YA REBBI

[amksa]

Does someone have an idea about this word "REBBI" used in North Africa to name God ? is that pre-islamic ? is that Hebraic ?
I read that the most ancient alphabetical semitic script contained the root "RB", which is supposely the word for "lord", "master" in semitic language.

my question is : Do you believe, for the ones who have such knowledge, that the word result from a punic/Carthage or Hebrew/jew influence ? (i don't take Arab influence into account, because it's too recent, compared to Punic and Hebrew.)

there are a lot of ambigous term in Berber, like the word Tafaska, which light up us about the very ancient contact of Berbers with other cultures. Tafaska is the term that Berbers use to name the Aïd el-Adha celebration ; muslim subsaharian call it "Tabaski" (probably some Tuareg influence here.)
i'm astonished on how the Berber language can be so conservative during so many millenniums.
when i see such term, i always wondering to myself : From wich semitic people does the word appeared ? people tend to overestimate Arab and Hebrew influence, but i would like to know, if someone has the knowledge here, how important was the Punic language on Berbers ?
i noticed that many associate automatically Aramaic with Jews, is that so relevant ? what about Carthaginians ? they stayed during many centuries in North Africa, and hop ! they left nothing ? The Tamazight language is far more ancient than Arabic, but when one find some semitic term in Berber, it "must" be Arabic or Hebrew !

i made this unintelligible and bizarre post in order to say to pan-arabists and arabized Berbers to open their eyes on the fact that arabic isn't the epitome of the afro-asiatic languages.

[yigal]

well rabaak is 3arabi for god and in islamic lands we call rabbis 7akham not rabbi, because rabbi can mean g-d

[zain]

Rabb means lord , master ,owner ,and teacher
elah ,or elluh means god
al-elah or al-elluh , means "the god" which maybe later shorten to al-luh (Allah).

[murphee]

I think that the Jewish meaning of 'rabbi' and 'rebbe'
is 'teacher.'

[zain]

murphee said:

I think that the Jewish meaning of 'rabbi' and 'rebbe'
is 'teacher.'

i agree ,also jewish use it for religions teacher .i think the word rabb origionally means lord ,then later included the religions teacher .

[Bar Amru]

In our Aramaic we use "Rab" for teacher, "Mar" for Lord, and "Alaha" for God, but because a lot of us grew up in Arabic countries so when we say Rab or Rabba we're usually tralking about God, but when we say "Rabbi" we're talking about our priests and teachers.

We call our preists by the term "Rabbi" which is "My teacher", we also call teachers Rabbi (Or Rabbita for a female teacher), so Rab means teacher, it does't mean lord, certiantly not in Aramaic nor Hebrew, and as far as Arabic goes, the term "Sayied" was more proper for Lord, I guess they used the term Rabb for God because God is also like a teacher to us.

[k5125]

Whats with the words Harav, zatzal, and shlita?

[Bar Amru]

Don't know what Zatzal and Harav are, Shlita on the other hand sounds famalier, I've heard it but it sounds different in our language, we say "Shalee6a" 6 = Letter Teth, I'm not sure of the exact meaning but we use it for very respected figures in our Church (Mostly Patriachs and Bishops).

We also have "Shleeta" but that has a different meaning, it means "Calm" and used for females, for the male it's "Shilya", but this term has nothing to do with this subject

[zain]

barkhu said:

In our Aramaic we use "Rab" for teacher, "Mar" for Lord, and "Alaha" for God, but because a lot of us grew up in Arabic countries so when we say Rab or Rabba we're usually tralking about God, but when we say "Rabbi" we're talking about our priests and teachers.

We call our preists by the term "Rabbi" which is "My teacher", we also call teachers Rabbi (Or Rabbita for a female teacher), so Rab means teacher, it does't mean lord, certiantly not in Aramaic nor Hebrew, and as far as Arabic goes, the term "Sayied" was more proper for Lord, I guess they used the term Rabb for God because God is also like a teacher to us.

you are right ,i was wrong ,i forgot about "sayied ",in arabic they also say mu-rabbe =teacher . t-rabea=education

[iberomaurusian]

Amksa, that whole expression is clearly of arabic origin (I could not for now expand on the reasons behind that judgement), But I see your point: semitic words in modern amazigh languages might have a distant origin (phoenician/carthaginian or hebrew). I once read a webpage on berber names, and was amazed by the number of the ones ending by baal (phoenician/semite for master or god)---which might be seen as an indicator of a linguistic carthaginian influence in those remost times.

I'll try to find the link to that page ...for the moment try this one, hope its the right page.
www.tamazgha.org/ismawen.htm

[yigal]

Ha rav means the Rav Ha=al=the in hebrew and like the word and (we/ve) it becomes intergrated into the word its talking about harav vehamchonit the rabbi and the car(a stupid example but hey it works)