Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jim West <jwest AT highland.net>]

Do you mean translated or transliterated?  Transliteration doesn't 
change anything.  Transliteration is simply the substitution of one 
letter for another.  It means taking the Hebrew letter gimel, for 
instance, and putting in its place a "g".

Translation, on the other hand, is taking a word from one language and 
then using the equivalent word in another language for it.  In Hebrew we 
find the word "shalom" (note- thats a transliteration for shin lamed waw 
mem).  In Hebrew it means- shalom.  In English it is usually translated 
"peace" or "wholeness" or some such thing.  If you take "peace" and 
translate it into Danish you get "fred" or- "fredlig" (for peaceful).  
If you take "shalom" and translate it into Danish you would have "fred".

But none of this has anything to do with etymology.  Etymology is what 
words originally meant and where they come from.

I hope this helps a bit.

Jim


Gene Gardner wrote:

> I have an eytmology opinion question for the list
> members. When one language is transliterated into
> another language, or through three or four languages,
> does the final word still retain the meaning of the
> original word?


--
D. Jim West

Biblical Studies Resources -  http://web.infoave.net/~jwest
Biblical Theology Weblog -  http://biblical-studies.blogspot.com