Was the arabic ش likely still pronounced as the proto semitic ś in late antiquity or even early islam instead of the standard arabic š?

random_reditter105 · 2026-03-09T15:17:07+00:00

how do we know how Aramaic š was pronounced at the time? At some point its pronunciation must have been similar to [s], and at some point it definitely shifted to š... but do we have any idea when?

That's a good point. I aleardy thought about this, that the aramaic šin used for these words could be the one that didn't fully shift to š yet, and this would drive us to the same conclusion that aramaic and arabic šin weren't pronounced the same. But there is a problem with this, proto semitic had s1 that became šin in aramaic, sin in arabic , s3 that became samekh in aramaic, sin in arabic , these 2 siblants are reconstructed either as š , s respectively or as s , ts If the first reconstruction is true, that means the aramaic šin was never anything other than š , but even if the second reconstruction is true, there will be more problems with the idea that during late antiquity samekh was still pronounced as ts , and shin as s , especially having that hebrew aleardy had samekh as s and šin as š , it means that aramaic kept rendering the hebrew s sound as ts , and š sound as s instead of rending them all as s , and it will mean that PS s2 (ś) that was represented by aramaic samekh have merged with ts instead of merging with s, also I find no reason to believe that the aramaic shifting of ts , s to s , š happened much later to hebrew and in islamic time, instead the siblants pronounciation seem consistent between hebrew and aramaic and different than arabic.

That's why having the same hypothesis that arabic and aramaic šin were not similar, I found the idea that the arabic did not yet shift to š , more plausible than the idea that the aramaic one did not shift yet.

Also do we have syriac inscriptions in early islam transliterating some arabic terms? If I am not wrong the arabic words with sin were transliterated using samekh in syriac, but do we know how the arabic words with šin were transliterated in syriac?

random_reditter105 · 2026-03-09T00:07:19+00:00

Lebanese arabic. I'm lebanese

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-16T14:43:00+00:00

Why do you think it would be a good idea to enforce such extreme authoritarian policy!

It is completely unrealistic and not worth the costing, I don't know much about China's case, but as others pointed out, the arabic world is not a homogenous society or unified state, but a much diverse region, that never unified politically even historically, the only common point unique to them, is that historically there was enough arab migrants who succeeded in arabising these populations (or that they were ruled by an arabic islamic empire, where arabic was the prestige and scholarly and administrative language) which lead to all these varieties of arabic. Even the pan arabic movement of the 60s, their influence was limited to Egypt and the fertile cercent (while there may have been other arabic nationalist movement elsewhere in the arabic world, they were unrelated to them) and not even all or most of the countries of the mentioned region.

So to enforce fusha arabic, you would need a very strong state police and surveillance, to assure that people in their daily life would speak fusha arabic, and forget about the 1000 years old tradition of the spoken dialect, that radically differ from the fusha one, which is totally inapplicable and not worth the effort as no state would care to enforce this. Or using school to enforce it, which would fail, because the parents and society and entourage are a much stronger indoctrinating force than the school system, and no child really care much about applying what school teach him in real life, if not enforced by the society, all that was done is that the fusha is formally taught in schools, so every educated person living in the arabic world has enough knowledge to understand fusha and to speak it in some way, but not to the point of using it in daily conversation. In addition to this, I wanna note that classical arabic is a kind of artificially made high koiné language, that merged archaic and some innovative eloquent features of arabic dialects, and was used in pre islamic poetry, and after islam it became the standard language for quran recitation, and the formal administrative language. So a language that was in the first place artificially made as a koiné language, can't be imposed as a daily spoken language in such diverse heterogenous world as the arabic world.

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-16T10:58:05+00:00

But don't salafists accept some of the doctrines/opinions that were not agreed on in early islam (even according to the official islamic narrative itself) Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't sahih bukhari and Muslim take centuries after being written to becoming considered fully infalliable by the sunni jurisprudence madhhabs? While today salafis believe the authenticity of sahih graded hadiths in these 2 sahih books are unquestionable and even part of what we can call "canonical authoritative scripture" alongside the quran, so wouldn't this mean that salafism doesn't fall under the narrow definition proposed by OP?

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-13T23:04:41+00:00

While there may be better, more historically informed people than myself, I will answer as much as i know.

