Thanks to A. I know what's the difference between "gozal" and "efroach" - the first is a baby bird which has the nest on the trees and the latter is a baby bird which has the nest on the ground. And A. told me that Bialik made a mistake because he talked about a baby bird from a nest on the tree, but actually he calls it "efroach" instead of "gozal". And still, a small mistake for the sake of the rhyme didn't stopped him from becoming a great poet!קֵן לַצִּפּוֹר
קֵן לַצִּפּוֹר
בֵּין הָעֵצִים,
וּבַקֵּן לָהּ
שָׁלֹשׁ בֵּיצִים.
וּבְכָל-בֵּיצָה
– הַס, פֶּן תָּעִיר –
יָשֵׁן לוֹ
אֶפְרוֹחַ זָעִיר.
2 comments:
The biological difference between Efroah and Gozal is while both are young chicks which hatched from an egg, the Efroah is way more developed.
An Efroah hatches from its egg when its body is covered with down and his eyes are fully open. It is able to stand on his own two feet and eats all by himself with no help from its parents on his first day.
A Gozal hatches from its egg helpless. it is naked, blind and must be taken care of by its parents for awhile until showing some independence signs.
now when it comes to Bialik's mistake, we need to understand that this mistakes took place in his knowledge of the Hebrew language only.
The Hebrew language was almost dead at the time before Israel was announced... after about 2000 years of the Jewish people live in different countries and not be able to teach Hebrew in a formal educational system, nobody could have known the language well.
Bialik himself is one of those who helped bringing the Hebrew language back to life, however, this song was written before 1924 when he came to Israel and way before 1948 when Hebrew was to be the formal language of the new country. he just could not have known any better.
Same kind of mistakes happened to other writers as well. For instance, you may look up the lyrics of Natan Yonatan's song "DUGIT NOSAHAT" and see his mistake as the title has already got it.
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