We fool ourselves
It is human nature to do things for what we think is a very good reason, but people fool themselves. An example is the modern-day practice of Hebrew-loving Jews calling their grandparents by names they think are ancient Hebrew. They do so because they love Hebrew and want to call their grandparents in this ancient language. They are mistaken.
Saba (סַבָּא) and Savta (סַבְתָּא) are affectionate terms for grandfather and grandmother used by grandchildren who love ancient Hebrew and want to call their grandparents in that language. But they are fooling themselves.
This widespread practice began only in the mid-20th century, when Israel revived spoken Hebrew and later the diaspora adopted it as a modern language.
The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) has no word for “grandfather” or “grandmother”; it refers to them as “the father of my father” or includes them under the general category of “elders” (zaken / zekena). Historians note that even Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who encouraged Jews to use Hebrew, did not originally include saba or savta as “grandparent” in his dictionary. He used a word relating to zaken “elder.”
However, as families began raising native Hebrew-speaking children in Israel, they adopted the words into daily household speech. Thinking the words are Hebrew, they spread them through Jewish diaspora communities seeking modern Hebrew alternatives to traditional Yiddish terms like Zayde and Bubbe.
They were wrong. The words originate in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, a Semitic language closely related to Hebrew that was used in the Talmud and other Jewish writing in the Talmudic era and afterward.
Aramaic terms entered Jewish texts like the Talmud and the Midrash long ago before the onset of the common era, more than 2000 years ago. As modern Hebrew speakers built a vernacular, they understandably incorporated these ancient Aramaic words into books and daily speech. Children also favored these terms because they perfectly mimic the phonetic structure of Abba (Daddy) and Ima (Mommy).
The terms’ ending letter, aleph, “A” (Saba, Savta), is similar to the word “the.”
Literally, the root of these Aramaic words means “old age,” “gray hair,” or “elder,” “the aged person.” They are similar to the ancient Hebrew concept of seivah (שֵׂיבָה), which means gray hair or a ripe old age. For instance, in Leviticus 19:32, the Torah commands, “You shall rise before the gray-haired (seivah) and honor the presence of an elder.”
In short, Saba means “The Old Man” or “The Elder,” and Savta means “The Old Woman” or “The Eldress.” Over time, these terms completely shed their connection to old age and evolved into warm, deeply affectionate family titles.