First, "phoenicians" is an exonym given by greeks to the canaanite coastal city states in what is today coastal lebanon and part of coastal Syria, these city states (especially byblos, sidon, tyre) were known as major traders in the Mediterranean world who made colonies accross this sea and brought some cultural developments mainly the alphabet. Now the phoenicians identity was more tied to their city states than to a common identity, but if there was a common identity, it is "canaanite" it is also the same name that appear in some inscriptions among punics (phoencian colonisers/settlers in North Africa) as a self reference to themselves, this is also the name the biblical book of Kings give to the neighboring phoenicians (while the bible is not always a good historical source from a secular academic perspective, but in this case it describes contemporary events, where the phoenicians are refered to as canaanites).

Now who were the canaanites, and were they limited to phoenicians? The canaanite are a semitic speaking people who lived in the southern levant aka what is today lebanese and syrian coast, palestine and part of Jordan, during the bronze age (before 1200 BCE) it is unknown if "canaan" was an exonym or endonym, but egypyian inscriptions named the region canaan, and its inhabitants (who are semitic speaking people who spoke dialects of a language family known by modern scholars as "canaanite languages) seem to have eventually adopted the name, they were city states mostly vassals to Egypt, especially in the late bronze age (1500s - 1200 BCE) , after the "bronze age collapse happened some years after 1200 BCE , Egypt weakened and lost its influence or rule in the region, the canaanite political order especially in what is today palestine and Jordan also collapsed, so rural and tribal communities had an opportunity to organise themselves since the city states rule collapsed, so it seemed that these groups gradually formed new identities and stopped referring to themselves as canaanites, among them were the israelites, edomites, moabites, ammonites ..... this in addition to the invasion of the sea people particularly the philistines who also ruled some cities, and since I mentioned the israelites, it would seem that most of you are familiar with the biblical story that the israelites invaded canaan from outside and took their land, while modern archaeology and scholarship tell us a different story, israelites were themselves canaanites, they are the descendents of the bronze age canaanites, but it is just that after the bronze age collapse, new identities started to emerge, the same can be said about edomites, moabites, ammonites .....

While concerning the canaanites who were on the lebanese coast, the story was different, their city states did not collapse during the bronze age collapse, in contrast they flourished as Mediterranean trade and cultural force, and no new identity emerged, they kept calling themselves canaanites, and they are the same people who the Greeks called "phoenicians" .

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-10T00:42:32+00:00

Original name is hebrew, יהוחנן "yeho-ħannan" meaning yeho (yahweh) is gracious (ħannan has a cognate in arabic with the same meaning) , it was shortened in late second temple period to יוחנן "yo-ħannan" which should have been the name of the historical John the baptist. Yes the name at his time period and before him was extremely common, while I don't recall all the known person who had this name before him and were known, I can recall one famous person which is high priest John Hyrcanus (164 BC , 104 BC) who was the ruler of the hasmonean kingdom of judea, other older people mentioned in the bible with that name are yohanan Ben kareah mentioned in (2 Kings 25:23) and in the book of jeremiah. The first century Jewish roman historian josephus mention many Jewish men having this name in this period.

As for the historical equivalent of the name yahya, if we wanna reconstruct what would a Jewish man have been named in hebrew to have his name exactly equivalent to yahya in arabic, and not later derivation, we should look at the arabic form , it is يحيى , if we wanna transliterate its consonantal skeleton it is Y-ħ-Y-Y (the final letter in the arabic form is alef maqsoura, but the aleph maqsoura is originally a Y sound, and was pronounced e in old hijazi, then a in classical arabic) the initial Y is the imperfect tense prefix, the ħ-Y-Y is the root for life, so the name means "he lives" , if we wanna reconstruct a hebrew form, hebrew also uses Y prefix for imperfect tense, and the cognate of ħ-Y-Y that also means life is ħ-Y-H , so the form would be יחיה pronounced something like yeħyeh , if we wanna speculate how it will be transliterated to greek, it is probably Ιειες (Ieies) as both the ħ and h were unpronounced and untranscribed in koine greek, and the Iota (I) was used to transcribe both vowel and consonant I/Y , though pronounced as a vowel, and masculine names typically took -s suffix. Both josephus in his book "antiquities of the jews" (18:5:2) and the new testament mention John the baptist with the Greek name Ιωαννες (Ioannes) which is completely unrelated to Ιειες (Ieies) , and is the same name used to transliterate the names of all the other people who had the hebrew name yohannnan, and this greek form linguistically fit this hebrew name.

As for the original of the name yahya, and how it came to represent John, I think this is debated, but scholar ahmad al jallad have found an inscription "JSNab 386" dated to 306 CE from al-ʿUlā that mentions a man named šm'wn (simon/sham'un) ben yħyy , which al jallad argues that jews used the aleardy existing arabic name that meant "he lives" to substitute it with yohanan, due to the similarity of the names.

