I ♥ New York T-shirt
I was dating a Jewish girl from Long Island (Long Gyland) who got a kick out of the fact that I was taking a course in Hebrew. So she gave me this t-shirt to wear:
Now, I found myself quite skeptical of the Hebrew words on this t-shirt. This t-shirt is the kind that one finds in shops in NYC that caters to tourists looking for souvenirs. I don’t know if I can trust the validity of the words printed on this shirt.
But let’s analyze it.
We start with the word in big letters on the top right, since that appears to be the easier one. I shall reproduce it here:
אני
The first letter (right-most) is aleph. Next is nun. Third and last is yud.
The aleph is silent. Nun maps to an “n”. Yud maps to a “y”.
Obviously, aleph-nun-yud is the Hebrew equivalent of “NY”. Why there is an aleph in the beginning, I do not know. It is a matter for future inquiry.
Now for the other word (the one inside the heart). The fact that it is inside a heart and the fact that this is an “I love NY” t-shirt informs me that this word might have something to do with the word “love” (gee, I’m good, aren’t I?) Let’s reproduce it here:
אוהב
Starting from the right-most end, it is aleph, vav, hey, bet/vet.
Now I am going to cheat a little and do a search on google.
I found an article entitled “Love, Jewish Style” by Ahuva Bloomfield. Here is a paragraph that I found in that article:
Understanding the concepts that are invested in words can aid us in our own lives. As an interesting example, the word “love” which is thrown about so freely in English, has a special meaning in Hebrew. Love in Hebrew is “Ahava”, אהבה, which is made up of three basic Hebrew letters, אהב. These three letters actually are broken down into two parts: a two letter base or root, הב, and the first letter, א, which is a modifier. The meaning of the two letter base, הב, is “to give”. The letter “aleph” א, which precedes these two letters comes to modify the meaning of the base word, “give”. The meaning of אהבה, is “I give” and also “love”.
Well, that explains things rather nicely. But Bloomfield only tells us what the Hebrew word for “love” is. What about “I love”?
So I did another google search. Found something:
Hmmm.
It appears that אני, aleph-nun-yud or ani, is really “I”, instead of “NY”.
Now for the other word, אוהב, should really be אהבה instead, I think.
So the shirt should read
NY אני אהבה
This is really confusing.
December 11, 2006 at 6:13 pm
The problem you are running into is the different forms of the word love. אהבה would be used in a sentence that is referring to love as a noun (i.e. what is love?) If you were saying that you loved something then would be correct.
Not to nitpick, but the shirt could be considered incorrect for another reason (putting any changing of words because of gender aside) because it does include the second Hebrew word from the second image in your post. This word directs the action, which is needed in this case because although “I love NY” is grammatically correct in English, the Hebrew equivalent needs the extra word to direct the action of the verb.
To put things simply, the shirt is correct.
November 13, 2007 at 4:49 am
Hey, I’m a Catholic but I think the text אני אוהב את would be essentially what you’re trying to say.
But don’t take my word for it. There must be someone out there who speaks yid better than me.
January 8, 2008 at 10:01 am
No, the Hebrew is correct here. When speaking generally, as this shirt is doing, the masculine is always used, leading to many a theological issue (because there is no way to refer to God except as either male or female). You don’t need “et” because the direct object is understood.