# Paul, Sarah Jane



## smithy483

Can anyone tell me what the Arabic name for 
Paul and Sarah Jane is please?


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## Cristina Moreno

Hello Smithy and welcome to the forum!

Paul=Boulos (*بولس*)
As far as I know, Sarah and Jane are the same in Arabic.

Best regards.


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## smithy483

i have used some online translator and they have come up with 
Èæáfor paul 
but for sarah jane it gave me two options
ÓÑå Ìä  
ÓÇÑÉ Ìíä
Which is correct your 
 
Thanks for all your help


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## cute angel

As far as I'm concerned the names are the same we havn't the right to change it but infact the sound P doesn't exict in Arabic so we can use Boule but generally we use them as they are .But there are other names which changed like Jesus who is Aissa عيسى Jousep who is youssef يوسف  and gaberiel who is jibraiil جبريل او جبرائيل.

regards


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## Josh_

Hello smithy483,

For Sarah Jane I would suggest سارة جاين .


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## avok

But is not Sarah the name of the wife of Isaac? So it must have an Arabic version right ?


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## clevermizo

avok said:


> But is not Sarah the name of the wife of Isaac? So it must have an Arabic version right ?



Sarah was the first wife of Abraham, just for the record. However, it depends on whether or not we are finding native _equivalents  _for the names or simply transliterating them.

For example, my cousins in Colombia do not call me _Miguel_, they call me Mike or Michael as that is my name. There are different attitudes culturally as to whether to transliterate or to find equivalents.

Anyway, I would go with بول for Paul, but perhaps even  پول with the Persian letter پ (peh) will be recognized? (I've seen ads using the letters گ and ڤ before.)


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## elroy

بولس is the Arabic version of Paul.  If you're looking for a transliteration, Clevermizo's suggestions are both good.

Sarah is سارة and Jane is spelled جين in Arabic (so no ا, Josh).


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## Josh_

To me جين would be Jean, or there is at least ambiguity as to whether it is Jean or Jane.  You would have to add a fatHa over the jiim in order to clear up the ambiguity.  My transliteration (whether right or wrong), I believe, best represents the sound of the name.  For what it's worth it appears 83,000 times on Google.  Here is a wikipedia article on Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII.


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## elroy

I personally know an Arab Jane and that's how she spells it: جين.  A fat7a would not be used, because the name is pronounced [jeen] in spoken Arabic (rhyming with بين, "between").  Yes, it could theoretically be Jean too, but that's simply a limitation of written Arabic - it does not contain separate graphemes for every phoneme used in colloquial Arabic.  It's also impossible to differentiate between [keef] meaning "fun" and [kiif] meaning "how" using the Arabic script.  In any case, جاين looks very strange to me and does not reflect the Arabic pronunciation of the name.


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## Cristina Moreno

For what it's worth, I've also an Arab friend called Jane and she spells her name like Josh has mentionned earlier. And as strange as جاين looks to you elroy, جين looks to me. Anyway, maybe it's a regional thing, seeing your description of its pronunciation because over here in Lebanon we pronounce it exactly the same as it is in English.


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## avok

clevermizo said:


> Sarah was the first wife of Abraham, just for the record. However, it depends on whether or not we are finding native _equivalents _for the names or simply transliterating them.
> 
> For example, my cousins in Colombia do not call me _Miguel_, they call me Mike or Michael as that is my name. There are different attitudes culturally as to whether to transliterate or to find equivalents.
> 
> Anyway, I would go with Èæá for Paul, but perhaps even æá with the Persian letter  (peh) will be recognized? (I've seen ads using the letters  and ڤ before.)


 

Oh yes you are right...Abraham's wife...anyway if it is not off-topic, can somebody tell me the Arabic version of the name "sarah" ? in latin script...


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## elroy

Cristina Moreno said:


> Anyway, maybe it's a regional thing, seeing your description of its pronunciation because over here in Lebanon we pronounce it exactly the same as it is in English.


 It probably is a regional difference, but are you sure the Lebanese pronunciation is identical to the English one?

Does your pronunciation of Jane rhyme with your pronunciation of بين?  If so, then it is not identical to the English pronunciation, and it is not surprising that you would use an ا since you pronounce it with a diphthong.  Sorry, I shouldn't have said "spoken Arabic" but "spoken Palestinian Arabic."


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## elroy

avok said:


> can somebody tell me the Arabic version of the name "sarah" ? in latin script...


 It is pronounced [saara], as in Spanish.


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## Cristina Moreno

elroy said:


> It probably is a regional difference, but are you sure the Lebanese pronunciation is identical to the English one?