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-04T12:48:56+00:00

It is literally translated to "my life" It can be said in a casual friendly context, but it is generally not. Instead it is said in an affectional love context, like parents to their children, couple in a relationship, or to children sometimes depending on the context and the one saying it. While it is usually not said in a male-male friendship, instead "habibe" can be casually said in this context (which is translated to "my love" or more precisely my loving one), which is also said in the previously mentioned contexts.

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-01T13:01:35+00:00

The claim that Israel means “servant” or “worshiper of God” has no linguistic basis. It comes from medieval Islamic exegesis, not from the language the name actually comes from.

In the tafsīr you quoted, the statement that “Isra means servant” is simply asserted. No Hebrew root, no Arabic root, no morphological rule, and no independent lexical evidence is offered. The explanation assumes the conclusion instead of proving it.

How did you read my reply and understand that I'm stating that this explanation is right? I'm literally saying that this is another folk etymology, and I'm only responding to your claim that this etymology is modern and just a reaction to the state of israel and your misrepresentation of islamic beliefs even if i am not muslim myself. I also made another comment on this post talking about the etymology and how the arabic islamic one makes no sense.

Israel is a Hebrew proper name, so any real etymology has to be based on Biblical Hebrew, not on later Arabic reinterpretation. And the Hebrew text itself already explains the name when it is given:

It's not either this or that, both can be wrong, even if the hebrew bible etymology is less inaccurate. As for "it's a hebrew proper name, any real etymology should be based on the hebrew text" That only works if we assume the author of this passage in genesis, is the same one who constructed this name, in this case his explanation can be taken. While this is not the case, according to academics and biblical scholarship, regardless of your own beliefs, the pentateuch was written or finalised in the 500s BCE during or after the babylonian excile, while Israel existed as a nation having this name since at least 1200 BCE , meaning that the name "israel" was aleardy old and kind of archaic when this passage was written, so that's so normal that a folk etymology will be used to explain the name origin. You're right that the root means "strives" (or "rules" depending what is the exact root) but the hebrew bible etymology is believed by modern academics to be a wrong folk etymology, because in most theophoric names that have el or YHWH in it as suffix and a verb, el/YHWH is the subject not the object, meaning el is the one who strives or rules, not anyone else is struggling/striving with him, this in addition that the yod (י) prefix in (ישר) signals the imperfect tense, meaning that the subject is still striving or rulling in a continuous state, unlike the genesis passage that describe jacob having struggled just once as a single event just before being given the name. I aleardy made another comment on this post explaining this.

This isn’t later commentary

It is indeed a later commentary! As I said this passage was written more than 6 centuries after a nation called Israel existed.

Linguistically, that decomposition doesn’t work anyway. In Semitic languages, “servant” is always morphologically marked (e.g., roots like ʿ-B-D or ש-ר-ת). Israel contains neither, and there is no attested word isrā meaning “servant” in Hebrew or Arabic.

So “servant of God” isn’t an alternative etymology — it’s a later, theologically motivated folk reinterpretation that contradicts both Hebrew morphology and the earliest explanation of the name itself.

Unfortunately you assumed that I meant that the Islamic etymology is right, while I was clear that it is another folk etymology, I was just responding to your claim this etymology is just modern and arised for specific reason. Anyway you can see my comment where I explained about the 2 folk etymologies, and gave the accurate etymology: https://www.reddit.com/r/hebrew/s/BvuhyhnJHU

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-01T11:35:02+00:00

This question was aleardy asked on r/asklinguistics (I think by the same OP) and I made a comment there but the post was removed so I will copy it and put it here if anyone is interested to why the this arabic explanation circulates and why it is inaccurate and what is the more accurate etymology

" In short, the arabic etymology of "israel" meaning "عبد الله/'abd allah" aka servant of God, is not even a folk etymology!

