# הרי לא אכלתם כלום



## Ali Smith

שלום!

Someone said, "גברת כספי, בבקשה, אל תתני לי יותר אוכל."
The other person replied, "הרי לא אכלתם כלום".

What does harey mean?

Thanks!


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## Drink

It's not so easy to explain, other than perhaps to call it an "emphatic declarative particle".

See this episode of the Streetwise Hebrew podcast for details: Surely You Know What I'm Referring To


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## slus

Surely is a good translation.


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## Abaye

Forgive me for being very unhelpful: Hebrew _harey_ הרי is like (classic) Greek _ara _ἄρα, they even sound similar.


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## slus

It's not unhelpful, because etimology is interesting.


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## Drink

They may not be related. הרי comes from הנה, with the same sort of change that changed בן to בר in Aramaic. In fact perhaps this happened in Aramaic first, and Hebrew borrowed it from Aramaic.


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## Abaye

Drink said:


> They may not be related


I don't think they are related, Greek _ara_ is said to have an IE etymology, and I didn't see anyone saying that _harey_ is borrowed from Greek. Seems like one of those nice coincident cases of similar meaning & sound.



> הרי comes from הנה, with the same sort of change that changed בן to בר in Aramaic. In fact perhaps this happened in Aramaic first, and Hebrew borrowed it from Aramaic.


Do you have a reference for this?


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## Techref

Drink said:


> It's not so easy to explain, other than perhaps to call it an "emphatic declarative particle".
> 
> See this episode of the Streetwise Hebrew podcast for details: Surely You Know What I'm Referring To



Thanks for the link, its really nice


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## Drink

Abaye said:


> Do you have a reference for this?



I think I saw it somewhere, but cannot remember where. However, I just remembered that I've also seen a contrary claim that Aramaic ארי, originally ארו, really comes from the root ראה. Either way, it seems to be of Semitic origin.



Techref said:


> Thanks for the link, its really nice



No problem!


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