מַדָּע בִּדְיוֹנִי (mada bidyoni) — science fiction
Etymology
The term מַדָּע בִּדְיוֹנִי is a Hebrew calque — a phrase-by-phrase translation — of English "science fiction." Its two components have quite different histories. The word מַדָּע comes from biblical Aramaic, where it appeared in the books of Daniel, Ecclesiastes, and Chronicles in the sense of "wisdom, knowledge" (e.g., Daniel 1:17: "נָתַן לָהֶם הָאֱלֹהִים מַדָּע וְהַשְׂכֵּל"). Through the medieval period the word was used in philosophical writing; in the 19th century it specialized to mean systematic study of the natural world — "science" in the modern sense.
The word בִּדְיוֹנִי is built on the biblical root בד"א, which appears once in the Bible: "אֲשֶׁר בָּדָא מִלִּבּוֹ" (Kings I 12:33) — "that he invented from his own heart." The abstract noun בְּדִיּוֹן ("invention, fiction") is first attested in a 1932 footnote in a Hebrew newspaper where it glosses the English word "bluff." The adjective בְּדִיוֹנִי appears first in August 1958 in Ha'aretz, in a review of S. Yizhar's novel "Days of Ziklag," where the reviewer cites a footnote: "בדיוני — fictitious — coinage proposed by Prof. S. Halkin."
The phrase מַדָּע בִּדְיוֹנִי itself first appears in Al HaMishmar in September 1960, in a translated article about space in which Kingsley Martin references "H.G. Wells, one of the pioneers of science fiction (המדע הבדיוני)." The phrase competed with the earlier מַדָּע דִּמְיוֹנִי ("imaginative science"), which was in use from the early 1950s. Over the course of the late 1960s and early 1970s, מַדָּע בִּדְיוֹנִי gradually won out over מַדָּע דִּמְיוֹנִי, and the latter disappeared from use.
Key Quotes
"נָתַן לָהֶם הָאֱלֹהִים מַדָּע וְהַשְׂכֵּל בְּכׇל סֵפֶר וְחׇכְמָה" — דניאל א׳, י״ז
"בדיוני — fictitious — הצעת המונח — משל פרופ. ש. הלקין" — הארץ, אוגוסט 1958 (הערת שוליים)
"ה. ג׳. וולס, מן המצודדים ביותר בקרב חלוצי המדע הבדיוני" — קינגסלי מארטין (בתרגום), על המשמר, ספטמבר 1960
Timeline
- 1818: Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" (commonly taken as the genre's birth)
- 1897: "Science fiction" first appears as a literary term in English
- Early 1900s: Hugo Gernsback popularizes "Scientifiction"; mid-century "Science Fiction" wins out
- 1924: מַדָּע attested in Hebrew in its modern sense (in the agricultural journal Ha-Sadeh)
- 1932: בְּדִיּוֹן first attested in Hebrew (newspaper footnote)
- 1953: מַדָּע דִּמְיוֹנִי used in Hebrew (Abraham Regelson, on a Tel Aviv library plan)
- August 1958: בְּדִיוֹנִי first attested; attributed to Prof. Simon Halkin
- September 1960: מַדָּע בִּדְיוֹנִי first attested in print
- Late 1960s–early 1970s: מַדָּע בִּדְיוֹנִי displaces מַדָּע דִּמְיוֹנִי
Related Words
- מַדָּע דִּמְיוֹנִי — the earlier competing term for science fiction
- מַדָּע — science; from biblical Aramaic wisdom vocabulary
- בְּדִיּוֹן — fiction; the noun from the same root
- דִּמְיוֹן — imagination; the root of the earlier competing term