Talk:Aluf

Merge
I think this should be merged with Aluf, and Aluf should be made into an article about all Aluf-related ranks. With all due respect, there's absolutely no info we can add to this article, except a possible list of all current Tat-Alufs (and I have no idea where to get such a list, not to mention there are a whole lot of them). -- Y Ynhockey (Talk) Y 15:32, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

These here ranks are uncorrect so let me or some one else fix that/ a few days ago i did fixed it but for some reason its now back to be the same wrong!! whats going on in here for pits-sake?! --Mecha man 01:40, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Etymology
According to my old etymological dictionary (Moses Iltis), the term אלוף aluf comes from a verb אלף alāf to be attached to / to be familiar with - אלף elef (cattle) originally meant the familiar (i.e. tame) one. Hence aluf is someone to whom people are attached to, he is the chief of a clan, of people who are familiar with each other.--Rabend 23:39 20 April 2008 (CEST)
 * In modern Hebrew, it simply means "champion". Tdunsky (talk) 21:19, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

How reliable is this unsourced assertion that it comes from a word meaning 1000? I find it a strange and not-easily-believed coincidence that it sounds very similar to Aleph, yet apparently has nothing to do with it. Aleph (pronounced Alef, so the only difference from Aluf is an 'e' changed to a 'u') is Hebrew (and Phoenician, etc) for the first letter A, and thus implicitly the Number One, the commander, etc, and its Greek version Alpha is still used by, for instance, biologists to designate the 'commander' or 'general' in a group of apes ('the alpha male'). Even the sentence saying it means 1000 implicitly concedes that it actually logically means One: "It comes from a Semitic root meaning "thousand" making an "Aluf" the ONE who commands a thousand people." In fact I would find it easier to believe that it originally meant One and later came to mean 1000 in some places because an Aluf typically commanded 1000, or something like that. I suppose it's also possible that it's Aleph that comes from Aluf, but that doesn't seem all that likely, especially as the Wikipedia article on Aleph indicates that the proto-Canaanite original was Alep (thus seemingly without Aluf's F sound, though of course scholars might just be guessing how Alep sounded). Does anybody have any more information on any of this? Tlhslobus (talk) 06:57, 5 September 2012 (UTC)


 * You are also right. From 1 (aleph=first letter) came 1000 (elef), and from that came the rank "leader of a thousand" (aluf). But there is no reason to go that far back. The article just mentions the second leg. Debresser (talk) 18:12, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

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"Strong"
In 2014, a very-briefly-active editor added to the article some speculation regarding the etymology, which they cited to "Strong", with no further details given; this subsequently received a  template.

I am reasonably confident that this was a reference to James Strong (theologian), author of Strong's Concordance; however, I'm not up for going through Strong's work to confirm that this is what he said. If anyone else would like to follow this lead, feel free. DS (talk) 23:17, 30 April 2023 (UTC)