If there is no j in Hebrew language how can His name be Jehovah?

Answer 1

No - in its original form Hebrew did not have a J sound (as in Jay).

However, in modern Hebrew the ג (Gimmel - third letter of the Hebrew alphabet) is used with an apostrophe to change it from G "as in Give" to J as in "Jay". This is a linguistic invention to allow transliteration from other languages.

Answer 2

Answer 1

It wasn't.

In Hebrew, God's name is "YHVH" (often mistakenly translated as "Yahweh" or "Jehovah", as Hebrew had no vowels).

"Jehovah" results from a misunderstanding that Early Christians had about a certain Jewish custom of inserting the vowels from a different word into YHVH. Jews took the vowels from the Hebrew word for "Lord", and inserted them into YHVH to remind the reader to pronounce the word as "Lord". To this day Jews pronounce the world for "Lord" when they see these four letters occur during prayer.

Early Christians did first started learning Hebrew in the 12th Century CE and did not know of this Jewish custom. They saw this printed form of God's name as complete.

The J comes from Early Modern http://english.answers.com via Latin. In Latin, J and I are the same letter, and they used I to represent the first consonant of the name.

W is an ancient theoretical pronunciation of the letter Vav, which is pronounced V today.

There are many theories as to what the missing vowels were, but it is probable that no one will ever know.

Answer 2

The Creator has one true name which is represented by the letters YHVH in English. The Hebrew letters are "yud, hei, vav, hei". These four letters are referred to as the tetragrammaton and are an contraction of the Hebrew words for, "was, is, and will be". His true name was only said in the Temple and with the Temple's destruction we lost the correct pronunciation.

In the Tanach (Jewish Bible), there are 72 different 'names' used for The Creator, these aren't actual names though, they're descriptions of Him that are contextual. In daily conversation, most Jews the name 'HaShem' which literally translates to 'The Name' in reference to His true name.

The words Yahweh, Jehovah, and any variation are Christian in origin and have never been used by Jews. (There is no 'J' or 'W' in the Hebrew language.)

Answer 3

Aside from the issues of translating the tetragrammaton into English, which Answers 1 & 2 discuss well, it is quite common to translate names starting with a "y" (yod) to beginning with a "J" in English. Examples include: Yaqob -> Jacob, Yehoshua --> Joshua, Yehonatan --> Jonathan, Yael --> Jael, Yerav'am --> Jeroboam, etc. Therefore, it is not surprising that there is a "J" in Jehovah.

Answer 3

No. There was no J in the Hebrew alphabet, although the modern Hebrew alphabet does have a way of representing the English "J" sound, but this form was invented in the 20th Century.

The "J" names in The Bible, such as "Jacob", "Joseph", Judah", "Josiah", etc. derive from Hebrew words that start with the letter "Y". The "Y" slowly changed to a "J" due to Latin spelling conventions.

Answer:

It is interesting to note that the letter J was the last of the 26 to enter the English language. It has been part of English only for the last 600 years. As you may be aware, there are many ways to pronounce the letter J, from the usual (as in "jaybird"), to the soft (as in the French "je"), to the "Y" (as in the Polish "jutro"), to the Spanish (as in "jefe").

In Hebrew, there is more than one way to pronounce the letter Yud. When it has a dot in it, its pronunciation is harder than a Y sound, and is close to a J sound.

Answer 4

No, Hebrew uses a completely different alphabet than English. None of the 26 letters of the English alphabet exist in Hebrew.

But if you are asking if the Hebrew language has a J sound, then the answer is that only Modern Hebrew has this sound, which was invented around the early 1900's to use in foreign words and names.

Answer 5

No, there is no J in the Hebrew language, except in Modern Hebrew. Also, the word Jehovah is not a real Hebrew word. It's a Christian version of the four consonants that form God's name. The consonants are יהוה (YHVH) and the vowels are unknown.

Furthermore, the word Jehovah originated in Europe, where it was pronounced with a Y sound.

In Modern Hebrew, there is a J sound, but it's only used for foreign words, such as:

Jirafa (ג׳ירפה) = giraffe

Joongel (ג׳ונגל) = jungle

Answer 6

No, there is no native J-sound in Hebrew. But Modern Hebrew uses ג׳ to represent the J sound in foreign words.

Words borrowed from Hebrew that begin with J usually begin with Y (י) in Hebrew, such as

Jerusalem = Yerushalayim (ירושלים)

Joshua = Yehoshua (יהושוע)

Jeremiah = Yirmeyahu (ירמיהו)

Answer 7

no But to pronounce the J sound we use the third letter Gimmel (ג) with an apostrophe, that turns it from a strong G to a soft G that sounds like J.