how to say “number” in Hebrew

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/מספר-1.m4a” /]מִסְפָּר

If you’ve got some basic Hebrew under your belt, you probably know the word for number – מספר[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/מספר-1.m4a” /].

For example:

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/מספר-2.m4a” /]מה מספר הטלפון שלך?

What’s your (a female’s) phone number?

But you may not have realized that מספר is related to storytelling – סיפור סיפורים[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/מספר-3.m4a” /]. Unlike אבטיח[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/מספר-4.m4a” /] – watermelon and ביטחון[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/מספר-5.m4a” /] – security (see yesterday’s dose), the common root in מספר and סיפור[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/מספר-6.m4a” /] means the same thing: something like a declaration, calling something by its name or number, labeling it with human understanding. The connection is apparent even in English: look at the verbs to count and to recount.

מספר originally meant a counting – the simple verb לספור[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/מספר-7.m4a” /] came before the noun, perhaps most famously in Genesis 15:5:

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/מספר-8.m4a” /]וַיּוֹצֵא אֹתוֹ הַחוּצָה, וַיֹּאמֶר הַבֶּט-נָא הַשָּׁמַיְמָה וּסְפֹר הַכּוֹכָבִים–אִם-תּוּכַל, לִסְפֹּר אֹתָם; וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ, כֹּה יִהְיֶה זַרְעֶךָ

And He took him outside, and said, Look up at the heavens and count the stars – if you can count them at all; and He said to him, thus will be your offspring.

מספר also works to mean a number of things, as in:

[audioclip url=”https://archive.ulpan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/מספר-9.m4a” /]יש פה מספר פרצופים מוכרים.

There are a number of familiar faces here.