nature
fish
נון · כוורא · שיבוטא · סנדל · תנין · נין
Bottom line
Dag is the Hebrew for fish and the only one Tanach uses; nun and kavra are its Aramaic counterparts, and both render fish plainly. Do not translate shibuta or sandal at all: they are named species, so transliterate and gloss them, since every English equivalent on offer is a guess. Tanin is a sea monster, not a fish. The one thing not to get wrong is that nun never occurs in Tanach in the sense of fish; where it does occur, in Yehoshua bin Nun, it is a man's name, and the fish sense is a derashah on it, not a translation.
At a glance
| Hebrew | translit | English | what sets it apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| נון | nun | fish | Aramaic; Targum's standard rendering of dag; absent from Tanach (Rabbi Aharon Marcus: excised because the nations deified it) |
| כוורא | kavra | fish | Aramaic; possibly a species rather than the general term (Tosafos to Moed Katan 11a; Chullin 109b) |
| שיבוטא | shibuta | shibuta | a specific kosher river fish of Bavel whose brain tastes like pork (Chullin 109b) |
| סנדל | sandal | sandal-fish | flat and limbless (Niddah 25b; Meiri to Yevamos 12b) |
Where the authorities disagree
Which came first, nun or nin. Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 1:21): nun derives from nin, offspring, the fish named for its fruitfulness, exactly as dag primarily denotes fecundity. Rabbi Ron Yosef Chaim Masoud Abuchatzeira: the reverse. Berachos 20a teaches that fish are fruitful and multiply in large quantities because the ayin hara has no hold on them, so naming descendants by the fish-word turns the ayin hara from them; he compares this to the well-known custom among Tunisian Jews, especially those of Djerba, of giving children fish-related names to immunize them against the ayin hara. The column's examples: masculine Hayuta/Hauita ("fish" in some North African dialects of Arabic, though in Aramaic it means "snake"), Manani (grouper, possibly also related to nun), Bugid (striped red mullet), Hadir (torpedo fish), Karutz (bass), Uzifa, Wurgana; feminine Shelbia (salema porgy), Svirsa, Murgana, Manana (the feminized Manani), and Baharia (mermaid).
Why Ninveh is named for a fish. Rabbi Avraham Rivlin: nun plus naveh, a fish inside a house, and Yonah, who refused to go, was made to live out the name inside a fish. Rabbi Nissim Paniri: Yonah and Ninveh share letters, Yonah's name lacking the second nun, so Hashem put him inside a nun to supply it. Rabbi Aryeh Moshe Teicholtz: the name recalls the fish-cult worshipped there. None excludes the others.
What kavra and shibuta are. Tosafos (to Moed Katan 11a) leaves kavra undecided between fish in general and a particular fish; Dr. Marcus Jastrow reads it as live fish kept in a basket, which would let it cover any fish so housed; Chullin 109b favors a species. On shibuta, Jastrow says probably the mullet, others the sturgeon or porpoise; Drs. Zohar Amar and Ari Zivotofsky identify the shirbot or shabout (Arabibarbus grypus), which the article calls the most definitive approach and which fits the Yerushalmi (Taanis 4:5) that shibuta is found in Bavel and not in Eretz Yisrael; Minchas Chinuch (550:2) suggests the name can cover kosher and non-kosher fish both. Since the identification is contested, transliterate.
Yehoshua bin Nun. His father's name was Nun (Divrei HaYamim I 7:27). An apocryphal midrash made famous by Rabbi Avraham Vilner has Yehoshua put into the river as a small child and swallowed by a fish, the fish caught and brought to Pharaoh, the child found inside, raised in Pharaoh's house and risen to Chief Executioner; Rabbi Yitzchak Yishaya Weiss of Neve Achiezer in Bnei Brak has already debunked the midrash's provenance. Two other readings stand: Midrash HaBiur (to the haftarah of Shelach), that he would swallow the thirty-one kings of Canaan like a fish, and Megaleh Amukos 27, that Hashem was ready to hear his tachanunim once he entered the Land.
