Timeline for Why is the J in "hallelujah" not pronounced as /dʒ/, but as /j/?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 12, 2020 at 21:26 | comment | added | user173897 | English spelling is not especially relevant though because the Hebrew spelling and pronunciation match with those of the other specified words (I am taking this on faith - I do not personally attest for this claim). The other words changed by the time that they made it to modern English. Why did "hallelujah" not do so? | |
| Mar 25, 2020 at 20:06 | comment | added | Omar and Lorraine | @JohnLawler Still, what does it have to do with my question? My question is about pronunciation and etymology. | |
| Mar 25, 2020 at 17:42 | comment | added | John Lawler | How about "English spelling sort of represents English pronunciation"? | |
| Mar 25, 2020 at 16:07 | comment | added | user91988 | @JohnLawler Except it sort of does. That's the entire reason English is so tough. Saying spelling doesn't represent pronunciation is highly misleading and doesn't make sense. Tired of seeing that quote everywhere like it actually means something. | |
| Mar 25, 2020 at 3:35 | review | Close votes | |||
| Mar 30, 2020 at 3:05 | |||||
| Mar 24, 2020 at 12:56 | history | edited | Omar and Lorraine | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 48 characters in body
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| Mar 24, 2020 at 11:17 | comment | added | TRiG | At a guess (comment, not answer) it's because Hallelujah is not Hebrew → English, but Hebrew → Greek → English. | |
| Mar 24, 2020 at 3:42 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Mar 24, 2020 at 0:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackEnglish/status/1242239867788177409 | ||
| Mar 23, 2020 at 21:45 | comment | added | Yosef Baskin | One point I am not sure I am seeing yet is that Hebrew does not own any J sound. Today if you want to write George, for example, you have to put an apostrophe after the G letter (Gimmel) and the reader adjusts (G'eorg'e). For the French J, the same treatment starts with the Z letter (Zayin). | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 21:35 | comment | added | Omar and Lorraine | @JohnLawler The only thing I have come to expect from English spelling is batcrap crazy. The question is not about spelling though, it's about sound-change and pronunciation. Isn't it? | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 21:32 | history | edited | Omar and Lorraine | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
edited title
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| Mar 23, 2020 at 20:30 | answer | added | herisson | timeline score: 15 | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 20:28 | answer | added | Greybeard | timeline score: 12 | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 19:53 | comment | added | John Lawler | The reason is that English spelling does not represent English pronunciation. Once you understand that, you won't expect so much from it. | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 19:53 | comment | added | nohat | FWIW, OED shows the spellings halleluya, halleluia, and halaluiah were used in English prior to the spelling with J. | |
| Mar 23, 2020 at 19:36 | history | asked | Omar and Lorraine | CC BY-SA 4.0 |