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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Hebrew names of 12 Apostles
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Date: Sat, 14 Oct 1995 07:13:24 GMT
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In article <45msp8$526@ixnews3.ix.netcom.com>,
Solomon Taibi  <taibi@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>In <45m0re$ojo@alterdial.UU.NET> "Andrew E. Mathis"
><amathis@mail.newhouse.com> writes: 
>
>>Finally is the question of James the Less. My Catholic brethren will 
>>tell me that he is not the son of Joseph and Mary so he is not, in 
>>Hebrew, Ya'akov ben Yosef.  Protestants contend that he is.  At any 
>>rate, assuming that he is NOT Jesus' "brother," then whose son is he?
>
>"James" in Hebrew is "Ya'akov" ?  I had though it was "Chaim".
>Am I totally wrong, or is there something behind this?

We tackled this on sci.lang some months ago.  Ya'akov -> IACOBVS ->
*Jacomes [cf. Italian Giacomo] -> *Jacmes [cf. Catalan Jaume] -> James.
I may not have the intermediary stages 100% correct (thus the asterixes),
but I hope the progression makes sense.

As far as I know, there is no one name corresponding to "Chaim" in the
European languages.  Iberians tended to translate it (e.g. Vidal <-
VITA "life"); Americans created the Anglicised form "Hyman", possibly
from a Yiddish hypocoristic.  I'll have to check what happened in German 
and Yiddish, but I suspect they generally translated it as well (the 
Yiddish form might be "Leyb", but I can't say for sure).

Chog Same'ach!
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
