Hebrew word of the week: Pistachios

The spelling with the initial “f” sound suggests a borrowing from Arabic.* However, the original name is preserved better in the English pistachio, from the Italian pistacchio, from the Latin pistacium, from the Greek pistakion, from the original Persian pestah — the original motherland being Iran’s mountainous regions. Iran is still the most prolific grower of pistachios in the world (producing about 200,000 tons per year). The original, academic Hebrew name is elah amittit (Latin: pistacia vera) or elatboTnah (plural boTnim;** as in boTnim ushqedim, Genesis 43:11). The Persian name is retained in talmudic pisteqa.

*Arabic does not have the p sound (it becomes f), as pepper, related to Hebrew pilpel, is in Arabic filfil, plural falafel, “falafel.”

**In modern Hebrew, used for “peanuts.”

Yona Sabar is a professor of Hebrew and Aramaic in the department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures at UCLA