Hamantaschen

[Alice Faber]

Laurence Horn said:
>At 4:00 PM +0200 8/8/02, Jan Ivarsson TransEdit wrote:
>>One finds the word also in other languages (e.g. in French) always
>>connecting it with Purim and the story of Esther and Haman. So it
>>seems that the etymology deriving it from the German 'Mohn' is
>>incorrect (probably influenced by the common 'Mohnkuchen', a cake
>>flavoured with poppy seeds):
>
>OK, I'm pretty much convinced.  It was Safire and his Israeli
>professor who had the folk etymology, not the "folk".  More
>precisely, "Mohntaschen" evidently amounts to an etymythology.  (I
>always wondered about the stress shift.)
>
>It's curious that the French version is called Haman's ears, since
>the common (folk) wisdom in these parts is that the triangular
>pastries are named for Haman's three-cornered hat.  I never knew he
>had triangular ears too.  Note that the recipes are not the classic
>version, which should contain poppy seeds or, at the most
>iconoclastic, prune (lekvar), not chopped nuts or dates, ou n'importe
>quelle "autre garniture au choix".  Why not minced lobster and
>shrimp?  Is nothing sacred?

For what it's worth, the Hebrew for hamantaschen is "ozney Haman",
lit. Haman's ears. Who knows which way the calque calqued.

Alice


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Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
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