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Just for you, jennie.
27 responses total.
So where's the item?
There will never be an item where semitic languages are spoken 'cuz you can't type the characters and I for one, *hate* transliterating. ;)
If anyone has a keyboard that will put cuneiform up on the screen, I will be awestruck and impressed. Half the fun in Semitic languages is in the alphabet/syllabic characters, anyway.
************** * ************** *
* * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
***** *
* *
*
There is my attempt at Hebrew characters in ascii. Can you say Yahweh?
"Adonai"?
Depends if you're Jewish or not. ;)
Well, I'm not circumcised.
Boqer tov! Mah shlomcha? Oops, wait, it has to be right to left... ?ahcomlhs haM !vot reqoB
A long time ago (around 15 years, now) I was studying beginning Hebrew, & never got farther BTW, when I encountered a Tshirt in Ann Arbor. It was in Hebrew (need I say), & said (pardon my attempt at transliteration): Tov shalom mearetz Yisrael hashlemah. The person wearing it had to explain "shlemah", and then explain the Israeli political slogan it was responding to. Makes an interesting pun as well, doesn't it? (Now that I've exposed my almost-total ignorance of Hebrew and of Israeli politics in the bargain, someone else please say something.) BTW: I'm not sure why mythago limited this to *ancient* semitic languages.
Re #9: It was originally a joke, probably a response to the joke I put in the login message to the conference.
If you're a good Jew, you know you're not supposed to say the Lord's name!
If you are aware of such things, then you'd know that the hebrew word we
pronounce as yahweh is actually an acronym for the words which translate
loosely as "He whose name cannot be spoken."
It is kind of amusing to give one's god a name, and deny it one, all
at the same time...
Eric, it's much more likely that the acronym was adopted later as a replacement for the name.
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that the name Yahweh was the *original* name, just that it was a name given which also took away any name.
all 44 (or whatever- I forget the number) "names" in the listing are more like epithets or descriptions than "names". Come to think of it, the same is true of many of the Celtic "gods"- we have iscriptions with names which are general and descriptive, and some stories with names that seem to be unique- cases within a general class. I wonder if the familiar Classical names origin ated with descriptions of function?
Re 14: you miss my point. The name existed, and an acronym was invented to fit.
you sure? whence this datum?
I also think you have it backward. I believe that the acronym is the
origination of the name Yahweh. (Yud Hay Vav Hay)
This is supported by the basic unpronouncability of the word formed
by the letters, and the fact that there is no established root form contained
within it.
What do you mean "unpronounceable"? And there's certainly a case for its relationship to the verb to be.
What are the three letters composing the root verb "to be"? I guess I missed
it.
As far as the pronouncability of the word is concerned, I was
thinking of something else, specifically the double yud used in print instead
of the spelling out of adonai. Oops. I goofed. Sorry.
The connection is weak, but in *my* training, the word yahweh was
almost never used, while adonai was predominant, but was never spelled out.
I just had a chip fried in my cpu or something. (Oh what an ugly metaphor!)
I am fairly confident that the name is nat an acronym at all, having been derived from one of the many conjugations of the verb "to be". (Hebrew has a lot of conjugations.) I believe it was introduced at the burning bush when Moses insisted on knowing what the name was. Well, he didn't have a name, so he just said "I am that I am", and this sort of became his name. This is now an extremely sacred name to Jews, so its usage has been limited. The name is still written in certain holy books, such as the Torah, but is not pronounced as written when these are read.
#20 slipped in. The three letters of the verb "to be" are hay-vov-hay. The present tense is pronounced "hoveh". For example, "I am" is "Ani hoveh". "Adonai" means "My Lord" and is used as a substitute both in speaking and writing the name. Due to this close relationship to the name, in modern usage even "Adonai" is not written out in Hebrew, but rather an abbreviation (yod-yod) is used to indicate it's place in prayer books. Some of these restrictions are relaxed for holiest of writings, such as a Torah Scroll. Many references in the Hebrew Torah use the word "elohim" which is the generic word for "god", but curiously in the plural. This word may be freely spoken and written in Hebrew by observant Jews.
("Adonai" is also plural in form - "my Lords" - the singular being "adoni".
Just BTW.)
I'm not Jewish, and my experience in those circles is kind of limited, but
certainly some observant Jews also seem to avoid "Elohim" in favor of such
things as Hashem ("the Name"). And I've seen "G-d" written in English
for similar reasons. (And was once told that a flyer I'd been handed with
*that* on it should be reverently burned instead of being thrown away.)
Another example of human stupidity! That paper should have been reverently *recycled* rather than burnt!!! (:
well, this discussion seems pretty accurate. An oddity: observant Jews will often substitute a k for the h :elokim, or mix "hashem" and "adonai" to a rather meaningless "adoshem" to prevent themselves from speaking the name of god outside a prayerful context.
Eric, the stupidity was his handing out flyers which he felt that way about to anyone passing by on the Diag!
Or just in expecting that anyone else would treat *his* flyers with the same attitude that he did...
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