What does “shel” mean in Hebrew?

This clip is one question on repeat: ?…זה של — “is this …'s?” Hebrew has no apostrophe-s; ownership hangs entirely on the little word של, “of, belonging to.” זה של דנה means “this is Dana’s,” and ?של מי זה asks “whose is this?” The word is a fossil of two smaller pieces — ש “that” plus ל “to” — so it literally says “that-belongs-to.”

של also absorbs endings to make “mine, yours, ours”: שלי, שלך, שלנו — the words behind the classic toddler cry !הכל שלי — “everything’s mine!” In biblical Hebrew, possession was spelled out as אשר ל־, “which is to…”; centuries of speech shrank it into today’s three-letter word.