Stan Goodman wrote:

More precisely, modern Israeli Hebrew has replaced the "th" sound
with "t". Yemenite pronunciation keeps it, I am told. The use of
"th" in English renderings of biblical names probably reflects the
actual pronunciation at some period of time.

I don't think so. The parallel letter in Arabic is also a simple "T". For
the "Th" to have got into European languages >from Hebrew, that would have
had to be the pronunciation in the Levant when Europeans started to
transliterate Biblical names/words >from Hebrew, e.g. when they became
Christians (which is not deep in antiquity. I suspect that the origin of the
"Th" lies in a failed effort to differentiate TAV >from TET (which should
indeed be differentiated, but not this way); Greek may well have tried to
assign its Theta to the TAV. Or the effort may have taken place later, in
Germany, which is presumably also the source of all the "J's" in
transliterated Hebrew, which by rights should be pronounced as "Y" rather
than as "Dzh -- unless you are also arguing that there was really a
Patriarch Dzha'aqov.

The transliterations came into English >from the Septuagint (the Greek
translation of the bible, starting in the third century BCE), which
rendered tav (or thav) as theta, via the Vulgate (Latin).

As for J, it would have been iota in Greek, I in Latin: a shift of the
sound of I (when used as a consonant) to something like our English J
sound in Latin and related languages occurred by the 6th century CE.
The introduction of the letter J for this sound didn't come until
about the 17th century. Germany had nothing to do with it, AFAIK.

Robert Israel israel@math.ubc.ca
Department of Mathematics http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel
University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada

snip>>

More precisely, modern Israeli Hebrew has replaced the "th" sound
with "t". Yemenite pronunciation keeps it, I am told. The use of
"th" in English renderings of biblical names probably reflects the
actual pronunciation at some period of time.

I don't think so. The parallel letter in Arabic is also a simple "T". For
the "Th" to have got into European languages >from Hebrew, that would have
had to be the pronunciation in the Levant when Europeans started to
transliterate Biblical names/words >from Hebrew, e.g. when they became
Christians (which is not deep in antiquity. I suspect that the origin of the
"Th" lies in a failed effort to differentiate TAV >from TET (which should
indeed be differentiated, but not this way); Greek may well have tried to
assign its Theta to the TAV. Or the effort may have taken place later, in
Germany, which is presumably also the source of all the "J's" in
transliterated Hebrew, which by rights should be pronounced as "Y" rather
than as "Dzh -- unless you are also arguing that there was really a
Patriarch Dzha'aqov.

Stan Goodman, Qiryat Tiv'on, Israel

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In article <uViCr8LlbtmJ-pn2-DnC6I6p7m47h@poblano>,
Stan Goodman <SPAM_FOILER@hashkedim.com> wrote:

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 13:48:40 UTC, cpleinkram@hotmail.com (Charles and Perla
Leinkram) opined:

My husband's grandfather's first name was Nesanajl. Is that the same as
Nathan or Nathaniel?
Thanking you in anticipation.
Perla Leinkram

You are very perceptive, to have seen through the Yiddish/Polish rendering
of the Hebrew name Netaniel. (Hebrew lacks a TH sound), and the usual
English spelling Nathaniel can be ignored.)

More precisely, modern Israeli Hebrew has replaced the "th" sound
with "t". Yemenite pronunciation keeps it, I am told. The use of
"th" in English renderings of biblical names probably reflects the
actual pronunciation at some period of time.

Robert Israel
israel@math.ubc.ca
Vancouver, BC, Canada

Dear JGenners:

Correction to my recent message re "Nesan'el." Please correct the
following sentence by deleting the last four words, which made
nonsense of it.

(A different and much later Nesan'el is mentioned in the
post-exilic books of Ezra, Nehemiah and
Chronicle, but your husband's ancestor.

It should have read simply as follows:

"A different and much later Nesan'el is mentioned in the post-exilic
books of Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles." Sorry for my carelessness.

Judith Romney Wegner

On Wed, 13 Dec 2006 01:13:26 UTC, jrw@brown.edu (Judith Romney Wegner)
opined:

At 10:54 PM +1100 12/12/06, Charles and Perla Leinkram wrote:
My husband's grandfather's first name was Nesanajl. Is that the same as
Nathan or Nathaniel?

