You Know More Hebrew Than You Think (If You Know These 40 Farsi Words)

Next time you greet someone with salām, notice how close you are to shalom. One sound away. For a lot of us, Hebrew feels like the foreign language: the one you sound out in shul, bless over the Torah, and never quite own. So here is some good news. If you grew up with Farsi, you are already holding a ring of keys.

Take a few you say all the time. Ketāb, a book, sits right on top of Hebrew katav, “he wrote.” So’āl, a question, is she’elah. Hesāb, your account or the math you do in your head, is cheshbon. Rūh, spirit, is ruach. Once you start looking, the list gets long (there is a full one at the bottom of this piece). So where does it come from?

So Hebrew comes from Farsi?

No. And the real answer is more interesting.

Farsi is actually not a cousin of Hebrew at all. It belongs to the Indo-European family, which makes it a distant relative of English, Greek, and Sanskrit. Hebrew sits in a different family entirely, the Semitic one, alongside Arabic and Aramaic.

So why do the words match? Two words: the Arabs. After the Arab conquest of Persia in the 7th century, Farsi absorbed thousands of Arabic words, especially the vocabulary of faith, law, books, and learning. Ketāb, madreseh, hesāb, imān, qabūl: most of the words below walked into Farsi from Arabic.

And Arabic and Hebrew are siblings. They grew up in the same Semitic “household”. So when salām shows up in your Farsi, it got there from Arabic salām, which shares a root with shalom the way two cousins share a grandparent. What you are recognizing is not Persian. It is the Hebrew family showing through the Persian you already speak.

The secret is the shoresh/root

Here is the part the engineer in me loves. Hebrew and Arabic both build words from a shoresh, a root of (usually) three consonants. Drop that root into different patterns and you get a whole family of related words. If you pay attention, you can actually scale your learning.

Take כ־ת־ב (k-t-v), “write.” From those three letters: katav (he wrote), michtav (a letter), ketubah (a marriage contract), katuv (it is written). Arabic does the same thing with ketāb, a book. Same three bones, different bodies.

But the traffic went both ways

Mostly the words traveled one direction: Arabic poured vocabulary into Persian, and much of it turned out to be Hebrew’s cousins. But not all of it. A few words went the other way — Persian words that Hebrew and Aramaic borrowed. Rāz, “secret,” walks straight out of Persian into the Aramaic of the Book of Daniel. Ganj, “treasure,” is hiding inside genizah, the place we tuck away worn-out holy books. Even pil, “elephant,” is a word that wandered between languages rather than descending from one shared root.

And a word of caution: not every look-alike is a real relative. Farsi bia, “come,” sounds like Hebrew bo — but that one is pure coincidence. Bia is native Persian, with no Semitic root behind it. The fun is real, but so is the fine print.

Why this should matter to us

For a community that often treats Hebrew as another language, this is a small gift hiding in plain sight. The language of our history, the Farsi our grandparents spoke in Iran, still carries the fingerprints of Hebrew’s own family. The bridge was there the whole time.

Here is the irony. The Arabic that pushed into Persian centuries ago carried Hebrew’s own cousins along with it. The very words that came from a rival faith are now your shortcut back to lashon hakodesh.

The next time a Hebrew word sounds familiar, ask whether you already know its Farsi twin. As the list below shows, sometimes you will.

The list

The list got long enough to be its own little dictionary, so here it is grouped by theme. Same idea throughout: a Farsi word you already say, its Hebrew twin, and the shared shoresh underneath.

Faith and worship

Meaning	Farsi	Hebrew	Shared root
god	allāh	eloha · אלוה	א־ל
hello, peace	salām	shalom · שלום	ש־ל־ם
faith	imān	emunah · אמונה / אמן	א־מ־ן
blessed	mobārak	baruch · ברוך	ב־ר־ך
holy, sanctified	moqaddas	mekudash · מקודש	ק־ד־ש
religion, judgment	dīn	din · דין	ד־י־ן
mercy	rahmat	rachamim · רחמים	ר־ח־ם
accept, receive	qabūl	kabbalah · קבלה / קבל	ק־ב־ל
satan, devil	sheytān	satan · שטן	ש־ט־ן

Books, words and learning

Meaning	Farsi	Hebrew	Shared root
book	ketāb	katav · כתב / מכתב	כ־ת־ב
school	madreseh	midrash · מדרש / דרש	ד־ר־ש
question	so’āl	she’elah · שאלה / שאל	ש־א־ל
account, calculation	hesāb	cheshbon · חשבון / חשב	ח־ש־ב
translation	tarjomeh	targum · תרגום / תרגם	ת־ר־ג־ם
proverb, parable	masal	mashal · משל	מ־ש־ל
right, truth	hagh	chok · חוק / חקק	ח־ק־ק

Body, soul and self

Meaning	Farsi	Hebrew	Shared root
spirit, soul	rūh	ruach · רוח	ר־ו־ח
breath	nafas	nefesh · נפש	נ־פ־ש
name	esm	shem · שם	ש־ם
person, Adam	ādam	adam · אדם	א־ד־ם
clothing	lebās	lavash · לבש	ל־ב־ש
taste, flavor	ta’m	ta’am · טעם	ט־ע־ם
shape, form	surat	tzurah · צורה	צ־ו־ר

People, place and structure

Meaning	Farsi	Hebrew	Shared root
king	malek	melech · מלך	מ־ל־ך
orphan	yatim	yatom · יתום	י־ת־ם
butcher	ghassāb	katzav · קצב	ק־צ־ב
place, position	maqām	makom · מקום	ק־ו־ם
building, foundation	bonyān	binyan · בניין	ב־נ־ה
level, step	darajeh	madrega · מדרגה	ד־ר־ג

Nature and the world

Meaning	Farsi	Hebrew	Shared root
sun	shams	shemesh · שמש	ש־מ־ש
light, lamp	nūr	ner · נר	נ־ר
lightning	barq	barak · ברק	ב־ר־ק
olive	zeytun	zayit · זית	ז־י־ת
world	’ālam	olam · עולם	ע־ל־ם

Time and measure

Meaning	Farsi	Hebrew	Shared root
hour, clock	sā’at	sha’ah · שעה	ש־ע־ה
time	zamān	zman · זמן	ז־מ־ן
date	tārikh	ta’arich · תאריך	ת־א־ר־ך
last, end	ākhar	acher · אחר	א־ח־ר
old, ancient	ghadīm	kedem · קדם	ק־ד־ם
complete, whole	tamām	tamim · תמים	ת־מ־ם

When the match runs the other way (or not at all)

These last few do not follow the Arabic-into-Persian pattern. Three are Persian words that traveled into Hebrew and Aramaic; the last is a pure coincidence. So instead of a shared root, the final column tells you what is really going on.

Meaning	Farsi	Hebrew	What’s going on
secret, mystery	rāz	raz · רז	Persian → Hebrew, via the Aramaic of Daniel
treasure, storing away	ganj	ganaz · גנז	Persian → Hebrew/Aramaic (cf. genizah)
elephant	pil	pil · פיל	a “wandering word,” not from Arabic
come	bia	bo · בוא	coincidence — unrelated roots