Sometimes, when the English language isn't enough to capture what we want to say, we import

words from other languages. Italian words like Alfresco, German words like Chardonfreude,

Spanish words like taco. And let's face it, we use Latin phrases ad nauseum.

Then there are French words and phrases like Bon voyage, rendezvous or faux pa, that last one being particularly useful for socially awkward British people living in America.

But some of the words we'd like to import use letters that look very strange in English.

And so in those cases, we try to preserve the sound of the original word while using English letters.

It's called transliteration.

An example would be a Greek word like Metropolis or the Chinese word walk. Believe it or not, America's favorite

condiment, ketchup, comes from a transliterated Chinese word. The word hallelujah is a transliteration of two

Hebrew words. Hallelieu and yeah. Write down those two Hebrew words, hallelieu and y'a.

Write down those two Hebrew words using the closest equivalent letters we have in English,

and you end up with that strange and beautiful word hallelujah or alleluia.

The first Hebrew word, hallelujah, means let us praise. And the second word is Yah, which is the short form of Yahweh, the very specific personal name of the God of Israel.

Yahweh has its origin in the name God revealed to distinguish himself from all other gods.

In Exodus chapter 3, when God speaks to Moses for the first time and calls him to bring his people out of slavery in Egypt, Moses says,

if the Israelites ask me your name, what should I say? And God responds, I am who I am. The name Yahweh is built out of the Hebrew word

for I am. So it's a name that is intended to make us marvel at the self-sustaining, eternally

existing, utterly transcendent nature of this God, the true and

living God, who is quite unlike any other pretender to the throne.

When the name Yahweh appears in the Old Testament, it's often translated Lord in capital

letters, in our English translations, to mark it out from the more generic word, God.

So, Hallelujah means let us praise Yah.

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