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  • From: Pere Casanellas <pere.casanellas AT btlink.net>
  • To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Eve/Chavvah.
  • Date: Tue, 09 Jul 2002 10:22:06 +0200

You can read:
Alexander SPERBER, "Hebrew based upon Greek and Latin transliterations", Hebrew Union College Annual, 12-13 (1937-1938), pp. 103-274.

Sperber explains that in the earlier period heth equals the Greek letter chi (see the transcription of some names in the codex A of Septuagint) but that in the later period (Jerome) heth lost its consonantal value and like aleph served merely for carrying the vowel (notwithstanding that Jerome explains that the heth was pronounced with a double aspiration). He also says. "We may assume that the transition from the earlier to the later period is marked by those transliterations, where heth is rendered by epsilon" (p. 110-111, 130).

Best regards,

--
Pere Casanellas
A/e: pere.casanellas AT btlink.net
     pcasanel AT pie.xtec.es
Barcelona (Catalonia)

At 17:03 08/07/2002 +0200, Ian Hutchesson wrote:
>Whilst I understand the relation in the Hebrew name
>for 'Eve'  (Gen 3:20) to 'life', I'm unsure where we
>get the English 'Eve' from.
>
>I'm guessing that it is a transliteration of the LXX
>for 'Chavvah/Khavvah' = 'Eve'. Can anyone confirm this
>and give more detail, or correct me if I'm barking up
>the wrong tree? I haven't got an LXX to look it up in,
>so I've no idea if I'm on the right track.

Your guess is correct, though in Gen 3:20 the Greek has
Zoe to preserve the story about the name meaning "life".
Gen 4:1 has Eua(n) (L. Hava(m)).

Names that have come to us through Greek seem to have
lost the khet, Onias, Enoch, Ananias, Anna. These have
stuck.

Though not regular, there has been an intermittently
systematic phonetic "misperception" from Hebrew into
Greek (here as found in English):

khet  --> (lost)         xnwk  --> Enoch

kaf   --> chi            kbr   --> Chebar
                         kmw$  --> Chemosh
                   (Akk. kaldu --> Chaldean)

qof   --> kappa          qrh   --> Korah
                         qd$   --> Kadesh

This last is understandable, as Greek had no equivalent.
(That's what happens in English.) The other two changes
intrigue me. I would have thought that the Greek
equivalent sound of khet was chi and of kaf was kappa.
Perhaps the pronunciation of the Hebrew was different
from what we understand it.

It is in the change from one language (or phonetic
system) to another that we learn things about
pronunciation. We learn from the transliteration of
Caesar in Hieroglyphic (and others) that the initial C
was pronounced /k/ and not /s/ as we get from the
French, or /t$/ as the Italians insist.


Ian



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