In my research I have come across 2 angels with similar names Israfel, the angel of song, and Israfil, the angel of final judgement. Which one was used in Eva, or are the the same angel???

Same angel. The spelling "Israfel" is used in NGE, though.

They're just different ways of rendering it. For instance, you may have seen various versions of character names in Evangelion.

Gendo
Gendoh
Gendou

Gendo's name, if broken down to hiragana, is written with four characters.

ge - n - do - u

The u at end denotes a long vowel. So the o sound at the end of the name is slightly lengthened. The problem is that people romanize the language in different ways.

For instance, in my studies of the language, I would romanize Shinji's name as Sinzi. And words like chotto as tiyotto.

When converting one language to another, especially when dealing with different scripts and mora, you end up with various ways of rendering it. Some people think one way is more appropriate than another, some are more phonetic, some are more logical, and so on and so forth.

The Eva Monkey wrote:For instance, in my studies of the language, I would romanize Shinji's name as Sinzi. And words like chotto as tiyotto.

Honestly, how on Earth can you stand it?

Apparently, converting from Hebrew (assuming that's what "Israfel" was originally written in) can be a bit more wacky than Japanese. From what I recall, "Jahweh" (or "Yahweh") and Jehovah are both transliterations of the exact same word. When dealing with angel names and things of the ilk, there are a LOT of spelling variations about, although I'm honestly not sure if this has to do with the way in which the original Hebrew (or whatever) is transliterated, actual spelling differences from source to source, or both. Certainly, it is a bit more complicated than whether or not one puts a "u" or "h" after "Gendo".

Reichu wrote:

The Eva Monkey wrote:For instance, in my studies of the language, I would romanize Shinji's name as Sinzi. And words like chotto as tiyotto.

Honestly, how on Earth can you stand it?

Yes, there's a BIG problem with "Sinzi": it sounds nothing like what the characters are saying.

Apparently, converting from Hebrew (assuming that's what "Israfel" was originally written in) can be a bit more wacky than Japanese. From what I recall, "Jahweh" (or "Yahweh") and Jehovah are both transliterations of the exact same word.

Yes, but in this particular case it wasn't caused by a transliteration difficulty. They used to, (and some people still do), spell Yahweh with no vowels, Yhwh or Jhvh, in order to make it more difficult to pronounce it accidently. (This was a safeguard against blasphemy, and whether you used Y ow J and V or W depended on which language you were transliterating it into.) What basically happened was that the people who did the earliest translations of the Bible just plain didn't know which vowels to use or where to put them, and they guessed wrong.

thewayneiac wrote:Yes, there's a BIG problem with "Sinzi": it sounds nothing like what the characters are saying.

Depends on your perspective. It's a different transliteration system, and, according to its rules, "Sinzi" is still pronounced the same as "Shinji"; the Japanese phonemes are simply represented by the Roman alphabet differently. Personally, I prefer the more Anglo-friendly system, where the phonemes are represented more directly (i.e., how you say them), rather than symbolically (e.g., writing ち　as "ti" -- rather than "chi" -- because it is part of the たちつてと　sequence, even though it is audibly closer to English's "ch" sound).

Apparently, converting from Hebrew (assuming that's what "Israfel" was originally written in) can be a bit more wacky than Japanese. From what I recall, "Jahweh" (or "Yahweh") and Jehovah are both transliterations of the exact same word.

Yes, but in this particular case it wasn't caused by a transliteration difficulty. They used to, (and some people still do), spell Yahweh with no vowels, Yhwh or Jhvh, in order to make it more difficult to pronounce it accidently. (This was a safeguard against blasphemy, and whether you used Y ow J and V or W depended on which language you were transliterating it into.) What basically happened was that the people who did the earliest translations of the Bible just plain didn't know which vowels to use or where to put them, and they guessed wrong.[/quote]

Reichu wrote:Honestly, how on Earth can you stand it?

I understand that most people use the more phonetical style, but to me

ta ti tu te to

is more logical and intuitive than:

ta chi tsu te to

The Eva Monkey wrote:

Reichu wrote:Honestly, how on Earth can you stand it?

I understand that most people use the more phonetical style, but to me

ta ti tu te to

is more logical and intuitive than:

ta chi tsu te to

But in this case logic and intuition are wildly inaccurate.

The good thing about writing systems that are completely different than ours is that we can transliterate them in a phonetically accurtae manner, a luxury we don't have with other languages that use the Roman alphabet. For instance we are stuck with French's spellings, and they are stuck with ours.

thewayneiac wrote:Yes, there's a BIG problem with "Sinzi": it sounds nothing like what the characters are saying.

The values given to the conventional Latin glyphs vary across the languages that make use of them - the English and German versions of W or V differ substantially. This is without going into the weird and wonderful world of con-langs, like the quirky Ceqli (pron. Chenglee).

thewayneiac wrote:Yes, but in this particular case it wasn't caused by a transliteration difficulty. They used to, (and some people still do), spell Yahweh with no vowels, Yhwh or Jhvh, in order to make it more difficult to pronounce it accidently.

I believe that the use of vowel markings in Hebrew is considered akin to training wheels (like hiragana for Japanese).

The Jewish attitude towards enunciating the tetragrammaton is something different - such as the use of "Adoshem" as a safer form of "Adonai" which itself is a watered down form of the tetragrammaton (or spelling the English form as G*d).

Mr. Tines wrote:I believe that the use of vowel markings in Hebrew is considered akin to training wheels (like hiragana for Japanese).

Don't you mean furigana?

Reichu wrote:

Mr. Tines wrote:I believe that the use of vowel markings in Hebrew is considered akin to training wheels (like hiragana for Japanese).

Don't you mean furigana?

Yes.

Mr. Tines wrote:I believe that the use of vowel markings in Hebrew is considered akin to training wheels (like hiragana for Japanese).

I have also heard this. In addition, I have heard from some hardcore bible scholars (friends of my father) that in many cases there is little way of knowing how ancient Hebrew was actually pronounced, since it is difficult or even sometimes impossible to tell what the vowel sounds would have been, from the way that they are written in scripture.

While I have no direct knowledge of the subject myself, due to my own lack of interest in religious studies of any kind, they also maintain that there are likely to be wide divergences between the way that 'revived' or modern Hebrew is pronounced by modern Israelis and Jewish scholars, and the way in which Ancient Hebrew was pronounced by the Biblical Israelites.

While checking these points to ensure that they were not entirely bogus, I came across this, which may interest anyone with a linguistic bent:

http://www.yrm.org/vowelsqna.htm

It seems to confirm in a loose sense that which I have been told, and which Mr. Tines had previously stated.