daf bit: Bava Batra 123

R. Helbo asked: what reason did Yaakov have for giving the birthright (a double portion) to Yosef instead of to Reuven, the eldest? R. Shmuel ben Nachmani said: because Reuven sinned against his father. But that answers only half the question (why not Reuven) -- why Yosef? R. Yonatan said: because the birthright should have emanated from Rachel (Yosef's mother), not Leah, as it is written: "these are the generations of Yaakov: Yosef, ..." (Gen 37:2), on account of her modesty. (123a)

(Today's daf, 125, is in the midst of a discussion about inheriting prospective property, interest from loans, and suchlike. There's lots of disagreement therein. :-) )

yup, conversational skills are still minimal

The guy at the deli counter was complaining that "tongue" is spelled weirdly, and I said something to the effect that borrowings from other languages are often a little counter-intuitive. The rest of the conversation went something like this:

Him: What other languages do you know?
Me: None well, alas.
Him: (fast Hebrew)
Me: Dabeir lei'at, b'vakashah?
Him: At mevinah Ivrit? (This was definitely also a simplification of the prior utterance.)
Me: Ivrit shel torah (shrug gesture) kein yacholet l'kria, aval Ivrit l'omeir, ktzat. (I am certain that this utterance demonstrated the truth of the latter clause. :-) )
Him: kein, kein.

And then we switched back to English and I said I read better than I speak/hear but no, I wouldn't say I know Hebrew...

For future reference, how would I refer to the modern language (as opposed to biblical)? The best I can think of is "Ivrit shel ha-yom", which is probably, at best, "quaint". :-)