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לְאַלְתָּר, לְאַלְתֵּר, אִלְתֵּר
There is a word לְאַלְתָּר
in modern Hebrew, meaning "immediately". There is also another word that means
the same: מיד,
and all its relatives: מיידית,
תכף ומיד. Anyway, the word
לאלתר and the verb
אִלְתֵּר/לְאַלְתֵּר
(to improvise) sound to close to English word "to alter" (which originates from
Latin), so it sounded suspicious to me, and I made some little research on the
topic. It sounded like the Hebrew word comes from the meaning "to adjust, to
change", with a slight semantic shift towards "to make immediate change."
Apparently, לאלתר
has nothing to do with "altering". The word "alter" comes from the same Latin
root as "alternative", and its general semantics is rather "another of the same
kind", "different". The word
לאלתר though comes from the Aramaic word
אתר, with a
preposition על:
"(right) on (the) place": על
אתר. This evolved (into
עלתר and) into
אלתר
- and all this most probably happened in conversational language duric Mishnaic
period, because in the new age no Hebrew scholars would allow guttural letters
to drop out that easy.
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