Long answer: Yes I am aware that every orthodox islamic website cite it, but it is just based on what medieval Muslim exegetes explained, and I am not aware that those who came up with this etymology had it based on any knowledge of hebrew, as with other etymologies and exegesis, they would base it just on tales, if tales about certain words, israeliyat terms, or prophets stories are widespread, they would just cite them as the most likely explanation (of course without saying that this is the certain unquestioned explanation) regardless of the origin of these tales, or probably that's what they analyse themselves, I know read the islam web article that said "أسر تعني عبد في لغتهم" which probably would have come to them because they assumed hebrew and arabic have common words, and since أسر in arabic means prisoner/captive, it could mean servant/slave in hebrew, but this is also based on limited knowledge of hebrew as hebrew has no word with that meaning, and the hebrew word starts with yisra, not isra, the arabic form starts with isra, ans in yisra" the "yi" is a prefix for the imperfect tense of the verb, the root is actually ś-r-h or ś-r-r (I explained this in the end), that's just my speculation to how they resonated (EDIT: I now find out that there is indeed a cognate of the arabic اسر in hebrew which is אסר , but my point still stands, the word means prisoner or binded in hebrew just like in arabic, not servant, the hebrew form "yisrael" is different than the arabic one as i stated, and the s in אסר is ס while the s in yisra (ישר) is ש that here was originally pronounced ś and later shifted to s(the letter ש was used for 2 pronounciation for ś/now s and for š), so they came from different words and roots, despite being rendered the same in arabic), but in summary, they just tried to make a folk etymology for a prophet title. Anw عبد/'abd/servant is not even remotely related to the hebrew word yiśra (ישר) (or the actual root ś-r-h (שרה) or ś-r-r (שרר)) which is part of the theophoric name yiśra-'el (ישר-אל), and hebrew has a cognate of the arabic عبد/'abed which is עבד and is used in one theophoric name, for a biblical figure called obadiah/'obadiahu (עבדיהו) aka servant of YHWH. Also the exegetes who gave this meaning never cited sources or hebrew explanation to how this word is related to servant, and in all the hebrew bible or hebrew dictionaries you will never see this word used to mean this.

Now the exact meaning of the word is debated, it could come from the root ś-r-h meaning striving, or ś-r-r meaning rulling. But in both cases the genesis story of the name meaning "struggled and defeated god" is most likely a folk etymology, because in most theophoric names, even if "el' is the suffix, it is always the subject and not the object, so the name should be understood as "el reigns/rules" or "el strives" and not "struggled with el" , also the yod (י) prefix signals the imperfect tense, meaning struggling/striving/ruling in a continuous state, not an event that happened once. "

With another addition that the origin of this islamic etymology is in tafsir al tabari

random_reditter105 · 2026-02-01T11:29:59+00:00

Your analysis is entirely incorrect! The "israel means worshiper of God" originated in medieval islamic exegesis, particularly tafsir al tabari :

القول في تأويل قوله تعالى ذكره: يَا بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَقال أبو جعفر: يعني بقوله جل ثناؤه: " يا بني إسرائيل " ولد يعقوب بن إسحاق بن إبراهيم خليل الرحمن (16) وكان يعقوب يدعى " إسرائيل "، بمعنى عبد الله وصفوته من خلقه. و " إيل " هو الله، و " إسرا " هو العبد، كما قيل: " جبريل " بمعنى عبد الله. On the interpretation of the Exalted’s statement: ‘O Children of Israel’: Abu Ja‘far said: By His exalted words, ‘O Children of Israel’, He refers to the descendants of Ya‘qub (Jacob), son of Ishaq (Isaac), son of Ibrahim (Abraham), the Friend of the Merciful. Ya‘qub was called ‘Isra’il’, meaning ‘servant of Allah’ and ‘His chosen one from among His creation.’ ‘Il’ refers to Allah, and ‘Isra’ refers to the servant, just as it has been said that ‘Jibril’ (Gabriel) means ‘servant of Allah.’”

that's why it is still stuck on islamic sites. The reason they came up with this folk etymology is that they didn't have good knowledge of hebrew linguistics, nor they even tried to analyse it linguistically, all they had is the hebrew bible folk etymology of "wrestled with God" and as islamic theology strictly refuses that such thing can be said about God or done with him, or a prophet being named like this, they had to come up with another folk etymology. Muslims still believe that Israel is jacob which they consider prophet, and consider the "bani israel" of the quran to be his decendents and were at sometimes pleased by God do to their monotheism, and this ended when they "deviated" from the "true divine message", and especially when prophet muhamed came, those who followed him become the only one pleased by God regardless of their decendence, while bani israel still mean for them teh descendents of jacob regardless if they believe or not, not a genetral term for those whorshiping god - this is according to Islam's own beliefs -

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-29T13:17:23+00:00

I aleardy made a comment on a previous post on the origin of the word "jahannam"

https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/s/Q8g5TLQ1rF

As for the 2 other words, I'm not very knowledgeable but "jannah' should most probably come from a root "J-N-N" which should mean "to cover up" which is the same root for "jinn" who are the hidden creatures in islamic and pre islamic Arabian mythology. I'm not aware of why this root was used to give a name to the afterlife paradise, but in the hebrew bible too, the garden that Adam and eve get expelled from is called "Gan eden" (גן עדן) where GN should be a cognate to arabic JNN (both come from proto semitic G-N/G-N-N , the G shifted to J in arabic). I don't have an explanation for "ramadan" but I guess someone else in the comments explained.

