Person 1: Wanna buy a duck?

Person 2: A what?

Person 1: A duck!

Person 2: Does it quack

Person 1: Of course it quacks!

Person 2: Lemme hear it quack.

Person 1: QUACK!

What is a duck? The Hebrew word for duck, ברווז (barváz), isn’t ancient but was coined in the 19th century. The word barváz was introduced in 1841 by writer Yossef Shinhok for modern Hebrew by borrowing from Aramaic (“bar awaz”) and potentially related older terms for waterfowl, filling a gap as the Bible didn’t have a specific word, though barbur was used for choice fowl. Its etymology traces to older Semitic roots, reflecting a linguistic evolution for a common bird.

I was thinking about this duck this week when reading Re’eh, this week’s Torah portion and its list of kosher fowl. There we read:

You may eat any pure bird. The following you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, and the black vulture; the kite, the falcon, and the buzzard of any variety; every variety of raven; the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, and the hawk of any variety; the little owl, the great owl, and the white owl; the pelican, the bustard, and the cormorant; the stork, any variety of heron, the hoopoe, and the bat. All winged swarming things are impure for you: they may not be eaten. You may eat only pure winged creatures. ( Deuteronomy 14:11-20 )

Here we see a long list of non-kosher birds. When it comes to what is a duck, or any “pure” kosher fowl, we do not have a list or names of the kosher birds. What do we make of this?

It is interesting that in Mah Yedidut, one of my favorite Shabbat songs we do sings about some yummy birds. In the chorus we sing:

לְהִתְעַנֵּג בְּתַעֲנוּגִים בַּרְבּוּרִים וּשְׂלָו וְדָגִים

Let’s​​​​​​ rejoice to-day with provisions fairest
Set in choice array, with morsels rarest,
Barburim- Fat capons, quails and fish,
Each upon a lordly dish.

Shabbat is this special time with special food, but it seems that we did not have a word for this variety of yummy bird before 1841. In English we do not just have a word for duck as a noun, but even an adjective. Something is anatine if it resembles a duck in appearance, behavior, or any other way you can imagine. Whether it’s a duck-shaped cloud or a waddle in someone’s walk, anatine is the perfect word when “duckish” just won’t do.

So it turns out that even when we do not have a word for something , it can be pure, choice, and yummy.