society
child
ילד · ילדה · עולל · רובה · עלם · טליא
Bottom line
Yeled is the unmarked word for a child, and carries no age with it; use it wherever the Hebrew does not mark a stage. Olel is the toddler who has been weaned and gets himself up to look for food. Roveh is a youngster between naar and elem. Elem is the young man who has nearly reached his full height. In Aramaic, ravya and talya both come out as boy or lad, and the Targum is not consistent about which Hebrew word each renders. This entry covers the etymologies and the child-words; for naar and almah themselves see youth-naar-almah-elem.md.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| ילד | yeled | child | general, no age attached; from ל-ד, birth (Pappenheim) |
| עולל | olel | toddler | weaned, gets himself up for food (Pappenheim) |
| רובה | roveh | youngster | between naar and elem (Midrash Tadshe); = bachur and yeled (Rashi, Sotah 26a) |
| עלם | elem | young man | grown "up" to near full height (Pappenheim); physical maturity, against naar's mental maturity (Mecklenburg) |
| רביא | ravya | boy (Aramaic) | Onkelos for yeled; from ר-ב, growing |
| טליא | talya | lad (Aramaic) | Targum for yeled and naar; from tleh, a kid goat |
Where the authorities disagree
Whether naar and elem are one stage or two. Ibn Janach and Radak (each in his Sefer HaShorashim): naarah and almah mean the same thing. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim's two roots also land both words at the same point in life. Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, summarizing Pappenheim, grants that the stage is the same but splits the focus: elem names the showing of physical maturity, naar the coming of intellectual and spiritual maturity. Follow Mecklenburg where a passage uses both; follow Ibn Janach and Radak where only one appears and nothing turns on it.
The order of the stages. Pappenheim's account runs olel, growing through childhood, then elem. Midrash Tadshe (ch. 6) instead sets elem after naar and inserts roveh between them, listing the stages of life as yeled, naar, roveh, elem, ish, sav, zaken (the article calls them six stages, though seven names are printed). What both agree on is that yeled is the earliest.
How old a yeled is. Pappenheim: no fixed age at all, and Yishmael is called a yeled at sixteen (Bereishis 21:15 to 16). Rashi (to Erachin 18b) on the Mishnah's yeled (Erachin 4:4): anyone from twenty to sixty, as against zaken, over sixty. Rabbi Eliyahu HaKohen of Izmir cites anonymous "sages of astrology" who put yeled at two to five, naar at five to eight, and bachur at eight to eighteen. The bracket schemes are context-bound; Pappenheim's reading is the one to translate by.
The Aramaic correspondences. They do not line up. Onkelos usually renders yeled as ravya (Bereishis 21:8, 21:16; Shemos 2:6; see also Sukkah 5b), the feminine being rivah/riviysa (see Rashi to Sanhedrin 58b), yet at the single appearance of yaldah in Chumash (Bereishis 34:4) he writes ulemta, the Aramaic of almah, rather than rivah. Ulema and ulemta are his normal words for naar and naarah, but he renders naar as ravya at Bereishis 37:2, Bamidbar 30:17, and Rus 2:5 to 6; and Targum renders bachur with cognates of revi/ravya at Rus 3:10 and Eichah 5:13, but with ulema at Koheles 11:9. Rashi translates rivah/riviysa as naarah (Shabbos 127b, Kesubos 62b, Sanhedrin 109b) but at Sotah 26a defines roveh as bachur and as yeled. Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky already noted some of these inconsistencies; his resolution lies beyond the article's scope. Practically: do not build an argument on which Aramaic word stands under a Hebrew one.
Distinctions
yeled (ילד)
Pappenheim traces it to the biliteral ל-ד, birth: hence yalad and yaldah for giving birth, toldos for what birth produces, valad for the womb where birth begins, and yeled for any child born. Since the word says only "born", it fixes no age. Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk: Reuven deliberately called the seventeen-year-old Yosef a yeled (Bereishis 42:22) to press that he had not yet reached twenty and was therefore not yet liable to punishment in the Heavenly Court.
olel (עולל) and elem (עלם)
Both from Pappenheim's biliteral ע-ל, "on top", the root behind al, elyon, l'maalah, oleh, aleh (a leaf, which grows on the branch), ol (a yoke, placed on the animal), me'il (a tunic worn over other clothes), and na'al (a shoe worn on the foot). An olel is the child already weaned from his mother's milk who now gets himself up to find or ask for food; he grows through childhood until he is an elem, grown up to nearly his full size.
naar (נער), for the contrast
Pappenheim's root here is ע-ר, revealing: va'te'ar for emptying a jug and so revealing its bottom (Bereishis 24:20), ohr (skin), ervah (nakedness), taar (a razor, which reveals the skin), ar (an enemy who shows his enmity openly), and eir (awake, since a sleeper's powers are hidden and waking reveals them). A naar is the adolescent whose powers suddenly show, as though he had just woken from the sleep of childhood; Pappenheim adds that the word can carry the youthful irresponsibility of one who shakes off (l'na'er) his obligations.
ravya (רביא) and talya (טליא)
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, having found no source that explicitly treats their origins, offers what he calls the straightforward etymologies: ravya, reva and their cognates are clearly derived from the two-letter ר-ב, to grow in Aramaic (see Targum to Bereishis 25:27), so a boy or girl is one still growing; talya and talyasa seem to him related to tleh, a young goat, the same doubling that gives English "kid" both senses, ostensibly because both run around wildly. Targum uses tali/talya for yeled and for naar (Megillah 5b; Dikdukei Sofrim to Yevamos 114a), and Rashi (to Megillah 5b) likewise defines tali as naar. On the name Avtalyon, the Rashbatz and Bartenura (to Avos 1:10) write that it alludes to that Sage's role as head of the Sanhedrin: the Gemara (Gittin 36a) has the court functioning as father of orphans, and the name can be read as av (father of) plus talyon (children).
Rendering guidance
- Trap: English "child" and "boy" will absorb yeled, olel, naar, and elem together. Reserve "child" for yeled, "toddler" for olel, "youth" or "lad" for naar, and "young man" for elem.
- Where a source lists the stages in order (Midrash Tadshe ch. 6), keep them distinct and ascending: child, youth, youngster, young man, man, elder, old man. A repeated "young man" destroys the list.
- Do not import a halachic age into a translated pasuk: yeled says "born", not "under twenty". Where a drashah wants the age (Rabbi Meir Simcha on Bereishis 42:22), put it in a note. With Aramaic, translate the sense the Hebrew carries, not the mapping; Onkelos' ulemta at Bereishis 34:4 renders yaldah and should still read "girl".
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Toldot: Boys and Girls (Part 2)," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 5 Kislev 5781 (2020-11-21): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8933-toldot-boys-and-girls-part-2.md; Part 1 is covered in youth-naar-almah-elem.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 21:8, 21:15 to 16, 24:20, 25:27, 34:4, 37:2, 42:22 (the article prints 44:22; Reuven's plea about the yeled is 42:22); Shemos 2:6; Bamidbar 30:17; Rus 2:5 to 6, 3:10; Eichah 5:13; Koheles 11:9; Erachin 4:4 with Rashi to Erachin 18b; Midrash Tadshe ch. 6; Sukkah 5b; Megillah 5b; Sanhedrin 58b, 109b; Shabbos 127b; Kesubos 62b; Sotah 26a; Dikdukei Sofrim to Yevamos 114a; Gittin 36a; Avos 1:10 with Rashbatz and Bartenura; Ibn Janach and Radak, Sifrei HaShorashim.