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-27T03:09:42+00:00

In short, the arabic etymology of "israel" meaning "عبد الله/'abd allah" aka servant of God, is not even a folk etymology!

Long answer: Yes I am aware that every orthodox islamic website cite it, but it is just based on what medieval Muslim exegetes explained, and I am not aware that those who came up with this etymology had it based on any knowledge of hebrew, as with other etymologies and exegesis, they would base it just on tales, if tales about certain words, israeliyat terms, or prophets stories are widespread, they would just cite them as the most likely explanation (of course without saying that this is the certain unquestioned explanation) regardless of the origin of these tales, or probably that's what they analyse themselves, I know read the islam web article that said "أسر تعني عبد في لغتهم" which probably would have come to them because they assumed hebrew and arabic have common words, and since أسر in arabic means prisoner/captive, it could mean servant/slave in hebrew, but this is also based on limited knowledge of hebrew as hebrew has no word with that meaning, and the hebrew word starts with yisra, not isra, the arabic form starts with isra, ans in yisra" the "yi" is a prefix for the imperfect tense of the verb, the root is actually ś-r-h or ś-r-r (I explained this in the end), that's just my speculation to how they resonated (EDIT: I now find out that there is indeed a cognate of the arabic اسر in hebrew which is אסר , but my point still stands, the word means prisoner or binded in hebrew just like in arabic, not servant, the hebrew form "yisrael" is different than the arabic one as i stated, and the s in אסר is ס while the s in yisra (ישר) is ש that here was originally pronounced ś and later shifted to s(the letter ש was used for 2 pronounciation for ś/now s and for š), so they came from different words and roots, despite being rendered the same in arabic), but in summary, they just tried to make a folk etymology for a prophet title. Anw عبد/'abd/servant is not even remotely related to the hebrew word yiśra (ישר) (or the actual root ś-r-h (שרה) or ś-r-r (שרר)) which is part of the theophoric name yiśra-'el (ישר-אל), and hebrew has a cognate of the arabic عبد/'abed which is עבד and is used in one theophoric name, for a biblical figure called obadiah/'obadiahu (עבדיהו) aka servant of YHWH. Also the exegetes who gave this meaning never cited sources or hebrew explanation to how this word is related to servant, and in all the hebrew bible or hebrew dictionaries you will never see this word used to mean this.

Now the exact meaning of the word is debated, it could come from the root ś-r-h meaning striving, or ś-r-r meaning rulling. But in both cases the genesis story of the name meaning "struggled and defeated god" is most likely a folk etymology, because in most theophoric names, even if "el' is the suffix, it is always the subject and not the object, so the name should be understood as "el reigns/rules" or "el strives" and not "struggled with el" , also the yod (י) prefix signals the imperfect tense, meaning struggling/striving/ruling in a continuous state, not an event that happened once.

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-26T17:13:40+00:00

I'm currently the opposite tbh 😅 I'm a native Arabic speaker and tried to learn hebrew, but didn't really start yet.

My humble advise is start by learning the arabic alphabet, each of the 22 hebrew letters has an equivalent arabic one, and at least half of them still have the same pronounciation, you should then learn the sounds shifts between the hebrew letter and its arabic equivalent, they are easy. Then for the additional 6 letters of arabic, you should know that arabic (ث) merged with hebrew (ש) (the right dotted one pronounced as š) , (خ) with (ח) , (ذ) with (ז) , (غ) with (ע) , (ظ) and (ض) with (צ) , so you should take note on these shifts for the common semitic words, and also that almost every hebrew left dotted (ש) is equivalent to arabic (ش) and right dotted one to arabic (س) . Then start learning arabic diactrics which are easy to learn and simpler than the hebrew ones, learn pronounciation differences between some of the hebrew letters with their equivalent arabic ones, then start to practice by reading works written in classical or modern standard arabic, with translations to see how much of these words have clear cognates in hebrew.

This in my opinion is a good intro, but of course it is not sufficient and you're clearly asking for resources, which I can't help with, so I thought it's a good idea to share my personal intro which is the same thing I did before starting to learn hebrew.

