Shabbat Shalom! Modern Hebrew language teaches that there are no vowels in the 22 characters of the Hebrew alphabet. However the Hebrew language "breath letters" CAN be vowels. Such as in the English word "my". The "y" is the vowel in this word. ALL the Hebrew "breath letters" are in The Name YHUH, EACH one of these is and can be a vowel. so the Name could be pronounced "Yee-who-h" very breathy.
as to the other part of your question: imagine for a moment that the English language doesn't use any vowels in its written alphabet. so for example the written word would appear as CT depending upon the addition of the vowel markings [for example an "a" or an "o"] the word could be either "cat" or "cot" knowing which one it is, drastically changes how you would read a passage. These are the ways Hebrew is written, either without any of the vowel marks, or with them. Torah scrolls do not have any vowel marks. Modern Hebrew books, newspapers, etc don't either. Tanakh (bibles), poetry and children's literature do have vowel marks. And Hebrew language lessons do have the vowel marks. Jewish tradition (not Torah) forbids the pronuciation of YHUH, when the Jewish bibles added in the vowel marks to all the words in the text, to remind the readers NOT to pronounce YHUH when they got to it, the vowel marks that go with the word "Adonai" are stuck into the Hebrew letters for YHUH. This is how "Jehovah" has gotten derived from YHUH. And how our English Bibles have chosen to interpret YHUH as "THE LORD" going back to our example of the written word CT as representing cat or cot. Imagine that you were NEVER allowed to pronounce the word CAT, so instead of writing the text with the vowel marks that include the "a" sound, instead use the vowels from the word "feline" so it cold be written like CeiTe. Everyone who reads the language would "know" that CeiTe means "cat" but no one would ever say "cat" they would say "feline" instead. D'varim [Deuteronomy] 4:2 and 12:28-32 (13:1) are two places in the Torah where we are told NOT to add to nor take away from the Torah. Eileen Herbert Eliora Bat-Tziyon קָדושׁ קָדושׁ קָדושׁ יהוה צְבָאות מְלא כָל־הָארֶץ כְּבודו אֲנִי לְדודִי וְדודִי לִי אליאורה בת-ציון קדֶשׁה ליהוה Isaiah 6:3, The Ultimate Song 6:3, Exodus 28:36 (1 Peter 2:9) "They preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different... " Mark 6:12 MSG http://www.cafemom.com/home/EileenMomGranny http://www.myspace.com/eileen_mom_granny http://www.livinginblackandwhite.com/profile/ElioraBatTziyon ________________________________ From: cindiclean <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Fri, August 13, 2010 2:54:26 PM Subject: [ancient_hebrew] Re: I saw the video re: the Name Hi, Brooke. What you say makes sense to me. But remember, my original question was why the writer of the article about Jehovah's name in the jewishencyclopedia said that it was "grammatically impossible" to say it that way. And, for clarification's sake, it seems that only in the most highly technical sense would it be "grammatically impossible," same as the word "Hebrew" is "grammatically impossible." It doesn't make sense to me and makes me think the writer of the article was trying to subvert the facts. If I understood you correctly, you are saying the same thing that I am saying -- that if we can say "Hebrew", we can also say "Jehovah" as "grammatically correct." :-) Cindi --- In [email protected], "Brooke Booth" <angl...@...> wrote: > > All hebrew words (ie, 3 letters w no vowels) are "sounded out". We don't say >"shin lamed vav mem" for "shalom"!! We speak it. I don't understand why Yod >Hey >VAV Hey would be any different (other than the jews say it's bad to speak His >name...for reasons other than Scripture)? > > Thanks for taking the time to reason this out. > > Brooke :-) >
