Dear eCanadaNow...

[gnomi]

...The word "Tzfardei’a" is Hebrew. I refer you to Exodus chapter 7 verse 27. The Greeks may be using the word, but I believe *they* understand they're making an allusion.

Yours in the name of cross-language understanding,

An amused gnomi

(Thanks to LanguageLog for the link)

Comments

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Looks like eCanadaNow got confused because VosIsNais used the word צפרדע in their headline about the Greek frog crisis, tongue-in-cheek, and when eCanadaNow saw a non-English word in the headline they didn't realize they were looking at a Yeshivish-language website.

There's no evidence, alas, that the Greeks are using the word at all.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Wait, there are actually sites copying from VIN?! VIN is a site that pirates stories from other sites, sometimes providing click-through links and sometimes not, adds misspelt and often incomprehensible headlines of its own, censors the stories themselves if necessary, sometimes to the point of incomprehensibility, and profits. It's strange to think that someone regards it as a site to copy from!

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

One other thing I just realized -- VIN and LL transliterated it with an apostrophe for the 'ayin, but that's a patach genuvah so shouldn't it be tzfardeya'? (I'm ignoring the question of the initial sheva na, too.)

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Yes. It's Tz'fardeia`

[madfilkentist]

The consonant cluster "tzf" at the start of a word doesn't sound very Greek to my ear.

[dpolicar]

As always, it amuses me that my entire remaining Hebrew vocabulary, three decades down the road, comprises words with a liturgical use... and how many of those words there turn out to be.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Actually, I believe it's not native Hebrew but Egyptian. It doesn't conform to the usual model for Hebrew nouns.