרדה(division fence).

*חומות *יריחו
*חומת *ברלין

And The Iron Curtain would be מסך הברזל.


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## Aoyama

Rav todot.
English has the word "fence" (diminutive of "defence"), but a "fence" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fence) is not exactly what separates Palestinians and Israelis in that case . I understand khoma. One would have to dig a bit to understand the different between *kotel* and *khoma *.
One more thing : what's the Hebrew word for the Great Wall of China ? Ha khoma hagdolah ?


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## ks20495

קיר is generally used for an interior wall.

חומה and כותל are used for an exterior wall (has the connotation of being masonry/stone). חומה is definitely more common. The Great Wall of China is החומה הגדולה של סין. But, כותל is used in a lot of expressions. For example, "בין כתלי הבית" means inside the house.

נד is not really used very often -- but you will find in crossword puzzles as someone say!

דופן (pl. דפנות) is also used to mean "sides" -- as in the sides of a bowl.


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## Carrot Ironfoundersson

> English has the word "fence" (diminutive of "defence"), but a "fence" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fence) is not exactly what separates Palestinians and Israelis in that case . I understand khoma.


You can't argue with facts. In Hebrew it's called גדר(ולא חומת) ההפרדה although it's built of tall concrete blocks. According to Wiki the English term for it would be _Israeli West Bank Barrier_...

BTW, גַדֵר is feminine (pl.: גְדרוֹת)


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## Carrot Ironfoundersson

I found here something concerning נד(ned): turns out it's mentioned in Pentateuch (Exodus 15, 8): וּבְרוּחַ אַפֶּיךָ נֶעֶרְמוּ מַיִם נִצְּבוּ כְמוֹ *נֵד *נֹזְלִים קָפְאוּ תְהֹמֹת בְּלֶב יָם.
(And with the blast of Your nostrils 
The waters were gathered together; 
The floods stood upright like a *heap*; 
The depths congealed in the heart of the sea.)


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## origumi

Carrot Ironfoundersson said:


> *נד* - personally, I came across this word only in crosswords. Don't think it's used much. But the meaning is "wall", yes.


This is not a rare word. For example, tsunami is sometimes described as נד מים. The technical term for whirlwind over the sea is also נד מים. The relation to water follows Exodus 15:8 (שירת הים).



Zeevdovtarnegolet said:


> שור
> קותל


שור appears in Genesis 49:22 but rarely in modern Hebrew.
I am not sure that קותל = wall exists. Where did you see it?
You can add חל to the list, as in Lemantations 2:8. Also rare in modern Hebrew.


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## Carrot Ironfoundersson

> I am not sure that קותל = wall exists. Where did you see it?




*קותל *בתלמוד הוא אכן גם קיר (כותל) וגם דופן רגלה של בהמה, על פי הביטוי הארמי התלמודי "קותלי דחזירי".

מצאתי את זה באתר של כתר 
(http://www.keter-books.co.il/p-21_a-29/)


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## origumi

Carrot Ironfoundersson said:


> *קותל *בתלמוד הוא אכן גם קיר (כותל) וגם דופן רגלה של בהמה, על פי הביטוי הארמי התלמודי "קותלי דחזירי".
> 
> מצאתי את זה באתר של כתר
> (http://www.keter-books.co.il/p-21_a-29/)


Thanks.

However, I am not sure that Ruvik Rosental is accurate about the Talmudic spelling here. According to the copy I have, the spelling is either קדלי (Bavli, Megila, 13:1) or כתלי (Bavli, Hulin, 17:1). But maybe there are alternate spellings.

In כפתור ופרח of רבי אשתורי הפרחי, the 14th century, קתלי does appear. So if we regard it as a legal spelling (vs. a mistake) - yes, קתלי is good.

BUT: it is not agreed by all that קתלי, קדלי, כתלי חזיר are related to "wall". So the Ashtori (or also Talmudoc) example does not necessarly attest קותל as wall.


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## OsehAlyah

Aoyama said:


> One would have to dig a bit to understand the different between *kotel* and *khoma *.


While reading the archives for this forum I seem to remember Origumi mention that Khotel is an Aramaic word, whereas Homa is Hebrew. However, the meaning is the same. Please correct me if I'm wrong though.


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## origumi

OsehAlyah said:


> Khotel is an Aramaic word


According to Wiktionary: 

המילה מופיעה במקרא פעם אחת בלבד: "דּוֹמֶה דוֹדִי לִצְבִי אוֹ לְעֹפֶר הָאַיָּלִים הִנֵּה זֶה עוֹמֵד אַחַר כָּתְלֵנוּ מַשְׁגִּיחַ מִן הַחַלֹּנוֹת מֵצִיץ מִן הַחֲרַכִּים" (שיר השירים ב, ט). ככל הנראה המילה שאולה מן המילה הארמית כֻּתְלָא, שהיא עצמה שאולה מן המילה האכדית kutlu.

http://he.wiktionary.org/wiki/כתל

The (ultimately) Akkadian origin is repeated also in Safa Ivrit.
http://www.safa-ivrit.org/imported/akkadian.php

Personally I always have doubts whan a Biblical word is said to be borrowed from Aramaic. Such claims tend to be an educational guess which is not enough in my opinion to decide about word origin. Even if the word is from Akkadian, and even if common in Aramaic while rare in Biblical Hebrew, yet Aramaic as a meditator is not needed. There was direct Akkadian-Canaanite relationship in early Biblical times as demonstrated for example in the Canaanite-Akkadian language of the 14th century BC found in Tel Amarna, a time in which Canaanite and Aramaic were definitely two different and not mutually-intellegible languages, and therefore Akkadian could be a direct source... if we take the assumption that כתל is not genuine Hebrew (from Proto-Semitic).

The exact Akkadian meaning is rail, fence, side-wall.
http://books.google.co.il/books?id=...&resnum=2&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false


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## OsehAlyah

Thanks origumi. Very helpful and informative. I, obviously, must have remembered it wrong.  So thank you for the correction.


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## origumi

OsehAlyah said:


> Thanks origumi. Very helpful and informative. I, obviously, must have remembered it wrong.  So thank you for the correction.


Hmm.. I may have said different things in the past , it all depends on the sources one reads, especially for a word whose origin is speculated.


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## Aoyama

> tsunami is sometimes described as נד מים


interesting. Tsunami is, by the way, a_ coastal wave _( tsu = coast, nami = wave).
It is some time confused with "tidal wave" (as in French "raz-de-marée").


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