Two simple one-syllable words, yet they are not so simple. The English “yes” comes from yea + si, meaning “so be it!,” a stronger yea. Shakespeare uses it only as an answer to a negative question. The ...

The English word president and the verb preside are from the French-Latin presider(e), “sit in front (of everybody else)”; similar to the Hebrew yoshev rosh “sits ahead, chair.” Nasi’ is from the root ...

English and European words such as alphabet, earth, loco and habitat could come from Hebrew, according to an independent Israeli linguistics researcher who has written a number of unpublished ...