There are many places in Rashi's commentary where he uses a foreign language to translate a word used in the Torah.
For example, Bereshit 6:14:
בכפר: זפת בלשון ארמי. ומצינו בתלמוד כופרא
With tar. This is the Aramaic word for tar. We find in the Talmud {Hebrew Ref} [for tar]
And Devarim 21:14:
לא תתעמר בה: לא תשתמש בה בלשון פרסי קורין לעבדות ושימוש, עימראה. מיסודו של רבי משה הדרשן למדתי כן:
You may not exploit her. You may not utilize her. In the Persian language, servitude and utilization is verbalized as imra'ah. From the commentary of R' Moshe Hadarshan I have learned this.
However, Rashi is translating a word in Lashon Hakodesh (Biblical Hebrew) using a word in another language. How does he know that the word is the same, and it is not a false cognate?
Rashi does say (Bereshit 11:1) that the original language was Lashon Hakodesh (Before G-d mixed up all the languages - Bereshit 11:6-9), but that obviously doesn't mean that every word that sounds the same as a word in Lashon HaKodesh means the same thing.
So the question remains, How does Rashi know that the words in a different language mean the same thing as the same words in Lashon HaKodesh?
Answer
http://www.torah.org/learning/drasha/5758/bo.html
The Talmud in Sanhedrin is concerned with the origins of the word Totafos, clearly it has no Jewish origin. The Talmud declares that Totafos is a compound word that combines two foreign words. The word Tot in Afriki (I assume Africa) means two, and the word Pas in the Coptic language means two. The Tefilin on the head has four compartments. Thus, tat-pas or totafos, means four.
From this I would conjecture that there are other words in the Torah that are foreign in nature. Rashi HaKodosh helped illuminate these difficult words.
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