Nawatizing Hebrew proper names

On this page I talked in general about how I am transcribing Hebrew into the "English" alphabet in this blog when citing Hebrew words or passages. Here my subject is rather different: what to call people and places in Genesis with Hebrew names in my Nawat translation (and how to spell them). How do you say "Noah", "Joseph" or "Edom" in Nawat?

Given that I am engaged in the first translation of the Bible into the Nawat language and there is no previous native tradition (the church never adopted Nawat as a language of Christian worship), we have a tabula rasa regarding how to render the proper names of the Hebrew bible into Nawat. Now one option would be to work not from the original Hebrew forms of names that occur in the (Hebrew) text we are translating from, but rather from the shapes that have been given to those names by twenty centuries of (primarily Christian) transmission through European languages. Given that one particular European language, Spanish, is the dominant language of El Salvador, and hence also that of all forms of Christian presence in El Salvador, in practice this would mean adopting the Spanish forms of biblical names in Nawat: calling asher "Aser", efráyim "Efraín", esaw "Esaú", xanókh "Enoc", yitzxaq "Isaac", xawa "Eva", m'nashe "Manasés", naxor "Nacor", nóax "Noé", panuel "Fanuel", par‛o "Faraón", péretz "Fares", raxel "Raquel", r'uven "Rubén", shem "Sem", shet "Set", shim‛on "Simeón", s'dom "Sodoma", térax "Taré", ya‛aqov "Jacob", yarden "Jordán", yosef "José", y'huda "Judá", etc.

Introduction: When God began building the sky and the land

The following article is loosely based, with quite a lot of added content and more detailed observations, on two talks I gave at Temple Emanu-El (Reform Jewish) in Honolulu, Hawai'i in October, 2014 in which I discussed with the synagogue's Seniors' Group and the Saturday morning Torah Study Group my personal views of my work translating the Book of Genesis into the Nawat language. I wish to thank Diane Farkas and Ken Aronowitz for their kind invitations to give these talks and to my audiences for their attention and their generous reception of my presentations. This article is also meant to serve in lieu of an "introductory chapter" to the blog which I hope to develop on this site over the coming year.

WHEN God began building the sky and the land	בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ
the land was not yet arranged darkness over depths wind of God fluttering on the face of the water	וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל-פְּנֵי תְהוֹם וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל-פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם
then said God there should be light and there came to be light	וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי אוֹר וַיְהִי-אוֹר
God liked the light God separated light and darkness	וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאוֹר כִּי-טוֹב וַיַּבְדֵּל אֱלֹהִים בֵּין הָאוֹר וּבֵין הַחֹשֶׁךְ
the light he called Day and the darkness he called Night night fell, morning dawned, one day	וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים לָאוֹר יוֹם וְלַחֹשֶׁךְ קָרָא לָיְלָה וַיְהִי-עֶרֶב וַיְהִי-בֹקֶר יוֹם אֶחָד