Thanks to the New York Times crossword, I now know that the language with only 14 letters is Samoan.

Now I understand there is a temple in Samoa, or maybe neighboring American Samoa. I assume at least some of the sessions there are in the Samoan language - not just the movie, but also the conversation at the veil.

And supposedly the Swiss temple has lots of different languages.

Now in Utah, I guess everyone on a given day gets the same new name, appropriate to his or her gender. Does everyone in the whole world get the same name?

If they are all names from scripture, I suppose transliterating them into different languages is no big deal, as as that was all done decades or centuries ago when the scriptures were rendered in that language.

Still, how do you suppose each farflung temple gets word of that day's name? I suppose they could create a year's list ahead of time, and have translators in Utah render them in each of all the languages used.

Hmmmm - just idle musings on a summer day.

It's in Apia, Samoa (not American Samoa). And since their alphabet is modified Latin, you don't have to transliterate anything, just use Latin letters that they don't use for indigenous words. I imagine they have the same temple names as other temples, but the temple name of the day is by individual temple, not worldwide.

Almost every Samoan knows English to a decent degree--especially if they ever plan to leave for any period of time, which many do. I think Abinadi is probably just as weird to them as an English--or Hebrew speaker, for that matter ;)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2012 05:54PM by flyboy21.

so the default position is usually the native pronunciation!

I've often wondered if there were some Japanese guys wandering around with the new name "Levi" (Rebai).

Also, IIRC the new name for the new initiates is DIFFERENT from those going through for a dead.

The day I went through my pedophile uncle who had abused me for years tried to guess my new name. God I'm a mess. But he got it wrong which told me that they used one name for the newbies and a different one for those so as to prevent such a thing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2012 05:58PM by Levi.

Yes, but they also receive a new name as part of the endowment process. They give both at the veil.

In Samoan, Abinadi is "Uh-Pin-uh-tie".

So do they alter the names at all, depending on the language of the temple you're in? So instead of getting a new name of John or Mary in the mexico temple, you would get Juan or Maria?