Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

On Saturday 27 September 2003 15:22, Peter Kirk wrote:
> On 27/09/2003 13:42, Dave Washburn wrote:
> >...  I have a friend
> >named John; if he moved to Mexico he would probably be called Juan, while
> > if he moved to Russia he'd be called Ivan. ...
>
> Not true, actually. I know of several Americans and Brits called John
> who have lived in Russia and other Russian speaking countries. They are
> never called Ivan. No one ever tried to call me Pyotr. It is not a
> Russian custom to Russianise names of foreign men, though oddly they do
> tend to do it with women's names which are similar to common Russian
> ones e.g. Cathy becomes Katya.

Okay, I overstated.  What I meant was, diachronically they're all the same 
name (John, Juan, Ivan, and I'll even throw in French Jean and German 
Johann).  My Russian example actually came from a snippet of a Tom Clancy 
novel, but the point remains the same: how a name is pronounced is largely a 
matter of culture and native language, and how one pronounces YHWH - or 
whether one does - really doesn't matter.  Like Liz, I tend to go with Yahweh 
myself for the sake of convenience.

-- 
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"God does a lot of things in the Psalms
that He can't get away with in systematic theology."