From: daviderl31@yahoo.com   
      
   "Florian Blaschke"  wrote in message   
   news:htrdks$udd$02$1@news.t-online.com...   
   > David Milligan wrote:   
   >>         Four or five years ago there was a news report from Iran about   
   >> something or other, and one of the women's name was Xena. So does that   
   >> mean   
   >> "Xena" is a mid-Eastern name and not Greek?   
   >   
   > Impossible to tell without knowing the woman's native language and the   
   > way the woman spells her name in it. Renderings of foreign names (from   
   > languages that don't use the Latin alphabet) in Latin letters tend to be   
   > far too imprecise to tell anything useful. It could be anything.   
   >   
   > Only scientific transliterations (which render character by character   
   > precisely) or transcriptions (which account for the sound system of the   
   > language in question) are really useful, but those normally make use of   
   > accents and other diacritic signs to render distinctions that the 26   
   > letters of the English alphabet aren't enough for, but journalists   
   > usually drop accents and such, losing vital information. And without   
   > knowing the language and the system used to transliterate or transcribe   
   > it (if there is even a consistent system used), you're helpless. What   
   > kind of sound does the "X" stand for in this case, for example? Or the   
   > vowels? Any dropped diacritics? Any long vowels? Where's the stress?   
   >   
   > If the woman's name is Persian, it could be an entirely different name   
   > that just happened to be spelled as "Xena" by the journalist. Or was it   
   > even spelled out? Perhaps you only heard "ZEE-nah" and assumed it is   
   > "Xena"? There are simply too many possibilities how this similarity,   
   > which can be entirely fortuitious, might have come about.   
   >   
   > In the standard dialect of Ancient Greek (Attic, the dialect of Athens)   
   > "Xena" doesn't really work (at least not with the meaning "foreign   
   > woman"); it would have been "Xene". However, in other dialects, such as   
   > Doric, it works. (And don't forget that "ZEE-nah" is an Anglicised   
   > pronunciation that is very different from the Greek!) As far as I know,   
   > the name was simply invented by Tapert, Raimi or Schulian.   
   >   
   > It seems, though, that "Xena" is a variant of "Xenia", which is a common   
   > name (also of Greek origin) among Orthodox Christians in Eastern Europe.   
   >   
   > --   
   >   
   > Florian   
   > GGGHD, MWFA, HCNB   
      
           I always wondered why Rob/etc would choose such an un-Grecian name   
   as Gabrielle.  Would a Greek mother really give her daughter such a foreign   
   name? Wouldn't she worry about possible taunting and harassment from young   
   Gab's peers?   
      
   --   
   David E.   
   http://daviderl31.blogspot.com/   
   http://daviderl.com/ReneeOConnor.html   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)