linen

Distinctions

pishtim (פשתים)

The flax plant and the fiber it yields. Ralbag and Abarbanel (to Shemos 25:4): pishtim and butz name linen as a material, while sheish and bahd name particular threads. Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim narrows pishtah / pishtan further, to the flax while it is still growing in the ground.

sheish (שש)

Ralbag and Abarbanel: a thread of six fibers, the number being the word (sheish, six); Rambam draws the same distinction in Hilchos Klei HaMikdash 8:14. Some say that sheish is actually an Egyptian word for the choicest grade of linen, with butz as its Aramaic-Hebrew rendering (see Daas Zekeinim to Bereishis 41:42). Pappenheim reads sheish as combed linen strands not yet spun into thread, and ties the word to shayish, marble or limestone, for its smoothness.

Two readings make sheish not a fabric word at all, which is why Yoma 71b has to prove that it means linen. The Steipler Gaon (in a letter to Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Schulsinger, Mishmar HaLevi): sheish names a color, whitish, exactly as techeiles, argaman and shni tolaas in the Mishkan passages name colors and not materials; tradition supplies that those three are wool, and the Gemara has to establish that sheish is linen. Rabbi Dov Landau, to the same question: sheish is a general term for any dignified garment, so the Gemara must show that in these pesukim it means linen specifically.

bahd (בד)

From bad, alone, as in levad and hisbodedus. Ralbag and Abarbanel: a linen thread of a single fiber. Pappenheim: a garment made of linen, and it is called bad, "alone," because in those times linen fabric was never blended with another material, since nothing else held its dye the way linen did. Zevachim 18b establishes that bahd is linen; on the Steipler's account this is needed precisely because the word by itself only says "alone."

butz (בוץ) and kitna (כיתנא)

Butz is the later Hebrew and Aramaic word for fine linen; the column notes that the Latin byssus, a thin silk-like linen, is said to be derived directly from it. Kitna is the Talmud's Aramaic for linen (see also Targum to Shemos 9:31), and Yoma 71b and Zevachim 18b define sheish and bahd by it. The column adds that kitna means linen in several other Semitic languages, Akkadian and Arabic among them, and is possibly even the basis of the Biblical kesones, "tunic": Professor Edward Yechezkel Kutscher explains that the Greeks borrowed the Aramaic kitna as chiton, a linen shirt, which by metathesis became the Latin "tunic." Rabbi Yaakov Zev Lev (Me'at Tzari to Vayikra 16:4) separates the two Aramaic words as Pappenheim separated the Hebrew: kitna is flax unprocessed and still in the ground, butz is linen already worked.

cotton (כותנה, צמר גפן)

Not a Biblical category. Cotton simply did not exist in the ancient Near East, so it makes sense that there would be no Biblical word for it. Some linguists argue that karpas (Esther 1:3) is a loanword from Persian, where it meant a cotton garment; the Greek carbasus and the Latin karpasos likewise refer to a cotton garment. Rabbinic Hebrew's common term is tzemer gefen, "vine wool," which the column notes is close in shape to the German baumwolle, "tree-wool"; Rambam, in his commentary to Mishnah Kilayim 7:2, correctly renders tzemer gefen into Arabic as al-qoton.

Is the Modern Hebrew kotna then derived from the Semitic kitna, "linen"? Professor Kutscher answers no, resoundingly. He points to the English cotton, Italian cotone, Spanish algodon and French coton, all of them from the Arabic qoton, and for the Arabic word itself he accepts the etymology proposed by the linguist Sir Godfrey Rolles Driver: the Semitic root kuf-tes-nun, "small," as in the Hebrew katan. Kutscher explains that cotton was called "small" because its fibers run finer and thinner than the hairs of wool, which are much thicker (compare the thin threads called ketini at Shabbos 105a). So on his argument kotna goes back to katan, and its phonetic likeness to kesones / kitna is merely coincidental: kotna really should be spelled with kuf and tes, the others with kaf and tav. Rashi indeed spells the French coton with kuf and tes (Berachos 28b, Shabbos 21a, Shabbos 110b, Niddah 17a). The column adds that linguists take the Aramaic pekolin, "cotton tufts," to be borrowed from the Greek phakelos, "bundle" or "fascicle." So the title's question is answered no, which the column caps with Betteridge's Law of Headlines: any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered with the word "no."

Rendering guidance

• Mishkan and bigdei kehunah passages: sheish is "fine linen," bahd is "linen" (the Yom Kippur bigdei lavan), pishtim is "flax" or "linen" by context. Holding these apart keeps Ralbag's material-versus-thread distinction visible.
• Where sheish is doing color work rather than fabric work (the Steipler's reading), do not silently write "linen." Give "fine linen" and let a note carry that the Gemara had to establish the material.
• Bahd: resist "alone" in a garment context and resist "linen" in a context of separateness. The same word does both, and which one the pasuk wants is a reading decision.
• Trap: English "linen" absorbs sheish, bahd, butz and pishtim alike. In a passage that lists more than one, give pishtim the plant word ("flax"), keep "fine linen" for sheish and butz, and let bahd stand as plain "linen."
• Trap: never render kotna or tzemer gefen as linen, or kitna as cotton. The two words look alike and belong to different roots.

Sources

Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein, "Is Cotton a Type of Linen?", What's in a Word?, Ohr Somayach, 11 Adar I 5779 (2019-02-16), https://articles.ohr.edu/articles/is-cotton-a-type-of-linen; raw text in sources/whats-in-a-word/raw/8140-is-cotton-a-type-of-linen.md. Primary loci: Yoma 71b; Zevachim 18b; Targum to Shemos 9:31; Ralbag and Abarbanel to Shemos 25:4; Rambam, Hilchos Klei HaMikdash 8:14, and his commentary to Mishnah Kilayim 7:2; Daas Zekeinim to Bereishis 41:42; Pappenheim; Rabbi Yaakov Zev Lev, Me'at Tzari to Vayikra 16:4; Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Schulsinger, Mishmar HaLevi, with the replies of the Steipler Gaon and Rabbi Dov Landau; Esther 1:3; Shabbos 105a; Rashi to Berachos 28b, Shabbos 21a, Shabbos 110b and Niddah 17a. The article's comparative material is reported as the article gives it: the Akkadian and Arabic kitna, the Latin byssus from butz, the Persian, Greek carbasus and Latin karpasos behind karpas, the German baumwolle, and the etymologies of Professor Edward Yechezkel Kutscher and Sir Godfrey Rolles Driver for kotna and pekolin.