I saw a screening of "Star Wars, Part IV" last night, and they flashed a poster for the film in Hebrew. Sadly, I cannot pronounce Hebrew without vowels. I'm dying to be able to!
2 Answers
JBiggs' answer is almost correct, the translation is Milchemet Hakochavim which directly translates to 'War of stars' but has the same meaning as Star Wars is does in English, while his answer translates to 'War stars'.
Source: I am fluent in hebrew and this poster:
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I stand corrected (missed the "Ha" before "kohavim"). I wonder if the title is known this way in Israel instead of the common modern "HEnglish" style of spelling out an English name with Hebrew letters (that you see all over Tel Aviv) because back in the 70s, there wasn't a whole generation of Israelis who had grown up on American TV?– JBiggsJul 14, 2016 at 19:16
You pronounce it exactly the same. Most Israelis watch films like Star Wars in English (with Hebrew subtitles). Lots of big companies and movie titles will have an English name spelled out in Hebrew letters, so it sounds literally the same.
In Hebrew, a star is a "Kochav" (that's a transliteration, I don't have a Hebrew keyboard or word processor on this PC, so I can't write it in Hebrew). War is "Milchama". If you wanted a direct google type translation I guess it might be "Milchemet Kochavim" ("War of the stars")?
There are actually lots of words Hebrew has borrowed from English, and pop-culture references are usually at the top of the list. For example, a silly joke in Hebrew is to ask how you pronounce "banana" in English, because the word is identical.
