Meaning, origin and etymology of the name Sara, Sarai

Sarai , Sarah

As told by Joel M. Hoffman Ph.D. in his delightful and riveting book In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language - read our review - the Hebrews were the first to incorporate vowels in their written text, and by doing this the previously esoteric art of writing and reading became available to the masses. The seemingly casual command to 'write' something on doors or foreheads included the invention of a writing system that could be learned by everybody. A very big deal, and resulting in the most powerful tool of data preservation up to this common age. Hebrew theology is by far the most influential ever, and this is in part due to the Hebrew invention of vowel notation. This power (this theology) contrasted others by use of the vowel notation, using symbols that were already used and until then only represented consonants: the letters (waw), (yod) and (heh), and to give an example: the word is either the word dod, meaning beloved (and the is a vowel), or it is the word dud, meaning jar (and the is again a vowel), or it is the word dawid, which is the name David (and the is a consonant). These letters became markers for both the Hebrew identity and the Hebrew religion, including the various names for God. One of these names is the famous Tetragrammaton   - YHWH - which actually exists only of vowels, and is utterly exceptional in many ways, including the fact that it can not be pronounced. The word (El) was the name of the prominent Canaanite god, whose name was either derived of or became the common word for god in general. The plural of this word is ; gods. With the addition of the letter , creating the word , the Hebrews not only stated essential monotheism (by naming a single God after the plural word "gods") but also marked their God as theirs: Elohim is the singular pantheon of the vowel-people. Something similar occured when the name of patriarch Abram () was expanded with the heh into Abraham , and the name of matriarch Sarai () was expanded with the heh to Sarah().