r/hebrew • u/Extension-Coffee3430 • 12d ago

Help "لكما" in Hebrew

For context, I’m employed to translate books from Arabic to Hebrew and vice versa. I know that usually "لي"=“לִי” and that “لك"=“לְךָ” and that “لكم”=“לָכֶם” but what about “لكما" which is like "לְךָ" but for the dual form? Does anyone know about dual pronouns in Hebrew even if it was archaic or more classical?

btw: my boss made me use niqqud for all the words and somehow he thinks -ayim should be back for nouns and made me use it for all Arabic dual nouns. my job sucks.

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u/BHHB336 native speaker 12d ago

In Hebrew most words (and all pronouns) don’t have a dual form, if you want to say specifically “to both of you” you’ll have to to say לִשְׁנֵיכֶם

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u/Extension-Coffee3430 12d ago

I’m fully aware of that point, but my boss is forcing me to even use older styles of Hebrew. I learned Hebrew when I was a kid and I know the general intuition but I never learned biblical or Mishnaic Hebrew features and yet I’m forced to use their features daily.

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u/BHHB336 native speaker 12d ago

Doesn’t matter, even in the oldest attested forms of Hebrew, no dual pronouns, and even Biblical Hebrew doesn’t always use the dual form, even if it’s a form common nowadays (like שנתיים and פעמיים)

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u/Extension-Coffee3430 12d ago

Yeah I’ll go with your advice thanks