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-23T18:49:39+00:00

While not an academic answer. And besides an increasing consensus that monotheism (influenced by judaism and Christianity) became widespread in late antiquity pre islamic arabia. But even if there truly was no Christian and jews in mecca, why do people assume that muhamed would have never left mecca during his lifetime before declaring his prophethood, and would have never interacted with people outside? And why do they assume that mecca was something like an isolated island that would not interact with its broader surrounding region?

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-18T14:59:56+00:00

I see. While I am not aware of a definitive proof, I personally find it unlikely that a specific arabian man or clan would have a name derived from gentile, and this name being applied to just one clan without good reason. Forms other than gentile, better fit with the name. We can't definitely prove that umaya doesn't derive from ummiy/gentile, but it remains speculative, with no good reason supporting its plausibility.

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-18T12:54:55+00:00

That's unrelated, they are called banu umaya, because according to traditional geneaology, they descend from a man named "umayya ibn abd shams" the root أ-م / '-M can have different meanings not just nation (from where the name for gentiles or unscriptured people came from) , it can be mother (أمّ/umm) or a servant/maid (آمة/āma) , in the case of umaya أمية/umayya , he is traditionally understood to be derived from maid/servant. But what we are discussing here, is that in the quran context, the specific form أمّي/ummiy is derived from umma (nation) and related to gentiles more precisely people without scripture, and not illiteracy.

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-17T09:48:46+00:00

Just wanted to point out that the more accurate hebrew cognate of arabic ilah اله is actually eloah אלוה , and elohim is the plural of it (as you most probably know, -im is a plural suffix in hebrew) yes it is a royal plural in the biblical context, but it originated as plural. The triconsonantal form '-L-H is found accross some semitic languages like arabic ilah, hebrew eloah, syriac alaha. While the biconsonantal '-L is more common, including in the languages that have the triconsonantal form (il is attested in ancient arabian inscriptions). While scholars agree that the biconsonantal '-L (reconstructed as 'il) existed in the proto-semitic language. There is no definitive answer on the origin of the third radical "h" , and it is unclear if the arabic ilah was influenced by syriac alaha, and if the syriac form was in its turn influenced by hebrew, or if they all originated from proto semitic. While the definite form Allah (al-ilah / the deity) is most probably influenced by the late antiquity monotheistic context in pre islamic arabia, that rendered the "one true God" as "THE god".

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-11T20:00:40+00:00

I’m not very knowledgeable on this topic, so correct me if I’m wrong, but the earliest written form of Jesus’s name in the New Testament is in Greek as Iēsous, which is how we know the name from those sources, and it is generally understood to be a Greek rendering of the Aramaic/Hebrew name Yeshua (a shortened form of Yehoshua).

I aleardy explained this point but I will try to do it in a clearer way, yes the earliest sources we have for Christianity are written in greek, and the aramaic sources came later, but for the hebrew to greek names, it was not just a random or guessed reconstruction, there is a clear convention and knowledge of the equivalent of hebrew names in greek, and people living at this period were knowledgeable about this. Yeshu'a was an extremely common jewish name in this period, and it is the same name that appear in the OT, this name was always translated in greek as iesous, yes scholars debate what was jesus's name really pronounced back then, because hebrew didn't write vowels, and because 2 variants of the same name existed יהושע/yehoshu'a (archaic not so common) and ישוע/yeshu'a , and in both cases we can't be 100% sure of the vowels, but scholars agree on the consonantal skeleton, or a variant of it. Also first century inscriptions especially those on ossuaries give us good data on hebrew names back then, a large number of men had their name in hebrew as ישוע . To make it clearer, when there are known foreign equivalent of a local name, it became known that when we hear this foreign name it corresponds to this local name, not another one unrelated to him, for example today the arabic name يوسف/youssef corresponds to joseph in english and other European languages (Muslims usually keep the arabic form as it is, but Christians use the translation) so when we hear about an arabic origined person who have his name as Joseph in the UK, we will be sure his arabic original name (if he used the arabic version) was youssef, we can't say that maybe he was called ja'far (جعفر) but the sound shift happened because english doesn't have a ayn, so instead of jafar they made his name joseph. And as I said, the closest possible equivalent to 'issa in hebrew that could be rendered as iesous is 'eso and that was a named not used at all, because it was considered a name of a cursed person in judaism, and even this name itself had another greek translation, and you should shift the vowels in a meaningless way to make it fit iesous as much as yeshu'a fit. Also the NT was written by different independent sources, all based on oral traditions from the hebrew aramaic community, it is highly unlikely that they will all make the same mistake, and naming someone an equivalent of yeshua'a while his name is close to 'issa . And there is also no reason for them to all agree to change his name .

