Greetings Joe, I'm not quite sure what you mean by transliterate, but my meaning is purely that they are being "sounded out" in another language. So when we transliterate them into English, we represent the sound (of their name in this case).
Contrary to the majority opinion expressed here Hebrew doesn't seem to ever have had it's own alphabet, it always just borrowed that of it's neighbours, first the Phoenician and then later the Aramaic. This can be concluded from the fact that Hebrew had (in it's past) a wider phonemic repertoire than those alphabets represented, and that's why we always find several sounds being represented by the same letter. The earliest Hebrew inscriptions are in Paleo-Hebrew, which is just Phoenician, and only contains 22 letters (as that's how many sounds the Phoenician language had merged down into by this time). At that time it's likely Hebrew had about 24 or 25 phonemes, and so some letters had to do a double job. Today Hebrew has lost a few more phonemes, so it's only really sin/shin which are still doing a double job. Surely if Hebrew were to invent (or have) it's own alphabet, then it would invent one with the correct number of letters to represent all of it's sounds, right? The modern Arabic alphabet shows the same situation too. It was adapted from the Aramaic cursive script (Estrangelo), and that's why so many Arabic letters have dots on them, to separate all those letters which had to do a double (or even triple) job, since Arabic still maintains 28 or the original 29 Semitic sounds. The ancient Arabic alphabet (the Musnad) is the only Semitic alphabet which actually represents the full 29 sounds of the original Semitic language. This alphabet is today extinct, although a descendant of it is still used in Ethiopia and Eritrea, as it spread there when the Kingdom of Saba (sheba) occupied the horn of Africa. For this reason many scholars of the Semitic languages and alphabets are beginning to consider that perhaps the Musnad alphabet was perobably the earliest form from which others were later descended. I think it's important that people look at this issue with the facts behind it in mind, rather than trying to prove a specific position motivated by the idea a certain alphabet/language is superior due to it's religious attachments. Because the facts simply don't point to Hebrew being a pristine Semitic language, it's quite the opposite in fact. It is one of the most evolved and developed of the Semitic languages, having lost many of the original Semitic features and sounds. Regards, Abu Rashid. --- In [email protected], Joe Passanise <jpassan...@...> wrote: > > Abu, >  > According to Jeff A. Benner's book, The Ancient Hebrew Language and Alphabet, > the ancient Semitic letters appear to transliterate at 100BC into symbols > that are closer to Aramaic rather than Hebrew letters. If this is the > case, Zola's Introduction to Hebrew, a teaching manual you are probably > familiar with, is using Aramaic letters as the Hebrew alphabet. Do you > agree? >  > Joe > > --- On Fri, 6/18/10, abur1924 <abur1...@...> wrote: > > > From: abur1924 <abur1...@...> > Subject: [ancient_hebrew] Re: The Hebrew word "Faith" > To: [email protected] > Date: Friday, June 18, 2010, 10:07 PM > > >  > > > > Joe, > > That is generally how Arabic speakers spell them when transliterating them > into English, since we use a phonetic transliteration method which is more > modern than the one used by Hebrew speakers. The transliteration used by > Hebrew speakers was formulated much earlier on, and probably has some carry > over from Latin/Greek pronunciation of certain phonemes, like "ph" for > instance (obviously influenced by the Greek spelling alpha). > > But there's no one "proper" way to transliterate. I just use the system I've > become accustomed to, which to me sounds more accurate, and which is more > common for Arabic transliteration of letter names. > > Regards, > Abu Rashid. > > --- In [email protected], Joe Passanise <jpassanise@> wrote: > > > > Dear Abu Rashid, > > à> > Why do you spell the letters:àaleph, mem, and nun as alef, meem, noon? > > I know that they are pronounced as you spelt them, but technically the name > > of the letters are aleph, mem, and nun. > > à> > Joe Passanise > > à> > --- On Fri, 6/18/10, abur1924 <abur1924@> wrote: > > > > > > From: abur1924 <abur1924@> > > Subject: [ancient_hebrew] Re: The Hebrew word "Faith" > > To: [email protected] > > Date: Friday, June 18, 2010, 9:42 AM > > > > > > à> > > > > > > > Shalom, > > > > Just to give a bit of a deeper understanding of this ancient Semitic root, > > the root Alef-Meem-Noon initially comes from the meaning of safety (which > > is what the most basic form of the root still means in Arabic, although the > > derived forms also mean faith and belief). The concept of being safe, > > secure, firm, solid, robust is the very basic meaning behind this verb. > > From this the meaning of faith developed, in that it refers to putting your > > trust in something which is firm, solid, safe, secure, trustworthy, true. > > > > Regards, > > Abu Rashid. > > > > --- In [email protected], "nutmegan30" <nutmegan30@> wrote: > > > > > > Can you please show me in Hebrew the word FAITH. I kow it is different > > > from the Western word FAITH. But I'm having conflicting spellings for the > > > word in Hebrew...what is the proper Hebrew spelling or is there more than > > > one? > > > > > >
