Sophiee1 wrote:
There is a man's name in Hebrew which shares the same consonants as yeshua -- but has a different pronunciation. יֵשֽׁוּעַ is pronounced “yay-SHOO-a.”


Sophie: you do this time and time again, and I can only guess at how much damage you might have done by “teaching” people incorrect information. The danger is that it is very, very hard to UNLEARN something once it has been learned incorrectly, and there are many users of these forums who trust you and copy and store away everything you write. But you have a tendency to type in a great hurry and post without carefully proof-reading what you’ve written, with the result that the huge volume of posted material that you churn out tends to be riddled with errors.

We have a case in point here: it is not true that “there is a man’s name in Hebrew which shares the same consonants as yeshua”—there is only one possible pronunciation of ישוע and that is “Yéshu'a” (יֵשֽׁוּעַ ), which IS the male personal name. However, the first syllable does not have an “e” sound: the yod is vowelled with the diacritic tzéré and rhymes with “day” (not with “bed”). Likewise, the part of the word יְשׁוּעָה that you are transliterating as “ye” also doesn’t have an “e” sound; in this case the yod is vowelled with the diacritic sh'va (technically, sh'va na), which is a very short (much less than a full syllable) sound that is probably best likened to the sound of the G in the Australian pronunciation of “G’day”. This sound is often represented by the phonetic symbol ə (an inverted “e”), sometimes set in superscript (as in “yəshu'ah”), but generally it’s easier (and less confusing for the lay reader) simply to use an ordinary apostrophe (“y'shu'ah”). Technically this word only has two syllables, y'shu- and -ah, because the yod is treated like an acciaccatura (slashed grace-note) in music and “crushed” into the “shu” syllable.

I can’t overemphasize the importance of correct vocalisation and pronunciation in Hebrew—even a misplaced stress can completely alter the meaning of a word; for example,

(1) בָּנ֘וּ baNU (pronounced with the final syllable accented) is the past tense, 3rd person plural of the root בנה (to build) and means “they built”, but accenting the first syllable turns it into בָּ֫נוּ BAnu which is the preposition בּ־ (“in”, “at”; “with”, “by”) with the 1st person plural objective suffix, and means “with us” (not to be confused with בָּ֫אנוּ “we came”, in which the “a” vowel is very slightly longer than in בָּ֫נוּ “with us”).

(2) שָׁב֘וּ shaVU (pronounced with the final syllable accented) is the past tense, 3rd person plural of the root שבה (to take captive) and means “they captured”, but accenting the first syllable turns it into שָׁ֫בוּ SHAvu which is the past tense, 3rd person plural of the root שוב (to return) and means “they came back”.

(3) שָׁת֘וּ shaTU (pronounced with the final syllable accented) is the 3rd person plural in the past tense of the root שתה (to drink) and means “they drank”, but accenting the first syllable turns it into שָׁ֫תוּ SHAtu which is the 3rd person plural in the past tense of the root שות (to place or put) and means “they placed” or “they put”.



One must also take care to distinguish between

the simple past tense: שָׁמְרוּ shamru (they guarded), שָׁמְרָה shamrah (she guarded);

the past tense with pronominal suffix: שְׁמָרוֹ sh'maro (he guarded him), שְׁמָרָהּ sh'maraH (he guarded her);

and the gerund with pronominal suffix: שׇׁמְרוֹ shomro (his guarding), שׇׁמְרָהּ shomraH (her guarding),

and it’s obvious that a failure to distinguish between נָתְנָה לוֹ natnah lo (“she gave to him”) and נְתָנָהּ לוֹ n'tanaH lo (“he gave her/it to him”) can easily lead to confusion!


http://mordochai.tripod.com - פרופ' מָרְדֳּכַי בֶּן-צִיּוֹן, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל

Last Edited By: ProfBenTziyyon Wed, 16-May-12 05:28:44. Edited 3 times.