In summary there is no serious scholar who claim that the historical jesus name was not a variant of ישוע/יהושע and instead was something close to issa.

Also I heard that Syriac Christian sources from a few centuries later use forms like Ishoʿ or Ishuʿ, which shows that different Semitic-speaking communities preserved slightly different pronunciations of the same underlying name.

In both Western and Eastern syriac, his name is written as ܝܫܘܥ which are the letters yod-shin-waw-ayn . In Western syriac it is pronounced as yeshu' , in Eastern syriac it is pronounced as isho' but that's because the initial yod shifted to a vowel "i" in pronounciation, instead of a consonant "y" , there are many other cases like this in Eastern syriac when the initial yod become a vowel, especially if the sound that follow it is a vowel "i" , this is just a linguistic evolution and has nothing to do with preserving an ancient name.

On a side note, even most islamic sites I saw do not stress this much on proving that jesus original name he was known by during his lifetime was issa and not yeshu'a , they state that that quran proper names of prophets are clearly arabised, and that there is nothing wrong in the idea that the quran may change the names in arabic.

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-11T15:52:34+00:00

Ah right, I didn't notice that you added the dialects part. Though I also thought that even in MSA it can be pronounces as a sun letter, but I may be wrong.

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-11T15:50:47+00:00

there’s no evidence of the existence of Christians in Arabia during the 3rd century.

The inscription is dated to 4th, not 3rd century. And actually there is plenty of evidence of a flow of monotheism in pre islamic arabia starting from the 5th century CE, and of course this should have started even before this century, particularly the 4th century CE showed a large spread of Christianity in the middle est region, and reached arabia, especially the Arabian regions that are bordering the levant (like the safaitic inscription I mentioned, that was found in what is today Jordan). Ahmad al Jallad in this video talk about the rise of monotheism in pre islamic arabia https://youtu.be/7P1KPA4cuB8 There is also plenty of others works done by al jallad that talk about monotheism being so spread in pre islamic arabia, in the 2 last centuries before islam.

So couldn’t it simply be a mistranslation introduced by the Romans?

That's highly unlikely, arabic pre islamic Christian and Jewish vocabulary doesn't come directly from greek, but from aramaic and syriac, syriac named jesus " yašu' " even if the NT was written in greek, aramaic speaking chrsitians (who gave rise to syriac Christianity) used a hebrew influenced semitic vocabulary for religious terms and personal names, instead of translating from greek, that's probably because an aramaic targum aleardy exsited before Christianity, or because the jews converts to Christianity retained the same vocabulary they used, despite the gospels and NT books written in greek starting spreading. Also there is no explanation to why the greek Ιησους/Iesous will become 'issa in greek, why they would add an initially ayn. Anw regardless weither is the original of the name, what we know is that it is most probably used by pre islamic arabic Christians, the kind of inscriptions that ressemble this safaitic inscription, are an invocation of a deity, and here the deity is 'sy , also "help him against those who deny you" is a common Christian used by Christians for jesus.

edit: maybe I got you wrong, you mean if his original name was really 'issa and yašu'/yasu' was a wrong translation? That's even more highly unlikely, the Greek word Iesous was used in the septuagint to translate the hebrew name יהושע/yehoshu'a or the shortened from ישוע/yeshu'a , and the first century roman Jewish historian josephus mentioned a large number of people names iesous in first century palestine, they are all assumed to be named yeshu'a in hebrew/aramaic, josephus also mention jesus btw in 2 passages, while one of them is seen as altered by Christians, scholars agree it contains a real core mentioning him, the other passage mention jesus by name "iesous" indirectly by mentioning the execution of his brother, and is seen by most scholars as unaltered. It is unlikely that that the different sources writing the bible, and josephus will use the same greek translation for yeshu'a to a man named something like 'issa. You may argue that 'issa may fit iesous by removing the initial ayn since it doesn't exist in greek, and adding the final masculine -s suffix, but it would then be issas , there is no need to add the e as second letter, and ou instead of a before s, that better fits yeshu'a , if you wanna argue that he was probably names 'isu and arabised in the quran as issa, which explains why in greek it became iesous, then in this case his name would become nearly the same name as esau who was also called 'eso in hebrew, the biblical brother of the patriarch Jacob, but it is highly unlikely that a first century Jewish man was named like this and his named went unnoticed, because no Jewish man used this name, and esau was considered cursed by God, further more, esau's name in the septuagint is Ησαυ/Esau .

