Methi, Fenugreek, Khilbe, כילבע , חילבה

Gernot Katzer, who runs the very helpful Spice Pages, wrote to ask about Yiddish names for herbs and spices. I am very happy that this valuable resource will be including Yiddish lexical material soon, and wanted especially to endorse Mordkhe Schaechter's Plant Names in Yiddish to all culinary logomanes.

I was interested to learn from Gernot's Fenugreek page that the Hebrew and Arabic names for this plant are khilbe ( חילבה). The Yiddish term is כילבע , also pronounced khilbe. I was tempted to imagine that the Yiddish word came into the Yiddish language via loshn-koydesh, the Hebrew-Aramaic component of Yiddish, but I think the phonetic spelling in the Yiddish word might indicate that that the word took the scenic route.

Email info@leagueforyiddish.org to order.