Talk:Abracadabra

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abhadda kedhabhra -> abhadda kehadabhra (or kehadhabra) ? My Aramaic is a bit rough, but I'm fair certain about this. — jScott j² = -1

What I would like to see here, is a sound bite of the proper Aramaic pronounciation, or at the very least a phonetic spelling. Zuiram 19:43, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Please ignore my last few edits - testing to see if a vandal-patrol bot is awake. Shimgray | talk | 00:31, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] "Arabic"?

I removed the following from the article:

the Arabic Abra Kadabra, meaning 'let the things be destroyed'

My wife is a native speaker of Arabic, and assures me that this certainly isn't the case. -- Earle Martin 00:00, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Ancient Aramaic is not the same as modern Arabic in the same way as Chaucer's English is not the same as Modern English.

[edit] OtherUses template

Please change the article to use Template:OtherUses instead of Template:otheruses it currently uses. The OtherUses template has information about the contents of the article.

{{OtherUses|info=information about the contents of the article}}

For a sample use of this template refer to the articles Alabama or Algiers--—The preceding unsigned comment was added by DuKot (talk • contribs) .

Note that that functionality is now at {{otheruses1}}. {{OtherUses}} redirects to {{otheruses}}, and is deprecated.--Srleffler 18:41, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No such thing: Aberah KeDaber

It is written:

"Another possible source is the Hebrew Aberah KeDaber which also means I will create as I speak"

There is no such thing in Hebrew. The phrase Aberah KeDaber in Hebrew means "Abera (gibbrish) while someone told me". The only possible proxminate phrase is "Evrah Kedabri" (אברא כדברי), I will create as I speak or "Evrah Kidvari" (אברא כדברי), I will create as I have said I will. 192.115.133.141 00:58, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

You are mistaking modern Hebrew for more ancient forms. 75.3.236.39 (talk) 04:08, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Avada Kedavra is one letter away from avra kehdabra

It seems obvious that it's two letter sounds different. R becomes D, in avra/avada and V becomes B in Kehdabra/kedavra. Unless B and V are the same sound in aramaic, but since the word has both B and V that suggest that this isn't the case. So I'm going to say that it's two letters different, since the H in kehdabra just alters the vowel.

B and V are the same letter in Hebrew, and the Hs that are put in the phrase rarely refer to actual Aramaic spelling. 75.3.236.39 (talk) 04:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] alphabet origin

I'm moving this addition to the talk page unless someone can cite a reliable source for it. It would seem plausible, given the power people place on alphabets, except that leaving out the first "r" is not "much more common" in my experience (I've never heard of it), and it's a completely different explanation from the others, which all involve corruption of foreign words. --Allen 22:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "The alphabet"

A much more common form of the incantation is abacadabra, leaving out the first "r". In that case it's just the first four letters of the alphabet a-b-c-d, linked together with a's to make it pronouncable. The final syllable bra is then added for a ryming and rythmical effect. Because the alphabet was initially believed (by illiterates) to be magical, the first letters of the alphabet developed into a magical spell.

[edit] Thelemic Colonization?

The article on the magical formula of Abra-c-adabra contains the Thelemic 93 template, shown at right, while at the same time the Thelemic Abra-h-adabra page has been suggested for merging into the Abra-c-adabra page. Something should be done to rectify this, because right now the appearance is one of Themites colonizing and Borging non-Thelemic pages.

I suggest that either the Cadabra page should make a bare mention of Thelema, refer to the main Hadabra page, and lose the 93 template -- or that the whole Hadabra page, with its 93 template, be moved over to Cadabra, where it can become one subsection of many. Comments welcomed. Catherineyronwode 22:42, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the 1st suggestion. Here should be a brief synopsis, and refer to the main Hadabra article. I'll remove the template, someone else can shorten/merge the thelema paragraphs here. --Quiddity 19:18, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
I fully admit that I went template crazy for a while there. I'm better, now. :) However, I fully support Abrahadabra as an independent article. If you do too, please stop by here and lend your support. Thanks and apologies for my unintentional Borging. –Frater5 (talk/con) 04:50, 7 May 2006 (UTC)



I removed the following from the article:

===Father, Son, Holy Spirit===

"Some point to the Hebrew words av ("father"), ben ("son"), and ruakh hakodesh ("the holy spirit")"

The translations are correct, but I have a hard time seeing how the three from the word abracadabra. But I mainly removed the text because the Holy Trinity is not a Jewish concept at all, and therefore the word "abracadabra" could not have originated from the combination of these three Hebrew words.

While it could certainly be a Christian Concept, I agree with this sentiment. I simply do not see how אב, בן, רוח הקדש form Abracadabra. Unless someone can cite a source for this statement, I second this removal.68.239.220.146 03:47, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I also removed the words "and a Jewish magical symbol" from the text under the heading "Abraxis". There is no such thing as practicing magic in Judaism. - User: Dave31

 July 2, 2006
That's not true, Dave. There is a lengthy tradition of Jewish magic that goes back hundreds of years or further., especially with the creation of amulets, talismans, etc. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Infinitysnake (talk • contribs) 19:21, 17 April 2007 (UTC).


--Convoluse 07:33, 10 May 2007 (UTC)The father/son can be easily found within the Aramaic אב בריה which can be pronounced as "Av" "Breh", but the spirit is not to be found. Furthermore, it would make the rest nonsensical

[edit] Avra K'davarah

This article says that Avra K'davarah is another spelling, but google shows only two references to this form, both of which are in the wikipedia (en and ja). Is this spelling correct? This alternate spelling was mentioned about three weeks ago, on August 1st. Wrs1864 15:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image

Just to note: the image to the right is available at Commons. I didn't see reason to replace the ASCII representation of the triangle with this image, but it may be useful in the future. --Oldak Quill 15:21, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] עבדא

Corrected אבדא to עבדא - The aleph does not belong, nor do I think that there is such a word in aramaic.


Corrected it back in one place but not the other.

Aramaic עבד = do/make = Hebrew עשה

Aramaic אבד = lose/destroy = Hebrew אבד Mahrabu 17:14, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This entire article is Original Research!

There's only one single source, and it doesn't seem to support the supposition that abracadabra is derived from either Hebrew or Aramaic, which makes the majority of this article original research.--69.118.235.97 19:18, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Why couldnt it be a latin based word? In Spanish abra cadavara would mean "open up dead body!" Abra is a command to open, cadavara is cadaver, or dead body. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.141.193.33 (talk) 01:47, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Confusion over the inverted cone description

If memory serves, aren't ancient languages (Latin, Hebrew, etc) written without vowels? Why would the inverted cone use them when conventional script did not? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.45.101.31 (talk) 21:52, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Semitic languages didn't/don't use vowels (most of the time); Latin does, however. It just depends on the language: you can generally write Semitic languages without vowels and understand them just fine, but that isn't the case with most Indo-European languages (like Latin). --334 (talk) 00:08, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dabaru speculation

Once I learned "dabaru" may mean "word", I thought that Abrahadabra may mean "The father of the word". Is there any chance that Abrahadabra may be the Name of the Lord? 77.46.185.53 (talk) 01:03, 28 March 2008 (UTC)