תַּרְנְגוֹל (Tarnegol) — rooster
Etymology
The word tarnegol traces its lineage back over four millennia to the Sumerian civilization of ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerians, who established some of the world's first cities and invented the wheel and writing, identified the chicken as a superior or regal version of a pheasant-like bird they already knew, called dar. They named the new fowl dar-lugal, meaning "kingly pheasant."
The component lugal (king) is itself a Sumerian compound of lu (man) and gal (big), signifying "the big man" or leader. When the Sumerian culture was eventually absorbed by the Akkadian Empire in the third millennium BCE, many of their words entered the Akkadian language. Dar-lugal was adapted into Akkadian as tarlugallu.
As Akkadian became the international language of the ancient Near East, its vocabulary spread to neighboring tongues. The word eventually reached Hebrew, likely through the mediation of Aramaic, where it became tarnegol. This linguistic journey illustrates how Sumerian—a language with no known relatives that ceased to be spoken long before the Israelites settled in Canaan—continues to live on in modern Hebrew through daily vocabulary.
Key Quotes
"כשהכירו השומרים לראשונה את התרנגול, הם ראו את העוף כגרסה משופרת של מין עוף ממשפחת הפסיונים שהם הכירו וכינו דַר, ולכן הם כינו את העוף החדש ״פסיון מלך״ או בשפתם דַרְלֻגַל." — תרנגול, אלון גלעד
Timeline
- c. 5,500 BCE: Establishment of Sumerian settlements in Mesopotamia.
- 3rd Millennium BCE: Sumerians name the rooster dar-lugal ("king pheasant").
- c. 2,000 BCE: Sumerian language is replaced by Akkadian; word adapted as tarlugallu.
- c. 500 BCE - 200 CE: The word enters Hebrew via Aramaic during the Second Temple or Mishnaic period.
Related Words
- אֵד (ed) — mist; from Sumerian a-de-a (spring flooding).
- מַלָּח (mallah) — sailor; from Sumerian ma-lah (boat-bringer).
- דַּף (daf) — page; from Sumerian dub (clay tablet).
- טַפְסָר (tafsar) — official; from Sumerian dub-sar (scribe, literally "tablet-writer").
- הֵיכָל (heichal) — palace/temple; from Sumerian e-gal (big house).