A German Knight Learns Hebrew - in 15th Century Jerusalem

From

The Pilgrimage of Arnold von Harff / Knight / from Cologne, through Italy, Syria, Egypt, Arabia, Ethiopia, Nubia, Palestine, Turkey, France and Spain, which he Accomplished in the years 1496-1499 / Translated from the German and edited with notes and an introduction / by Malcolm Letts. 1946. Pages xxxv, 325

Page 218-219

I found also three German Jews in Jerusalem, as also in all heathen and T urkish places. I kept company with them often on account of the language and learnt to write the alphabet, and retained also certain words from their daily speech, as they are written here:

hee delech gymel hath aleph 

pe ayn samech nun nun 

men men lamed kafif kaff 

taff schyn resz kuff 

zodick zodick ffe 

leherxi, 

jojen, 

moim, 

boissar, 

befinna, 

betzim, 

hometz, 

semeii, 

tangol, 

taiigoles, 

daegim, 

meela, 

toeff, 

va, 

onoge, 

emmes, 

kysiff, 

Arnold von Harff (1471 in Castell Harff, Bedburg – January 1505) was a German traveler from the 15th century, from Köln. He went on pilgrimage to many countries, collecting both languages and cultural information.

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