Why do biblical names vary in different languages?

Question

In my regional language (Tamil) biblical names vary from the actual names. I'm sure this is not only in my regional language only but also in other languages too. For instance Jesus' name is Yesu and John's name is Yovan and so on. But in my regional language it doesn't mean anything; rather it's confusing.

In our prayers also we used the regional names and I think, would we mean Jesus' name or something else?

I can understand it'd be necessary to translate the Bible as it'd help the people to understand the Bible better. But what was the reason to change the names?

Answer 1

One of the reasons for the variance in names is that languages often don't share the same sounds as Greek or Hebrew. For instance, Russian has no "th" sound. Consequently, the sound of that name cannot be reproduced in Russian. In Greek, it is ματθαιος, or /Mat-thaios/. Russian translates this as Матфей, or Matfay. So, the "th" becomes an "f".

Also, the ending of the name changes in Greek depending upon which part of speech it is. We don't do that in English, so we just have to select an ending and stick with it.

There is also a difference whether or not the Greek or Hebrew is being translated. The Greek for the Hebrew Name of Jesus (Yeshua) is Ἰησοῦς, or Yay-soos. The Hebrew name of Yeshua is translated into Joshua, while the name Yay-soos is translated Jesus.

So, sometimes a word's sounds are not matched in the receiving language. Other times, there is variance on whether it is coming from Hebrew or Greek. This accounts for some of the issues.

Answer 2

That is simply the nature of language. Here's how things got from Yeshua (Hebrew) to Jesus (English).

1. Greeks changed it to Yeshu (drop the final "a")
2. Romans changed it to Iesu (sh changes to s, Y->I) and, in certain grammars, a final "s" was added.
3. Over time, as the J came into common use, this changed to Jesu/Jesus (pronounced yay-soos).
4. The letter J in English warped and gained its modern pronunciation.

Interestingly enough, the hymn "O come all ye faithful" has the line "Jesu to thee be all glory giv'n". In England (and in fussy choirs here), this is pronounced with the French "J" (as in Jean) as the first consonant.

Or, there is Yochanan, which became Ian, Sean, and John.

1. Yochanan becomes Yohana (final n dropped in Greek? not sure if this is a Latinism.)
2. It was then changed to Iohannes (that extra "s" added in Latin again (This is one of the final forms in Germany, the alternate simply missing "es", thus Johan Sebastian Bach and Johannes Brahms))
3. In Italian the "h" becomes a "v" (there is no aspirate H in proper Italian, meaning that "Yohan" is technically unpronounceable) and the "es" becomes an "i".
4. In France the "ha" and the "es" are dropped and, when the i becomes a j, it becomes "Jean" (ea is a better spelling of the aw sound in John).
5. In English the "es" and the "a" are missing (but the H is still there!) because they were deemphasized over time to the point of obscurity.
6. In Irish Gaelic (Irish John = Sean) it actually was the same process as found in France, only they took the extra step of "unvoicing" the first consonant (the French J is the voiced version of the English SH)
7. In Scotch Gaelic (Scottish John = Ian), it kept much of the original English pronunciation (remember J and initial I's used to be pronounced Y), but as time went on, the sound of that initial I changed into the "ee" sound.
8. "Juan" in Spanish kept the same sounds that English, both Gaelics, and French did, but then the "J" changed into the "w" sound.

Answer 3

Part of this, too, has to do with the language spoken by the first missionaries to visit a particular area. Different languages transliterate sounds form other languages in different ways, even within the same area. So to render the name "John", an Italian would use Giovanni, a Spaniard would use Juan, a Portugese would use John, a Dutchman would use Jan, a Saxon might have used Johann, and a Dane might use Hans. For a more complete list of alternatives to the name rendered in English as "James".

That fact that the Tamil name for John is Yovan suggests more to me that the Tamil language picked up the name of John from missionaries of Italian origin, than anything else. The "y" in place of the "j" in both the Tamil name for John, and the Tamil name for Jesus suggests to the that the Tamil language may not, at least at the time those spellings were standardized on, had a sound for "J", and that the "Y" was used instead.

Answer 4

Names should be transliterated where possible, not translated. The Hebrew alphabet could not be transliterated into the Greek alphabet, so the Koine Greek texts used a phonetic spelling to mimic the Hebrew sound of Yeshua (ya shua). The Iesous spelling was most likely pronounced "ya shu" without the last "ah" of Yeshua.

The Latin Vulgate translated the sound "ya su" into the Latin alphabet with Iesu or Iesus (case definitive) as the "I" before the "e" rendered the "ya" sound.

The translation into the English from the Latin used the "Ie" but added a hook onto the "I" to signal the "y" sound with the long "a" sound for "ya su".

After some time, the French influence on the English "J" slurred it into a soft "g" sound and eventually "ya sous" began to be said as "ge sus"... and now we are stuck with Jesus in the English.

It was a progression of phonetic spellings in different alphabets trying to keep the Yeshua from the original Hebrew pronunciation. Tracing back through the progression we can be fairly certain because of the sound of the Koine Greek "ya sou" that the Hebrew pronunciation of the first syllable was originally a long "a" sound in Yeshua.