Question II. How was this change of name made?

Very many say that only one little letter was added — iod, or ioth — among whom [is] Abulensis too (on Numbers chapter 13, question 37). For “at first,” he says, “among the Hebrews he was called Osua; afterward he was called Iosua, by adding one letter.” But in the Hebrew he was called not Osua, but Osea; and by the most ancient Greek Interpreters [it was rendered] now Αὐσῆ, now ἰωσῆ; by the Latins it was turned into Osee. And therefore, besides the iod, there was added also a change of the vowel itself, e into a; and with the iod itself, the vowel e also [was] added, so that a threefold change was made. For it must not be thought that vowels — because among the Hebrews they are today marked by [pointing] dots — therefore do not pertain to the nature of Hebrew words. For what word among any nations [exists] without a vowel? The Hebrews indeed are wont to remove them from the number of their letters, as is agreed from the alphabet and from the term “tetragrammaton”; but they by no means confess that [the vowels] are not necessary to the essence of words — as R. Benjamin Bar-Jehudah very copiously treats, in [his] preface to the Dikduk [Grammar] of R. Moses.