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  • From: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • To: yodan AT yodanco.com
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] FW: Ester / Esther
  • Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:03:04 +0100

Apologies. In that case, check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_alphabet

as you will see there is a Greek letter tau which very much resembles an English T.

James Christian

Quoting Yodan <yodan AT yodanco.com>:

Thanks for your explanation.



The answer to your question (in the intro to your answer) is obvious:



I don't read Greek. Were I able to read Greek, I would not need to ask
whether Greek has a T.





*********************************

Rivka Sherman-Gold



**********************************







-----Original Message-----
From: James Read [mailto:J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk]
Sent: Friday, August 14, 2009 7:48 AM
To: yodan AT yodanco.com
Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] FW: Ester / Esther



Hi,



Quoting Yodan <yodan AT yodanco.com>:



Thank you. I am curious to know whey Ester, which clearly has a T (as
there

is a dagesh in TAV) became Esther. I'm assuming that there is a T (in

addition to TH) in Greek. Is this correct?





Did you look at the greek text in the link I sent you? The answer is

clearly 'No!'. There is only a theta in the place of the Hebrew Tav. I

think there are a number of things we need to consider here:



a) The pointing is late. This is no indication of how it was

originally pronounced.

b) We do not know with certainty how the Greek theta was pronounced by

the translator who chose to use the theta (let alone the general

pronunciation of that era) - it could have been a th sound or merely

an aspirated t or who knows

c) We do not even know with certainty the pronunciation of English

'th' at the time it was chosen in English translations.

d) All we really know with any kind of certainty is that the

pronunciation of English th has many variations even today in the many

different accents and dialects of English





James Christian





*********************************

Rivka Sherman-Gold

YODAN Publishing



**********************************







-----Original Message-----

From: James Read [mailto:J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk]

Sent: Friday, August 14, 2009 1:11 AM

To: yodan AT yodanco.com

Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] FW: Ester / Esther



In Greek E???? . See Esther 2:10 at

http://www.septuagint.org/LXX/Esther/2 for an example. For those whose

email clients cannot view Greek characters there is clearly a theta

(th) in the position in question.



For Latin see http://www.latinvulgate.com/verse.aspx?t=0&b=19&c=2

chapter 2 and verse 8 for Hester.



In order to understand the transmission of names you have to

understand that names were first transliterated into Greek (a language

with different phonetic limitations to Hebrew) and then into Latin

(another language with different phonetic limitations) and that most

of our transliterations have come through this double filter and then

been influenced by our own languages phonetic limitations.



An interesting case study are the names Jacob and Joshua in English

translations. Somehow, they have managed to become Jacob and James for

Iakov and Joshua and Jesus for Yehoshua. While it is relatively a

simple exercise to see how Iakov underwent various transformations to

become Jacob and how Yehoshua became Joshua it is presently beyond me

just how exactly English versions got this strange fork when the

Latin versions are devoid of it.



e.g. http://www.latinvulgate.com/verse.aspx?t=1&b=20 shows that James

is clearly Iakobus in Latin.



James Christian



James Christian



Quoting Yodan <yodan AT yodanco.com>:



Does anyone have an explanation to why the transliteration of Ester is

Esther, considering the fact that TAV has a Dagesh and, therefore, has

been

pronounced T and not TH all along. I wonder if anyone knows how this name

was transliterated into Greek or Latin - whether this name's third

consonant

is transliterated as T or TH.







Thanks,







*********************************



Rivka Sherman-Gold



YODAN Publishing



P.O. Box 60655



Palo Alto, CA 94306-0655



650-494-6994



<mailto:Rivka AT YodanPublishing.com> Rivka AT YodanPublishing.com



**********************************



<http://www.CalisraVentures>







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Scotland, with registration number SC005336.






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