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Re: KOREAN FIRST NAMES TRANSLATED IN ENGLISH
in reply to a message by lala
The former is not what he was asking. Isabel for one thing is not the Spanish language translation of English Elizabeth, they're just the most common forms in different regions and different times of the Hebrew name Elisheba, rendered in the Septuagint as Eleisabeth and in the NT as Elisabet (though recorded in Greek script these latter two probably represent Hebrew folk etymology by Jews who no longer spoke Hebrew as a first language and were more familiar with the Shabath, later Shabat "Sabbath/rest", than with Sheba, or Sheva "oath"). An English "translation" would have been Godwǽr, but proper names are not usually "translated", merely rendered in a more familiar form if there is one. Thus the OT Hebrew Elisheba was not translated into Greek in the Septuagint, but simply rendered into the contemporary form more familiar to the Greek-speaking Jews who were to read it. The common form in England as well as Spain was Isabel, until new English translations of the bible (Alfred the Great had sponsored the first centuries earlier and translated some books himself) popularized the Elizabeth form considered the best Roman alphabet representation of the form in the Septuagint (Z for s representing the standard English pronunciation of medial s — compare the difference between house and housed).Just as many "English" names have no "translation" as they are not originally English, so many Korean names may not have been originally Korean, and resist attempts at "translation".
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