250 
Rajendralala Mitra— The Yavanas of Sanskrit Writers. [No. 3, 
Hebrew Jehohanan pmn\ and there is little doubt that it gradually sim¬ 
plified itself into Johannes, Joannes, John, and Jack.* * * § That the word is 
closely connected with the Greek Ttov, ’lav, ’laves, etc., there is no doubt. 
According to Cruden’s Concordance, the word means “ clay” or “ dirt,” 
i. e., the dirty race, formed of the outcastes of various nationalities ; or “ he 
that deceives, or makes sorrowful,” a very appropriate designation for a 
race which was noted for its piracy. But comparing it with the Sanskrit 
yuvan , Zend jaivdn, Latin juvenis, the true meaning, according to Lassen, . 
would seem to be “ young,” in contradistinction to Tpatyot, “the old”—as 
the Hellenes called themselves—the new Mulattoes of the Isles and the 
Asiatic Coast as opposed to the original inhabitants of the Greek peninsula. 
If this be the true origin, it must date from pre-historic times. 
In the Old Testament, the word occurs several times, as a proper name 
of an individual, of a race, of a country, of an empire, and of a town. In 
Genesis x. 2, 4, we find it as the proper name of one of the seven sons of 
Japlieth, and father of Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. The state¬ 
ment is repeated in, Chronicles, i. 5 and 7. The Rev. Mr. Hewlett, in one of 
his annotations to the Bible, says, “ Japheth seems to have been the same 
with Iapetus, whom the Greeks own to have been their father; nor do they 
know any name of greater antiquity: which made them give it to decrepit 
persons, as Bochart has observed. Older than Iapetus was with them a 
proverbial saying.”f In Isaiah, where the Lord threatens to send those who 
fail to come to the fold of the Church, or “ to escape of them, unto the 
nations, to Tarshish, Pul and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, 
to the isles afar off,”£ the name of a country is obviously intended. In 
explanation of the passage, Hewlett says, “ Tarshish denotes the eastern 
parts; Pul and Lud the south ; Tubal and Javan, the north ; and the isles 
afar off, the west.” What the particular country intended is, is not mention¬ 
ed, and the direction given does not lead to Greece. Hr. Smith takes the 
several names to be the representatives of the Gentile world. § As the name 
of a tribe or race we find it in Ezekiel xx. 13. Javan and Tubal and 
Meshech are said there to be the merchants who traded with Tyrus. But 
the ancient practice of using the names of countries for those of races may 
be appealed to in support of the Rev. Mr. Hewlett’s supposition of their being 
* The Babylonian god Oannes, ’ flap vrjs, who is described by Berosus to have come 
from the Erythrean Sea, with a fish’s body, a human bead under cover of a piscene one, 
human lower limbs, and a fish’s tail, is supposed to have its name connected with the 
term Javan. Cory’s Ancient Fragments, 243, apud Inman’s Ancient Faiths in Ancient 
Names, II. 400. 
f Hewlett’s Bible, Gen. x. 2. 
X Isaiah lxvi. 19. 
§ Dictionary of the Bible, I., p. 935. 