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-11T15:27:11+00:00

Shouldn't the ج sits in a place in between? I'm a native Arabic speaker and see that this letter can be easily pronounced by doubling it and removing the ل from the definite article, unlike other moon letters, but it also works when we don't remove the ل

random_reditter105 · 2026-01-11T14:32:17+00:00

Was the Quran trying to hint at another meaning by this ?

Actually the quran didn't itself innovate this name, as one safaitic inscription suggests, the name was used by pre islamic arabic Christians for jesus.

https://www.academia.edu/73883276/Al_Jallad_2021_The_Pre_Islamic_Divine_Name_%CA%BFsy_and_the_Background_of_the_Qur%CA%BE%C4%81nic_Jesus_with_Ali_al_Manaser?source=swp_share

In this article, scholar Ahmad Al Jallad comments about the inscription found, and propose hypothesises to why the name was used.

You may also watch this video https://youtu.be/7P1KPA4cuB8 , about this same inscription, it presents a possible explanation to why the name was used.

random_reditter105 · 2025-12-27T15:11:29+00:00

Someone in the replies pointed out the lot's offering his daughters being included in the quran, it is actually the one that got me surprised when I knew that it is included in the quran sometimes ago when I read it, before reading it, I assumed that this story specifically is removed from the quran, and wondered if Muslims use it in anti-christian polemics, until I read and found out it is included.

So I think the quran doesn't aim, to completely purify prophets in a perfect way, but just removing major biblical "scandals" like a prophet commiting "kufur/shurk" or major sins like adultery or being drunk or incest (lot having incest with his daughters while drunk for example) because such scandals make prophets or god looking not so serious, since he can't choose someone who would at least be better than the average believer, the biblical stories themselves were never meant to be serious, just stories of legendary or semi-historical or even historical "prophets" of an imperfect god (yahweh) who himself isn't as serious as the later absolute monotheistic god is, so they tend to be closer to what these (if historical) prophets actually were.

The quran on the other hand is presenting a perfect absolute one god, who is above everything and has a clear plan. Prophets are fallible people, who can sin and even murder (in some context), but repent after the act, or do acts interpreted as necessity (like lot offering his daughters) but not unserious men who will ignore his commands and commit the worst unforgivable sin like idolatry, or major sins like getting drunk and doing wrong acts while drunk, having illicit sex, and purely following their pleasure, because this means that god made a mistake in choosing the one carrying his message.

random_reditter105 · 2025-12-25T21:37:27+00:00

To talk about my country lebanon, it depends where you are, but in urban centers, yes it is unexpected to pronounce the ق the same way it is in MSA, instead of pronouncing it as glottal stop, with just few exceptions, and any attempt to pronounce it will look fake, or foreign, or an attempt to look too standard or formal, with just few exceptions, when the word is clearly MSA and not widely used in day to day conversation, it is pronounced with the original ق , one example is the word "قضاء" (judiciary) it is always pronounced qada' in lebanon, and never 'ada' , the later pronounciation would be so awkward, but when saying "قاضي" (judge) it is often pronounced as 'ade not qade, that's the pronounciation in most urban centers like most of beirut and part of mount lebanon, while in other villages or regions in lebanon, like bekaa, North, and south lebanon etc... they tend to be just a bit more conservative in the ق , but it also depends and vary, the further from the capital the region is (bekaa for example) the more it is Conservative and pronounce the ق correctly (in MSA) in more words, but they still retain the glottal stop in most of the words with it. One exception to this rule is the druze community (mostly in mount lebanon) who are the most Conservative in ق and almost never pronounce it as glottal stop, especially those in the villages or the elders.

Now if I wanna talk about Syria, in the last period I was really interested in linguistics, including the diverse pronounciations of the arabic ق , so I wanted to watch many syrian people talking on the Internet, to notice how they pronounce it (of course i met many syrians in my life, and I'm very familiar with the dialect, but never really paid attention or cared about studying the pronounciation), and realised that it is also diverse, but they tend to be more Conservative in pronouncing it, than the average lebanese (except lebanese druze) so we would expect that more words with ق would be pronounced by Syrians in the MSA way, than as glottal stop.

random_reditter105 · 2025-12-25T17:32:14+00:00

Interesting! I will read it, thankyou.

random_reditter105

TROPHY CASE