פופיק (pupik) — belly button (colloquial)
Etymology
Most Hebrew speakers call their navel a פופיק rather than the biblical-Mishnaic word טבור, and in doing so they are unwittingly using a word that traces back to Proto-Slavic — the ancestor language of Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Czech, Bulgarian, and other Slavic tongues. In Proto-Slavic, the word pop referred to both the navel and the gizzard of a bird. This curious double meaning — shared between belly button and bird gizzard — is also found in Hebrew: in Talmudic Hebrew, the word קרקבן describes both the navel and the part of a bird's throat that grinds food on its way to the stomach, likely because of the physical resemblance between the umbilical cord and the gizzard.
In Proto-Slavic and its descendants, pop spread with the diminutive suffix -ik to form words for navel in Russian (pupek), Polish, Czech, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian. Yiddish borrowed the word pupik from Polish. Modern colloquial Hebrew then borrowed פופיק from Yiddish — completing a journey from prehistoric Slavic steppe language through medieval Ashkenazic Jewish vernacular into the daily speech of contemporary Israelis.
The biblical Hebrew word for navel is טבור, appearing twice in the Bible in the phrase "טַבּוּר הָאָרֶץ" (navel of the earth) in Judges 9:37 and Ezekiel 38:12 — Rashi interpreting this as a high, central prominence "like the navel which is the center of a person." Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who himself had an outie navel, accepted this interpretation and defined טבור as "the navel, and by extension: navel of the earth, the center, the high place." Ben-Yehuda also noted the biblical hapax legomenon שרר (Song of Songs 7:3), which appears in an anatomically ascending love poem (feet, thighs, sharar, belly, breasts...) and argued that the traditional interpretation of שרר as a cup-like hollow belly button was anatomically absurd — hinting none too subtly at a more intimate reading.
Despite Ben-Yehuda's efforts to normalize טבור, most Hebrew speakers prefer פופיק — a testament to the depth of Yiddish's influence on everyday Israeli Hebrew.
Key Quotes
"יידיש אימצה את המילה ׳פופיק׳ מהפולנית ובטורה אימצה אותה העברית מהיידיש." — אילון גלעד, מהשפה פנימה
"שָׁרְרֵךְ אַגַּן הַסַּהַר אַל יֶחְסַר הַמָּזֶג" — שיר השירים ז', ג'
Timeline
- Proto-Slavic era (pre-9th century): pop used for navel and gizzard in ancestral Slavic
- Medieval period: Word spreads with diminutive -ik across Slavic languages (Russian pupek, Polish, etc.)
- Medieval Ashkenaz: Yiddish borrows pupik from Polish
- 20th century: Hebrew borrows פופיק from Yiddish
Related Words
- טבור — biblical/formal Hebrew word for navel; also "navel of the earth" (center)
- שרר — biblical hapax for navel (Song of Songs 7:3); Ben-Yehuda disputed the traditional interpretation
- קרקבן — Talmudic Hebrew for both navel and bird gizzard (the word that bridges the anatomical parallel)