My question is this: Why are some names of entities shortened? To give an example of what is bugging me, I'll use Hismael again.
According to the research I've done, the hebrew for Hismael should be
היסמאהל
However, it's been shortened to
הסמאל
So, the question is why? A quick check shows that when each is transformed into a sigil on the kamea of Jupiter, the sigils are clearly different in a fundamental way. I mean, yes, the longer version is really complex and kind of messy when you draw it out...but since when has that stopped someone from using a sigil? So are both sigils equally accurate, despite different values (HSMAL being 136, and HISMAEL being 151) and design, and it's merely aesthetics that dictates which version has survived the ravages of time? Or have I run into a blind that someone designed, and only one design is right?
I keep looking around, but can't seem to find the answer. Does anyone out there have an answer for me?
I've asked similar questions before when studying religion - specifically the shortening of the Christian god's name to YHVH from the original (pronounced something like Ich-weh) and folks online are equally clueless. Some speculate that since Judaism was frowned upon by Rome that it was done to disguise what they were talking about. It seems a reasonable speculation, but there's nothing to back it up. I've also heard "Jews hate vowels" but that's probably mostly snark. =p
ReplyDeleteI've actually heard something similar about the vowels. I was talking to a friend about it the other night, and we think that part of it is a cultural difference.
ReplyDeleteIn our culture, we focus on increasing letters to have a proper spelling for something. "Enough" could equally be spelled "Enuf" and we would still be able to know what it said. For some reason we opted for more letters rather than less.
As for YHVH, the sources I've read say that we don't actually have any idea as to how it was originally pronounced. It's a sacred name of God, which isn't really supposed to be spoken.
I forget where I got it from but Ich-weh and its closeness to Ichthys was why later Christians chose the fish to represent their god during times when being a Christian meant being thrown to the lions so keeping it hush hush was top priority. I'm rusty on my testaments, but I don't think there was ever a rule where you weren't supposed to say his name. There was a commandment not to take it in vain, but that's not saying "don't say it at all, ever." I haven't read the Torah though so there might be something in there about not saying it.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's that we focus on adding letters, but that we take our time to remove them. English is, after all, a language cobbled together from many European languages. Take the word Knife for example. In the original Germanic pronunciation it was more like "h'Niffa" but when you say it today it sounds like Nyf. Slowly we've been dropping redundant letters from words (most noticeably the letter "e" at the end from words (like olde or shoppe) and one that really irritates me is that pidgeon is now pigeon. I grew up with pidgeon and it makes sense to me (pid-jun) but when I see pigeon I think pig-eon =p
So perhaps not a cultural difference, but that like us, they're deciding certain letters/symbols are redundant and taking them out?
The thing you have to realize is that you are talking about Christianity while I am talking about Judaism. In Jewish tradition, there are many many names for God based on the aspect being spoken of. The name represented by YHVH is and was to the Jews a sacred name that was rarely spoken. So the actual pronunciation has been lost. While the name connected to the fish may well be a name of God it is not the same as YHVH. If you can provide a scholarly source for it that proves me wrong, I would love it though.
ReplyDeleteIf I ever find it again I'll let you know ^_^
ReplyDelete