Thanking you in anticipation.
Perla Leinkram

No it is not Nathan, but yes it is Nathaniel.
That is the stadard English transliteration for
the Hebrew biblical name pronounced Ne-san-'el
by Ashkenazim. The main Biblical Nesan'el is
the one named in the Torah as a leader of the
tribe of Issachar at Numbers 1,8 and several more
times in the book of Numbers. (A different and
much later Nesan'el is mentioned in the
post-exilic books of Ezra, Nehemiah and
Chronicle, but your husband's ancestor.

Nathan is quite a different biblical character.
Several Nathans are mentioned in the bible but
the only important one is the prophet Nathan in
the time of King David, mentioned several times
in 2 Samuel and 1 Kings

Judith Romney Wegner

Actually, the real name of the various Biblical "Nathans" was almost
certainly "Nataniel" too (or "Nataniyah"), both theophoric names, and
"Natan". "Natan" means "he gave", but on the pattern of most other Biblical
names, it should state WHO gave, and the missing donor is specified by
either of the complete names, "God gave".

The Bible has many such examples. "Micha" ("Micah", for instance, is not a
name; his name was "Michayahu". The name of Baruch ben Neriya, secretary of
the prophet Jeremiah was "Berachiahu", on the evidence of his seals
("bullae") which were found some years ago in Jerusalem. Nicknames are not a
new invention. There is less reason to make a distinction between "Natan"
and "Nataniel" than is apparent at first glance.

Stan Goodman, Qiryat Tiv'on, Israel

Searching:
NEACHOWICZ/NOACHOWICZ, NEJMAN/NAJMAN, SURALSKI: Lomza Gubernia
ISMACH: Lomza Gubernia, Galicia, and Ukraina
HERTANU, ABRAMOVICI, LAUER: Dorohoi District, Romania
GRISARU, VATARU: Iasi, Dorohoi, and Mileanca, Romania

See my interactive family tree (requires Java 1.1.6 or better). the URL is:
http://www.hashkedim.com

For reasons connected with anti-spam/junk security, the return address is
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My husband's grandfather's first name was Nesanajl. Is that the same as
Nathan or Nathaniel?
Thanking you in anticipation.
Perla Leinkram

At 10:54 PM +1100 12/12/06, Charles and Perla Leinkram wrote:
My husband's grandfather's first name was Nesanajl. Is that the same as
Nathan or Nathaniel?

Thanking you in anticipation.
Perla Leinkram

No it is not Nathan, but yes it is Nathaniel.
That is the stadard English transliteration for
the Hebrew biblical name pronounced Ne-san-'el
by Ashkenazim. The main Biblical Nesan'el is
the one named in the Torah as a leader of the
tribe of Issachar at Numbers 1,8 and several more
times in the book of Numbers. (A different and
much later Nesan'el is mentioned in the
post-exilic books of Ezra, Nehemiah and
Chronicle, but your husband's ancestor.

Nathan is quite a different biblical character.
Several Nathans are mentioned in the bible but
the only important one is the prophet Nathan in
the time of King David, mentioned several times
in 2 Samuel and 1 Kings

Judith Romney Wegner

On Tue, 12 Dec 2006 13:48:40 UTC, cpleinkram@hotmail.com (Charles and Perla
Leinkram) opined:

My husband's grandfather's first name was Nesanajl. Is that the same as
Nathan or Nathaniel?
Thanking you in anticipation.
Perla Leinkram

You are very perceptive, to have seen through the Yiddish/Polish rendering
of the Hebrew name Netaniel. (Hebrew lacks a TH sound), and the usual
English spelling Nathaniel can be ignored.)

Stan Goodman, Qiryat Tiv'on, Israel

Searching:
NEACHOWICZ/NOACHOWICZ, NEJMAN/NAJMAN, SURALSKI: Lomza Gubernia
ISMACH: Lomza Gubernia, Galicia, and Ukraina
HERTANU, ABRAMOVICI, LAUER: Dorohoi District, Romania
GRISARU, VATARU: Iasi, Dorohoi, and Mileanca, Romania

See my interactive family tree (requires Java 1.1.6 or better). the URL is:
http://www.hashkedim.com

For reasons connected with anti-spam/junk security, the return address is
not valid. To communicate with me, please visit my website (see the URL
above -- no Java required for this purpose) and fill in the email form
there.