Why the Ectochinese version of Yehovah should be favoured

(updated 15.01.2022)

I stumbled upon this precious gem for a sapient Chinese scholar, or Strong's Hebrew number 03068 (H3038) for Jehovah, almost all in Chinese:

https://bible.fhl.net/new/s.php?N=1&k=03068

But things get really complicated when you parse the Bible verse of Exodus 15:18, where the term Jehovah appears:

Bible.fhl.net long link

The remarks in Chinese show that Yehovah [ יְהֹוָה ], or Jehovah in Ectoenglish, is written as follows in Chinese:

耶和華

That was different from the version I was used to seeing, which is this:

耶和华

After a lot of time, because unfortunately I'm virtually illiterate in Chinese, I discovered the reason for the difference on this page:

Biblegateway.com long link

First, it is important to understand that Mandarin and Cantonese are the two most common spoken, or oral Chinese language forms.

But when it comes to writing, the distinction is between Simplified, and Traditional Chinese.

Complicating matters further, not everybody who speaks Mandarin, writes in Simplified Chinese characters, and not everybody who speaks Cantonese, writes in Traditional Chinese characters, or hanzi — Traditional Chinese or 繁体中文: 漢字; Simplified Chinese or 简体中文: 汉字.

In mainland China and Singapore, Mandarin is the spoken language, and people resort to Simplified Chinese when they write.

In Hong Kong, Cantonese is the predominant spoken language, while people write in Traditional Chinese. I would not be surprised, however, if Traditional Chinese is being somewhat phased out by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party). Or perhaps it is being phased out simply because of the greater availability of books in Simplified Chinese characters.

In Taiwan, people speak Mandarin, and write in Traditional Chinese.

It turns out that the「耶和華」version of Jehovah is actually the Traditional Chinese version, while the「耶和华」version of Jehovah is the Simplified Chinese version.

But the problems don't end here!

Yahweh, which is not the name of The Eternal, is written as「雅威」, but no Simplified or Traditional Chinese version of the verse of Exodus 15:18 prints "The Name" or HaShem [ הַשֵּׁם ] that way.

The aforementioned Bible.fhl.net long link also shows that even Yahweh seems to have its own written version in Hebrew [ יָהֵוֶה ] — pronounced «Yaheveh» in Google Translate —, but this version in Hebrew seems incorrect, as there is yet another version of Yahweh in the Wikipedia [ יַהְוֶה‎ ], which is also the distinctive other version found among the various ones in Strong's Hebrew number 03068 (H3038), but with different nikudim [ נִקּוּדִים ] — singular: nikud [ נִקּוּד ] — or Hebrew-language dotting, pointing, or vowels.

By the way, these are the only versions of "The Name" available in the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon narrative, and collected in Strong's Hebrew Lexicon for H3038, in the Blue Letter Bible, but I still had to check this image to ensure the right nikudim [ נִקּוּדִים ]:

• יהוה (which without nikudim is pronounced «Yehovah» in Google Translate)

• יַהְוֶה (which is pronounced «Yahveh» in Google Translate)

• יְהֹוָה (which is pronounced «Yehovah» in Google Translate)

• יֱהֹוִה (which is pronounced «Yehovih» in Google Translate)

It thus seems obvious to me that the best version for both Jehovah in Ectoenglish, and Yehovah in Ectohebrew, is 耶霍瓦 in Ectochinese!

Moreover, today I can say that the best version for both Jehovih in Ectoenglish, and Yehovih in Ectohebrew, is 耶霍维 in Ectochinese!

While the Jehovih/Yehovih version of 耶霍维 in Simplified Chinese (and Ectochinese), becomes slightly different in Traditional Chinese characters with 耶霍維, the Jehovah/Yehovah version of 耶霍瓦 does not change at all, and both the Jehovah/Yehovah version of 耶霍瓦, and the Jehovih/Yehovih of 耶霍维, do not exist, or are not in use today, so their novel use outside of the strictly political, and commercial use of Chinese, an ectolinguistic philosophy favoured in Ectochinese (ⓩ; ezh), is entirely legitimate and justified.

MT Kaisiris Tallini