# Aramaic: Jesus



## Shlama_98

Jesus in Aramaic is Eesho'.....

Spelled Yod-Sheen-Waw-'ayin


----------



## Josh_

Isn't it also pronounced 'yeshua' in Aramaic?

And if anyone is interested in knowing what it looks like in Aramaic (Estrangelo) script, click here.


----------



## Shlama_98

Josh Adkins said:


> Isn't it also pronounced 'yeshua' in Aramaic?
> 
> And if anyone is interested in knowing what it looks like in Aramaic (Estrangelo) script, click here.



Not really, it's Eee-sho3, well in Syriac at least, I don't know about other Aramaic dialects.

Here's a 4 mins video from north Iraq, it's a Maas in Eastern Syriac, you'll notice how the priest says the name around the 0:55 mark of the video,
http://youtube.com/watch?v=29LTde0bUdU


Btw, Some Syriac letters join so the name looks more like this:


----------



## Josh_

> Btw, Some Syriac letters join so the name looks more like this:
> http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/8884/ishocg1.png


Yes, I know.  They look exactly the same to me.

*ܝܫܘܥ

*
*
*The only difference is the font.

As far as the pronunciation it must be a dialectical thing; I have heard it both ways.  For what it's worth in the movie "The Passion of the Christ" it was pronounced 'yeshua.'


-----
Edit: I just realized what the problem might be.  With certain internet browsers complex scripts can appear disjointed or even inverted.  I know sometimes the Arabic looks disjointed on my computer.  If mine appeared disjointed on your computer that might be the problem.


----------



## Shlama_98

Josh Adkins said:


> Yes, I know.  They look exactly the same to me.
> 
> *ܝܫܘܥ
> 
> *View attachment 4012
> *
> *The only difference is the font.
> 
> As far as the pronunciation it must be a dialectical thing; I have heard it both ways.  For what it's worth in the movie "The Passion of the Christ" it was pronounced 'yeshua.'
> 
> 
> -----
> Edit: I just realized what the problem might be.  With certain internet browsers complex scripts can appear disjointed or even inverted.  I know sometimes the Arabic looks disjointed on my computer.  If mine appeared disjointed on your computer that might be the problem.



There was nothing wrong with the way you spelled it, it's just for some reason the Syriac font online never joins where in reality it's supposed to, it's a unicode issue, I have the Syriac font on word so I just type the words and print the screen for an image.

As for the Passion, a few days ago believe it or not I was speaking to someone who's family comes from Maluula, they are Christian Melkites and they actually speak Western Aramaic (Not Syriac), according to him the Passion language was very off from the actual dialect that they speak, I asked him if he understood anything he said a little, but it was still way off from the dialect they speak which makes me wonder because Jesus did speak Western Aramaic.

Also keep in mind that regardless of the language they spoke they were still Jews, and I'm pretty sure the Aramaic they spoke had some kind of Hebrew influence in it, so perhaps Yeshua was the name used because it's the Hebrew way of saying it, I did notice Hebrew in the movie because in the first scene where Jesus was praying he said "Adonai" which correct me if I'm wrong means "My Lord" in Hebrew, if this was Aramaic it would be "Mari".


----------



## Nunty

I'm not sure how off-topic we're getting, but here are a couple of comments on this fascinating thread:

1. To the best of my knowledge the Jewish Aramaic dialect pronounced the initial yod _ee, _rather than _y_ as in Hebrew. That would absolutely give us eeshu3 for what in modern Hebrew we pronounce Yeshua. (For those who may not know, 3 is a transcription for the letter ayin.)

2. Again to the best of my knowledge, among Jews of the time, Aramaic was the language of daily discourse at the time of destruction of the Second Temple (the time of Jesus' earthly life), but Hebrew was the language of Holy Scripture and liturgy. There is ample textual evidence that the common people no longer understood the priestly Hebrew, so an Aramaic translation and interpretation of the Torah reading became a part of the service at around the time.

3. However, and again this is only to the best of my knowledge, everyone prayed in Hebrew. Most people knew what they were saying; some did not. But prayer in the home, the Temple, and that rapidly spreading innovation, the synagogue, was always in Hebrew. There is also ample textual evidence for this. 

4. I have no idea how linguistically authoritative a film by Mel Gibson might be, but it is not at all surprising that he would have Jesus pray with the word "Adonai".

