How Did the X Get in Xmas?

Some would suggest that using the word "Xmas" in place of "Christmas" is just another effort by those who would like to see the "Christ" taking out of Christmas. While we may never know the true thoughts or desires of those who use the word Xmas instead of Christmas, the term Xmas actually comes from the ancient roots of Christianity.

Most of the New Testament of the Christian Bible, the part that talks about Jesus and his theology, was written in what we today refer to as Koine Greek. Koine translates as "common" in English. Koine Greek is similar to modern Greek, though the language has evolved considerably over the past 2,000 years.

One of the challenges for most English-speakers in learning Koine Greek is that it uses a different alphabet than our own. It features 24 letters, some of which look similar to English, but do not necessarily make the same sound. For example an "o" in Koine Greek is actually the letter omicron and it makes the sound of a short vowel "o." An "n" in Koine Greek is actually the letter nu and it makes the short "e" vowel sound.

In Koine Greek, the word Christ is spelled chi-rho-iota-sigma-tau-omicron-sigma, which in English looks like this: Xristos

Since the word for Christ started with an "X" in the Bible, the X soon became a quick sort of short-hand for the word. At one time, similar abbreviations, such as Xian and Xianity were in regular use, standing in for Christian and Christianity, respectively.

The Oxford English Dictionary reports that word Xmas was in regular use in England at least as far back as the middle 1550s, some 60 years before the King James Version of the Bible was translated.

Though the books and letters (also known as "epistles") that became the New Testament of the Bible were written in Koine Greek, they were not written in Greece. The writers used Koine Greek because it was the one language in the Roman Empire that everyone could speak. A wide variety of regional languages were in use around the Empire. Latin was in use around the Empire at the time, but was generally the language used for legal and governmental matters. Among the regional languages of the time, Aramaic was in use in Nazareth and other areas where Jesus lived and conducted his ministry in the 1^st Century and most scholars generally believe that Aramaic was his primary language. There are many Aramaic phrases and place names in the Bible. Today, Koine Greek, Latin and Aramaic exist primarily as scholarly languages, though Aramaic is style spoken by a few scattered communities in the Middle East. There's some research that suggests the New Testament book of James was originally written in Aramaic, rather than Koine Greek.

The Bible has long since been translated into many languages, with the International Bible Society reporting that at least one book of the Bible has been translated into more than 2,500 languages. The first, comprehensive translation of the Bible was probably Jerome's Vulgate, a 5^th Century work authorized by the Pope Damasus I. The first translation into English was by John Wycliffe in the 14th century. Since that time, there have been a myriad of English translations. One of the most familiar, the King James Version, was commissioned by James I of England and published in 1611.

It has been a long linguistic road that brought Xmas to present-day America. It may very well be used by some today who are seeking to push Christ out of Christmas or simply by those trying to save some space on the marquee sign. Historically, however, it has a much different implication.