Saturday, November 26, 2005

HaTikva--"Still Not Lost", or "Not Yet"?

I have a book on Hebrew, which among other things has a section with sample sentences. One of the sentences is from HaTikva: "Od lo avdah tikvateinu"--and this is exactly how it is translated:

We have not lost hope ("our hope is not lost yet" - from Israeli anthem)
The book is by the Professor of Hebrew and Chair Depatment of Judaic and Near Esatern Studies at a US university, so I suppose he knows what he is doing.

But I always thought the translation was "Our hope is still not lost"--it is ongoing after all these years, as opposed to "Our hope is not lost yet"--but at some time will be (as in "are we there yet?")

Anyone have any ideas?

Based on whats in the news, I'd like to think I'm right:

Haaretz: Tourism to Israel rises by some 26 percent in 2005 over last year

Some 1.5 million tourists visited Israel between January and September of 2005, constituting a rise of some 26 percent over the same time period last year, the tourist ministry announced on Sunday.
and this:
JPost: Life is good in Israel, economy is not

You don't need money to be happy but it certainly helps - at least according to results of a recent study of adult Israelis conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics.

Eighty-two percent of those surveyed claimed to be "very satisfied" with life in Israel." But the level of satisfaction with economic conditions was considerably lower - with only 47% of adults saying that they were satisfied with their economic situation.
What do you think?

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