Written by: Muhammad Halsa - a writer and researcher specializing in Zionist affairs

I have an old obsession with analyzing words and names of things and returning them to their roots, especially in the relationship between the Arabic and Hebrew languages, whose ambiguity goes beyond the context of the language to politics, geography, and other things.

I stopped at the name of a settlement (Ptah Tikva) It was established in 1878 AD as an agricultural settlement on lands purchased by Jews from the residents of the Arab village of Malbas, but its nature has changed, especially since the establishment of the Zionist state, as it expanded and became an industrial city and part of the “Gush Dan” city cluster around Tel Aviv within the borders of historic Palestine before 1948. Because writing is often older and more capable of clarifying the secrets of the history of the word and the development of its meaning and structure, our consideration leads us to draw the name and its original letters. פֶּתַח תִּקְוָה / (Fath Taqwa) to the question: How was the letter “ba” in Hebrew transformed into “fa” in Arabic, and why is the “waw” pronounced as a triangular (ڤ)?, and where is the qāf in all of this?

Corresponding phonetic changes between two closely related languages are called “phonological laws,” and whether a word is original or foreign from one language to another is determined by applying the principle of phonetic law. Some transformations have occurred in the phonetic system of some Hebrew words, transforming them into another linguistic sound. “Fa” is pronounced in the Hebrew language with two phonetic forms, one of which is an explosive (severe) “fa” with its emphasis (agaamah) with a light stress (דָגֵשׁ קַל), which is indicated by a dot placed inside the letter fa פּ, if it is preceded by a vowel or a vowel, or less than that, That is, at the beginning of a word or the beginning of a syllable, a foreign “ba” is pronounced, that is, the second sound (fricative - soft), when this silent sound is preceded by a direct movement, while neglecting its irregularity, that is, not stressing it with a light stress.

So, the fa in the Hebrew language is one of the six sounds called (bjd kaft) sounds (בּ, גּ, דּ, כּ,פּ, תּ). These sounds are originally to be explosive (severe), unless they come after a vowel and their stress is neglected (accusative). In this case, they turn into fricative (soft) sounds. Today, only three of them are observed in Hebrew: the fa’ פ, the kaf כ, and the ba’ ב. Thus, the first word of the city’s name is “Fath,” yes, Fatah, or in the transmitted sense: a door or a gate. As for the other part of the name (תִּקְוָה / Taqwa), the word “Taqwa” means hope, (Tikva), because the Hebrew kāf is often pronounced kafa.

As for the letter waw (ו) in Hebrew, it was also not free from change and distortion, so it became the foreign word waw, v v. This is the reality of some modern Hebrew sounds that lost their Eastern Semitic sound in pronunciation and fell under the influence of Western European pronunciation, including the rā, which became pronounced ghīna, the ha, which became a kha, and the ayn, which became an alif.

The triple root of the word “tikvah” is “Q.” And the. “H”, and the word itself is derived from the weakened verb “Qawwa” on the Hebrew form of “Fa’il”, which corresponds to the form of “Fa’l” in Arabic, and the meaning of “Taqwa” is hope and hope. Although the Hebrew root is similar to the Arabic roots “protective” and “strong,” it seems that the connection between them in meaning has faded with time, and the meaning has become so distant that it is no longer possible to create connotations between them. From the word “Tikvah” also came the name of the famous Israeli national anthem, “Hatikvah,” meaning hope. 

The original plan for the Petah Tikva site was very far from the area of Sharon and Gush Dan, and the intention was to establish an agricultural settlement in the Jericho area, in a place called “Amek Achor,” the Valley of Achor. The name “Petah Tikva,” which means “opening of hope” or “gate of hope,” is derived from the Torah, and was chosen by the first founders to be associated with this barren valley, which was mentioned in one of the visions in the Book of the Prophet Hosea, which he described, saying: “And I will give her her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor as a gate of hope.” “. But the Turkish government did not agree to buy the land in Wadi Achor, so the founders decided to change the location. They purchased land for sale in the village of Malbas and gave the new place its original name, “Petah Tikva.” At that time, the name “Fath of Hope” was given to a settlement that has now become part of the hill. Aviv.