Distinctions
nun (נון)
The ordinary Aramaic word, as nun, nuna and nuni, and what the Targumim put wherever the Hebrew has dag; it remains the standard word for fish in Hebrew's Semitic sister languages, Aramaic and Ugaritic alike. Kiddushin 25a records that a town mocked Rav Hamnuna, whose name sounds like cham nuna, hot fish, by calling him kar nuna, cold fish. In Ksav Ivri the letter nun is drawn like a fish. Rabbi Aharon Marcus theorizes that the word's absence from Tanach is deliberate: the Canaanites and other nations deified the fish or sea-creature the word denotes, turning Nun into the name of a god, and Biblical Hebrew left the word out of every book to downplay that, leaving dag as the standard.
kavra (כוורא), shibuta (שיבוטא) and sandal (סנדל)
Kavra is common in Judeo-Aramaic beside nun, and the doubt about its scope is old (Tosafos to Moed Katan 11a). Dr. Marcus Jastrow notes that the Mishnaic kaveres means a beehive or basket (Sheviis 10:7; Bava Basra 5:3; Keilim 8:1, 15:1, 22:10; Ohalos 5:6, 8:1, 8:3, 9:1) and so explains kavra as live fish kept in a cauf, a basket, which would let the word cover any fish housed in such a portable tank. On the other hand Chullin 109b, which says kavra tastes like the girusa bird (Jastrow: the moor hen), reads like one species rather than a class. Shibuta: Chullin 109b, that its brain tastes like pork and so serves as the kosher stand-in for that taste; Kiddushin 41a, that Rava salted shibuta in honor of Shabbos. There is an ancient tradition of a fish that does not swim on Shabbos (Radak to Bereishis 2:3; Yalkut Reuveni to Bereishis 2:2; Shevet Mussar ch. 11), and on that basis some sources connect shibuta, spelled with a tes, to Shabbos, spelled with a tav, identifying the shibuta as that fish (Megadim Chadashim to Shabbos 119a). Sandal: the Mishnah (Bechoros 8:1, Kerisos 1:3, Niddah 3:4) discusses the halachic status of a miscarriage shaped like a sandal; Niddah 25b explains that the shape is that of a sea-fish, and Rashi (there and to Kesuvos 39a), his son-in-law Rivan (to Yevamos 12b) and, by implication, the Yerushalmi (Niddah 3:4) take sandal as an actual fish by that name; Meiri (to Yevamos 12b) adds that it resembles a free-floating piece of meat with no clear limbs, on which the column wonders in passing whether a jellyfish is meant.
tanin (תנין) and nin (נין)
Bereishis 1:21, the sea-monsters of the fifth day. Rabbi Aharon Marcus argues that the tav is not part of the root, leaving nun at the core, and explicitly rejects the scholarly speculation that taninim is a Sanskrit loanword. Rav Hirsch (to Bereishis 1:21) also suggests that tannin derives from nun, but adds that nun itself derives from nin, offspring (in Modern Hebrew, great-grandchild), comparing this to dag, whose primary sense is fecundity.
Rendering guidance
- Nun and kavra in a Gemara are both simply fish; do not manufacture a distinction the sugya does not need.
- The trap is "fish" absorbing the named species. Where Chullin 109b names shibuta or Niddah 25b names sandal, keep the Hebrew and gloss it ("the shibuta fish"), since the identification is disputed and an English species name commits you to one side of it.
- Tanin must not be rendered "fish": sea monster at Bereishis 1:21, and elsewhere a serpent, as context decides. Nin is descendant, never fish.
- In Yehoshua bin Nun, render son of Nun, a name; bring the fish sense in only where a derashah is quoted, and say that it is a derashah.
Sources
Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Fun with Fish (Part 2/2)," What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 25 Sivan 5781 (2021-06-05): raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/9234-fun-with-fish-part-22.md. Part 1, on dag and dagah, is treated in entries/fish-dag-dagah.md. Primary loci cited: Bereishis 1:21, 2:2-3; Divrei HaYamim I 7:27; Berachos 20a; Kiddushin 25a, 41a; Moed Katan 11a with Tosafos; Chullin 109b; Niddah 25b; Yevamos 12b with Rivan and Meiri; Kesuvos 39a with Rashi; Yerushalmi Niddah 3:4 and Taanis 4:5; Mishnah Bechoros 8:1, Kerisos 1:3, Niddah 3:4; Radak to Bereishis 2:3; Yalkut Reuveni; Megaleh Amukos 27; Midrash HaBiur; Minchas Chinuch 550:2; Megadim Chadashim to Shabbos 119a; Shevet Mussar ch. 11; Sheviis 10:7, Bava Basra 5:3, Keilim 8:1, 15:1, 22:10, Ohalos 5:6, 8:1, 8:3, 9:1 (Mishnah, on kaveres); Dr. Marcus Jastrow; Drs. Zohar Amar and Ari Zivotofsky.