 
Yes, I'm sure (at least in my region)



> Does your pronunciation of Jane rhyme with your pronunciation of بين?


 
Nope... as I said earlier, over here (or at least in my region) we pronounce it EXACTLY the same as it is in English.

Regards 
Cristina


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## elroy

Thanks for the information, Cristina.   That's interesting.  In that case, though, I find the ا somewhat odd, since it doesn't correspond to the right vowel sound, but I suppose that it's used for one, or both, of the following reasons:

-It shows that there is a diphthong.
-It is used because the English contains an _a_, and ا is often used to represent that letter, even if the pronunciations don't match.


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## Joannes

clevermizo said:


> ڤ


What sound does that one represent? And in what language? I'm guessing it's supposed to be a /v/, but I thought Persian and Urdu used a waw for it. [edit:] And now I'm sure about that  [/edit]


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## elroy

Joannes said:


> What sound does that one represent? And in what language? I'm guessing it's supposed to be a /v/, but I thought Persian and Urdu used a waw for it. [edit:] And now I'm sure about that  [/edit]


 I'm not sure what all Persian and Urdu use for what, but I can tell you that ڤ is commonly used in Arabic to represent /v/ in borrowed words or transliterations.


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## Josh_

elroy said:


> Thanks for the information, Cristina.   That's interesting.  In that case, though, I find the ا somewhat odd, since it doesn't correspond to the right vowel sound, but I suppose that it's used for one, or both, of the following reasons:
> 
> -It shows that there is a diphthong.
> -It is used because the English contains an _a_, and ا is often used to represent that letter, even if the pronunciations don't match.


I think it is to show the diphthong.  I sort of misspoke in my last post.  I meant to say that I believe جاين is the better transliteration منعًا لأي ambiguity, not that it necessarily represents the _exact_ pronunciation. I believe that foreign words are best represented by long vowels in Arabic in order to avoid ambiguity.  That was my thought behind my transliteration of جاين instead of جين .


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## clevermizo

elroy said:


> Thanks for the information, Cristina.   That's interesting.  In that case, though, I find the ا somewhat odd, since it doesn't correspond to the right vowel sound, but I suppose that it's used for one, or both, of the following reasons:
> 
> -It shows that there is a diphthong.
> -It is used because the English contains an _a_, and ا is often used to represent that letter, even if the pronunciations don't match.



I assume جاين works in Lebanese because except after emphatics, ـا is pronounced [ee] (كتاب kteeb). This is الإمالة. (The more extreme case is Maltese, [ktieb]). So in جاين you have the sequence [jein] (I'm not transcribing them as long vowels because I don't think long/short is so meaningful in transliteration of non-Arabic words). بين I would assume is normally pronounced [bayn] in Lebanese and not [been] as in Palestinian/Syrian (Lebanese maintains the normal fus7a values for the sequences ـَي and ـَو whereas these become [ee] and [oo] elsewhere in the region). Thus while جاين and بين are [jayn] and [been] respectively in Palestinian, they are [jein] and [bayn] in Lebanese. Just my guess.


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## elroy

Josh_ said:


> I believe that foreign words are best represented by long vowels in Arabic in order to avoid ambiguity.


 I assumed as much, Josh.  That's a good _rule of thumb_, but there are exceptions, and the best transliteration should be chosen on a case-by-case basis. As we all know, transliteration of foreign names is an area with considerable flexibility, so it's hard, if not impossible, to lay down any concrete rules for it. 





clevermizo said:


> I assume جاين works in Lebanese because except after emphatics, ـا is pronounced [ee] (كتاب kteeb). This is الإمالة. (The more extreme case is Maltese, [ktieb]). So in جاين you have the sequence [jein] (I'm not transcribing them as long vowels because I don't think long/short is so meaningful in transliteration of non-Arabic words). بين I would assume is normally pronounced [bayn] in Lebanese and not [been] as in Palestinian/Syrian (Lebanese maintains the normal fus7a values for the sequences ـَي and ـَو whereas these become [ee] and [oo] elsewhere in the region). Thus while جاين and بين are [jayn] and [been] respectively in Palestinian, they are [jein] and [bayn] in Lebanese. Just my guess.


 That's a very plausible theory. I would only like to remark that although vowel length isn't usually phonemic in foreign words, جاين would be pronounced [jaayn], which is quite different from [jeen]. That's probably the reason that spelling doesn't sit well with me.


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## Joannes

elroy said:


> I'm not sure what all Persian and Urdu use for what, but I can tell you that ڤ is commonly used in Arabic to represent /v/ in borrowed words or transliterations.


Danku. En ik zal nu maar een nieuw onderwerp maken voor mijn volgende off-topic vraag.


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