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!

 

[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

 

[slus]

Surely is a good translation.

 

[Abaye]

Forgive me for being very unhelpful: Hebrew harey הרי is like (classic) Greek ara ἄρα, they even sound similar.

 

[slus]

It's not unhelpful, because etimology is interesting.

 

[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.

 

[Abaye]

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?

 

[Techref]

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

 

[Drink]

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.

Thanks for the link, its really nice

No problem!