In Search of Lost Tribes: Native American Languages and Hebrew

In Search of Lost Tribes:
Native American Languages and Hebrew
By
James Scott Trimm

From the 17th thru the early 19th Centuries, it was a commonly held belief that the Native Americans were descended from the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.  This view was held not only by many Christians (including Thomas Jefferson), but by many Jewish writers (such as Mordecai Noah) as well, but fell out of favor by the late 19th Century.

One of the many reasons that many scholars came to this conclusion was that it was quickly recognized that there was an apparent influence of Hebrew on Native American languages.  It was noted that Native American languages often followed the Hebrew pattern of making prepositions into prefixes, and that Native American languages were similarly used prefixes and suffixes in much the same was as Hebrew.

More importantly it was noted that Native American languages had many cognates to Hebrew words.  Some of these (as given by Ethan Smith in his 1825 book “View of the Hebrews”) are as follows:
(I have made some occasional improvements on the below table, especially in transliteration of some Hebrew words):

English	Indian	Hebrew or Chaldaic
Jehovah	Yohewah	Yahuweh
God	Ale	El
Jah	Yah	Yah
Shiloh	Shilu	Shiloh
Heavens	Chemim	Shamayim
Father	Abba	Av, Abba
Man	Ish, Ishte	Ish
Woman	Ishto	Isha
Wife/Eve	Awah	Chavah
You	Keah	Ka
His Wife	Liani	Lihene
This man (he)	Uwoh	Hu
Nose	Niehiri	Neheri
Roof of a house	Traubana-ora	Debonaour
Winter	Kora	Korah
Canaan	Cannai	Canaan
To pray	Phale	Phalac
Now	Na	Na
Hind part	Kesh	Kish
Do	Jennais	Yannon
To blow	Phaubac	Phaubac
Rushing wind	Rowah	Ruach
Ararat or high mountain	Ararat	Ararat

There are many other possible Hebrew linguistic influences on Indian languages.  For example the Mayan word for “real” or “true” is halach.  Could this have been derived from the Hebrew term halacha meaning “the way to go” and commonly used to refer to Jewish customs and laws.

The ancient Hebrews called false gods Baalim (“lords”) while the Mayans worshiped the jaguar as a god and their word for “jaguar” was “Balam”.

There are also connections between Hebrew and the Uto-Aztecan dialects which were spoken across the western portion on North America and down into Mexico.  My old friend and mentor the late Dr. Cyrus Gordon pointed out  that in the Native American Teletzinco Nahuatl language (a Uto-Atzecan dialect), wa means ‘and’ just as in Semitic languages (such as Hebrew and Aramaic)  (Before Columbus; Cyrus Gordon; Crown Publishers; N.Y. 1971 p. 136)

In Uto-Aztecan the plural suffix is –ima while in Hebrew the masculine plural suffix is –im.  In UA the reciprocal passive reflexive prefix is na- while in Hebrew it is ni-. 

In 1998 linguist Brian Stubbs published a revolutionary paper which demonstrated a distinct Hebrew influence on the Uto-Aztecan languages .

Stubbs points out that cognate words in Hebrew and Uto-Aztecan which share the same ambiguity are especially compelling. Among the more compelling examples cited by Stubbs is the Uto-Aztecan word yesipa meaning “sit” or “dwell” which appears related to the Hebrew root yashav (Strong’s 3427) meaning “sit” or “dwell”.  Stubbs gives many more examples to numerous to list here.  (ESOP (Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers) 23; “A Curious Element in Uto-Aztecan”; Brian Darrel Stubbs; pp. 109-140; 1998)

The following are just some of the examples given by Stubbs in his detailed analysis of the relationship:

English	Uto-Atecan	Hebrew
plural suffix	-ima	-im
psv/rfl/rcp prefix	na-	ni-
Sit, Dwell	Yasipa	Yashav
Lightning	Berok	Barak
Kidney	Kali	Kilya
Water, ocean	Memet (ocean)	Mayim, Mem (water)
Shoulder	Kotpa	Katep
Shoulder	Sika/Siku	Sekem
Man, Person	Otam	Adam
Prudent, Wise	Iskalia	Hiskal
Shave, Scrape, Smooth	Sipa	Sippa
Squirrel	Sikku	Sikkov
Twin	Cono	Cinw
Bird	Cipu(ri)	Cippur
interrogative prefix	Ha-	Ha-
keep locked, lock lizard	cakwa cakwa	cabba cabb
Arrow	Huk	Hek

Why would Native American languages have such commonalities with Hebrew?  There is evidence that there was some transoceanic contact between ancient Hebrews and the New World (as I have shown in a previous blog).  But these linguistic connections seem to show much more than just transoceanic contact, and occur throughout North America (Smith's examples of 1825 were largely from the Indian languages of the North East United States, while Stubb's Uto-Aztecan examples are from the West and Southwest.) 

The question of the origins of Native Americans was one that received considerable attention in the first few centuries after Europeans re-discovered the New World.  One answer can be found in the Bible itself.  In Genesis we are told that at the scattering of mankind following the fall of the Tower of Babel that “from there, did YHWH scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth” (Gen. 11:9) and the first century Jewish Roman historian Josephus writes of this event “There were some also who passed over the sea in ships…” (Ant. 1:5:1).  Certainly we know today that ancestors of the Native Americans crossed over the land bridge from Asia into Alaska.  But is it possible there is more to the story?

Certainly portions of the Lost Tribes migrated into Europe and even Asia, but is it possible that some portion of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel also migrated to the New World and become a part of the ancestry of at least some Native American groups?  Could this be part if a bigger puzzle?  In a future article I will present more of the evidence that suggests that such a thing may well have occurred, and that some of the Lost Tribes did indeed migrate to the American Continents and did indeed become part of the ancestry of at least some Native American groups.