Where did Nachmanides say that it has essential significance? In Exodus 30:13, as cited on Wikipedia, Nachmanides says that it is called the holy tongue because the Holy One, blessed be He, used it to create and to give names, and because it is used for matters of holiness, and therefore the standard weight used in the Temple is called the holy shekel. Like sacred vessels, which become sanctified through their use even though in terms of material and structure they are basically identical to another vessel from the store. They had to choose a language, so they chose this one arbitrarily.

That is indeed the Nachmanides I meant, and that is how Rabbi HaNazir understood it in Kol HaNevuah, Book One, Essay One, sections 25–29. You are right that it might possibly be as you say, but it seems to me that the plain meaning of his intent is as I wrote. This is not an arbitrary choice by the Holy One, blessed be He, and among other things it contains the Explicit Name, which has no translation into other languages.

Nachmanides explains that the shekel is called the holy shekel because it is the weight by which valuations, redemption of the firstborn, the Tabernacle shekels, and every fixed amount of money mentioned in the Torah are measured, and he compares that to the holy tongue. It is obvious that in the specific weight itself—say, 68.4 grams—there is nothing essential at all; it is purely conventional. Rather, they set it aside for use in sacred matters, and therefore it becomes sanctified. How can one understand his words otherwise?

A. What kind of thing is a name that has no translation into other languages? Whichever way you look at it, a name as a name—that is, a conventional label to identify whom one is speaking about—is the same name in all languages and has no connection to any particular language. A name in the sense of the meaning of the word (“Moses, because I drew him out of the water”)—if it has meaning in the holy tongue, why can’t that be translated into another language? If a person understands the specific meaning, he can assign a word for it in any language, and from then on there will be a word in that language bearing that meaning.
B. And where does this claim come from, that the Explicit Name has no translation into other languages?

[I opened Kol HaNevuah and I see there that Rabbi HaNazir understands Nachmanides the way I wrote.
He brings one opinion that this language is especially suited to nature and to knowledge of divine truths, brings one opinion that it is a language with no name for the reproductive organs, brings Nachmanides’ opinion: “because the words of Torah and prophecy and all sacred speech and all the holy names were said in it, and it is the language in which the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks with His prophets,” and brings the opinion of the kabbalists that the holy tongue is drawn down and emanated from the source of holiness.]

See Middah Tovah on the portion of Va’eira, 5767. That is the uniqueness of the Explicit Name as opposed to other names that have linguistic meaning. It is neither a description nor an arbitrary label (those are the two possibilities you raised in your whichever-way-you-look-at-it argument). The Ramak wrote this, for example. I think I also wrote about it in Two Wagons, in the second gate. That is also what they wrote about the form of the letters of the Tetragrammaton, which signify the Holy One, blessed be He, in an essential way.

In any case, the first and fourth approaches in his words there are similar to what I wrote.

I have not yet looked closely at the article in Middah Tovah.

The first position, that the holy tongue is especially suited to grasping divine truths, is just a baseless invention with no responsibility, no tradition, and no explicit indication of its advantages, and is as good as nonexistent.

And the fourth position, the kabbalists’ view that this language has some essential superiority—God knows what that is supposed to mean—they are just following their own method, that whenever they feel like it they suck their thumb with great devotion and invent essence. So too with the repetition of the Amidah even today, when people are expert and they said it has its own essential superiority. So too with the second festival day of Rosh Hashanah even today, when the calendar is fixed by calculation, they said it has the essential quality of softened judgment. So too with tefillin, in the dispute between Rashi and Rabbenu Tam, they said each opinion has its own essential superiority and you need both. And that is how I see their words about the holy tongue as well. And I do not know what the point is of dealing with their inventions.

With God’s help, on the eve of the holy Sabbath, “And the man gave names,” 5782

From the wording: “You have chosen us from among all the nations and exalted us above all tongues,” it appears that both “nation” and “tongue” refer to “us,” to the Jewish people, which are both a “nation,” a group distinct in ethnic and/or political terms, and also a “tongue,” a group distinguished in terms of culture and conceptual world.

Every language expresses a unique facet of the culture and conceptual world of that group. Just as Ehud Manor “finds himself” only in Hebrew, for only it “penetrates his arteries, his soul” — so too the American Nancy Pelosi would “find herself” in English. The “mother tongue” is what expresses the special nuances of each nation.

The Creator of the world not only “sanctified us with His commandments,” but also bequeathed us a culture, of which the holy tongue, the language of the Torah and the Prophets, is one of the generators and creators. The meanings and associations of many words in the language of the Torah express its unique values.

For example, “God of the Hebrews” is not only one who has power, who “has it in His power” to do anything, but is also “God” in the sense of “judge.” Power cannot be detached from justice. And the “Creator” of the world is also the one who demands that His world be “pure” and clean.

Likewise, the “human being” in the language of the Torah is, on the one hand, the partner of the “ground,” from which he was taken and over which he was appointed “to work it and to guard it.” And on the other hand he is “man,” the partner of “woman,” in whose joining together they ignite the “fire,” the inner flame that aspires to resemble “His attendants, flaming fire.” The “fire” that stirs the flame of love but also the sparks of awe. Roaring in its rushing sound, yet also supporting, strengthening, and affirming.

And so, through its unique sounds and associations, the language of the Torah elevates, little by little, almost without one noticing, the moral world of its speakers.

With the blessing of a Sabbath “that gladdens the heart and settles the mind,” Ami’oz Yaron Shenitzl”r