5. A final note of interest. Aramaic is found not only in the Old Testament (Book of Daniel, most notably), but even in the New-- giving support to those of who think that Aramaic, rather than Hebrew, was the daily language of Palestininan Jews of the time. It's in the book of Revelation, and the Aramaic words _marna tha_ are guarded, even in translation.


----------



## Shlama_98

Nun-Translator said:


> I'm not sure how off-topic we're getting, but here are a couple of comments on this fascinating thread:
> 
> 1. To the best of my knowledge the Jewish Aramaic dialect pronounced the initial yod _ee, _rather than _y_ as in Hebrew. That would absolutely give us eeshu3 for what in modern Hebrew we pronounce Yeshua. (For those who may not know, 3 is a transcription for the letter ayin.)
> 
> 2. Again to the best of my knowledge, among Jews of the time, Aramaic was the language of daily discourse at the time of destruction of the Second Temple (the time of Jesus' earthly life), but Hebrew was the language of Holy Scripture and liturgy. There is ample textual evidence that the common people no longer understood the priestly Hebrew, so an Aramaic translation and interpretation of the Torah reading became a part of the service at around the time.
> 
> 3. However, and again this is only to the best of my knowledge, everyone prayed in Hebrew. Most people knew what they were saying; some did not. But prayer in the home, the Temple, and that rapidly spreading innovation, the synagogue, was always in Hebrew. There is also ample textual evidence for this.
> 
> 4. I have no idea how linguistically authoritative a film by Mel Gibson might be, but it is not at all surprising that he would have Jesus pray with the word "Adonai".
> 
> 5. A final note of interest. Aramaic is found not only in the Old Testament (Book of Daniel, most notably), but even in the New-- giving support to those of who think that Aramaic, rather than Hebrew, was the daily language of Palestininan Jews of the time. It's in the book of Revelation, and the Aramaic words _marna tha_ are guarded, even in translation.



Interesting Nun, I see that in Jewish Aramaic Yod becomes an actual E, that's how we pronounce Jesus' name, but believe it or not in Aramaic unless there's an Alap before the Yod it rarely makes the E sound, Yod alone without an Alap in front of it sounds like a Y, example would be the words like "Yama - Sea", "Yoma - Day", "Yalda - Boy", and so on.

Actually now that I think of it the name of Jesus in Aramaic should really be Yashu3, I'm not sure why we say Eeshu3, if I were to spell Eeshu3 in Aramaic without knowlege on Jesus' name I would do it this way:

אישוע

While the original name is really spelled this way:

ישוע

I think the Arabic Yasu3 leads me to think that Yashu3 is probably the most accurate name, I guess somehow through the ages regional Aramaic dialects made it to Eeshu3 instead.


----------



## Nunty

I double-checked the pronunciation of the letter yod in Jewish Aramaic. In a little summary of Jewish Aramaic prononciation, I found the following: _Because Yod is a weak letter it is not pronounced as a consonant at the beginning of a word when it is followed by the vowel _hirik_. Such words are pronounced as though they began with an Aleph. _

This means that the first point of my previous post (#21) is wrong. The yod in Yeshua is followed by a _tsereh_, not a _hirik_,(*) so the yud is sounded as a consonant, and the name is pronounced the same way in modern Hebrew and in Jewish Aramaic.

I'm sorry for being misleading. I beg your pardon, everyone 



(*) A _hirik_ is a long i sound, as in the English sh_ee_p and a _tsereh_ is a long a sound, as in the English d_ay_.


----------



## Ali Smith

Nunty said:


> I double-checked the pronunciation of the letter yod in Jewish Aramaic. In a little summary of Jewish Aramaic prononciation, I found the following: _Because Yod is a weak letter it is not pronounced as a consonant at the beginning of a word when it is followed by the vowel _hirik_. Such words are pronounced as though they began with an Aleph. _
> 
> This means that the first point of my previous post (#21) is wrong. The yod in Yeshua is followed by a _tsereh_, not a _hirik_,(*) so the yud is sounded as a consonant, and the name is pronounced the same way in modern Hebrew and in Jewish Aramaic.
> 
> I'm sorry for being misleading. I beg your pardon, everyone
> 
> 
> 
> (*) A _hirik_ is a long i sound, as in the English sh_ee_p and a _tsereh_ is a long a sound, as in the English d_ay_.


So, would it be spelled ‎יֵשׁוּע? I would have expected there to be a furtive patakh under the ע, just as in ‎רוּחַ.


----------

