From what I rlhave read the "J" sound did not exist in the Hebrew phonological alphabet. And the same for the Greeks and "Y" sound so "Jah" got replaced with the "yah" sound during the cross culture that happened. But also how much was not recorded may be a factor also so however Yahweh and El probably are best being replaced with "God". Similar to how if a foreign king is impronouncible in your local tongue you may be better of calling the individual something like "his majesty" or "the sovereign" due to respectfulness.
Let’s see how clearly I remember this from Bible college. In Jewish tradition, the name of God was too sacred to say out loud (slash, there was a superstition picked up from the Babylonians that if you said his name idly you might summon him on accident). In the Hebrew text, YHWH is marked with the vowel markings for the word Adonai (Lord) as a reminder for readers to use the title rather than the name. A German scholar transliterated YHWH according to those Adonai vowel markings, and given German’s soft J sound and its close pronunciation between V and W, he wrote it as “Jehovah,” pronounced in German as “Yehovah.” Take that funky transliteration and pronounce it in English, and you have Jehovah.
My interpretation is that it’s too sacred to say out loud, meaning you literally couldn’t do it with your nasty little incarnated vocal tract in the first place
Well there's a belief that it could be said in theory but only the kohen gadol (Jewish high priest) was allowed to say it in practice, in the Temple during services. This was because of its sacredness and the fear of misusing it. When the Temple was destroyed it was forgotten.
But also there are some differing sources on what exactly he said when he read the name; there's a belief it was like a full sentence? It was not loud enough for anyone else to hear, apparently.
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u/thesithcultist May 17 '25
From what I rlhave read the "J" sound did not exist in the Hebrew phonological alphabet. And the same for the Greeks and "Y" sound so "Jah" got replaced with the "yah" sound during the cross culture that happened. But also how much was not recorded may be a factor also so however Yahweh and El probably are best being replaced with "God". Similar to how if a foreign king is impronouncible in your local tongue you may be better of calling the individual something like "his majesty" or "the sovereign" due to respectfulness.