Re: [wolfrunners] Languages & SF/F (fwd)

On Sat, 19 Aug 2000, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:

> OTOH I once went to a
> small international church in Athens (I was there for a week on a school
> trip), and the minister?  priest?  what do you call them?  (wasn't raised
> in a Christian family, plus there seem to be a gazillion denominations,
> so I apologize to Christians/religiously-knowledgable people who know the
> terminology)
It varies with the denomination, yes.

> had people read a passage from somewhere in the New
> Testament (can't remember which, alas) in about 7 different languages.
> English was the only one that had an apostle "James."  In all the others,
> it was Jacob (or however it is in Aramaic?).  I had a fit of laughter
> over that one.
What for?  "James" is the English equivalent of Jacob, mediated through
the Latin forms Jacomus < Jacobus.  You might as well complain
because the English Bible refers to the Persian king as
Ahasuerus instead of Artaxerxes (Greek), Akhashverosh (Hebrew) or
I-don't-know-what (Persian).

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
C'est la` pourtant que se livre le sens du dire, de ce que, s'y conjuguant
le nyania qui bruit des sexes en compagnie, il supplee a ce qu'entre eux,
de rapport nyait pas.               -- Jacques Lacan, "L'Etourdit"