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Hebrew
Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
 uses the Hebrew alphabet
Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. Five of these letters have a different form when appearing as the last letter in a word....
 with optional vowel points
Niqqud

In Hebrew language orthography, niqqud or nikkud is the system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of consonants of the Hebrew alphabet....
. The romanization of Hebrew is the use of the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
 to transliterate Hebrew words.

For example, the Hebrew name spelled ????? ("Israel") in the Hebrew alphabet can be romanized as Yisrael or Yisra'el in the Latin alphabet.

Romanization includes any use of the Latin alphabet to transliterate Hebrew words. Usually it is to identify a Hebrew word in a non-Hebrew language that uses the Latin alphabet, such as German, Spanish, Turkish, and so on.






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Hebrew
Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
 uses the Hebrew alphabet
Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. Five of these letters have a different form when appearing as the last letter in a word....
 with optional vowel points
Niqqud

In Hebrew language orthography, niqqud or nikkud is the system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of consonants of the Hebrew alphabet....
. The romanization of Hebrew is the use of the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
 to transliterate Hebrew words.

For example, the Hebrew name spelled ????? ("Israel") in the Hebrew alphabet can be romanized as Yisrael or Yisra'el in the Latin alphabet.

Romanization includes any use of the Latin alphabet to transliterate Hebrew words. Usually it is to identify a Hebrew word in a non-Hebrew language that uses the Latin alphabet, such as German, Spanish, Turkish, and so on. The term transliteration means using an alphabet to represent the letters and sounds of a word spelled in another alphabet, whereas the term transcription means using an alphabet to represent the sounds only. Romanization can do both.

To go the other way, that is from Hebrew to English, see Hebraization of English
Hebraization of English

The Hebraization of English is the use of the Hebrew alphabet to transliterate English words.For example, the English name spelled "Timothy" in the English alphabet can be Hebraized as "??????" in the Hebrew alphabet....
.

Inconsistency in Hebrew transliteration


There are no hard and fast rules in Hebrew-to-English transliteration, and many transliterations are an approximation due to lack of equivalence between the English
English alphabet

The modern English alphabet is a Latin-based alphabet consisting of 26 letters, like in the Basic modern Latin alphabet:The exact shape of printed letters varies depending on the typeface....
 and Hebrew alphabets
Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. Five of these letters have a different form when appearing as the last letter in a word....
.

Historic instances


Early romanization
Romanization

In linguistics, romanization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Latin alphabet, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system ....
 of Hebrew occurred with the contact between the Romans
Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the phase of the Ancient Rome characterized by a republican form of government; a period which began with the overthrow of the Roman Roman Kingdom, c....
 and the Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
s. It was influenced by earlier transliteration
Transliteration

Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice....
 into the Greek language
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
. For example, the name of the Roman province of Iudaea (63 BCE) was apparently derived from the Greek words (Iouda) and (Ioudaia). These words can be seen in Chapter 1 of Esdras
Esdras

Esdras is a Greco-Latin language variation of the name of the Ezra. It is still often used to refer to several books of Bible associated with the scribe....
 (Ezra) in the Septuagint
Septuagint

The Septuagint , or simply "LXX", is the Koine Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, translated in stages between the 3rd century BC and 1st century BC in Alexandria....
, a Hellenistic
Hellenistic civilization

File:Diadochen1.pngHellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Ancient Greece influence in the Classical Antiquity from 323 BC to about 146 BC ....
 translation of the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible

The term Hebrew Bible is a generic reference to those books of the Bible originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew with some Biblical Aramaic....
 into Greek. The Greek words in turn are transliterations of the Hebrew word ????? (Y'huda) that we now know adapted in English as the names Judah
Judah

Judah is the name of several Biblical and historical figures. The original Judah was the fourth son of Jacob and Leah, as recorded in Genesis 29:35....
, Judas
Judas

Judas is the anglicized Greek rendering of the Hebrew name Yehudah , also rendered in English as Judah.*Judah , a son of the patriarch Jacob and ancestor of the royal line of biblical Israel....
 and Jude
Jude

Jude may refer to:* Jude the Apostle, an apostle also called Thaddaeus or Lebbaeus, the patron saint of lost causes in the Catholic Church* Epistle of Jude, a book of the New Testament of the Bible...
.

In the 1st century, Satire 14 of Juvenal uses the Hebraic words sabbata, Iudaicum, and Moyses, apparently adopted from the Greek.

The 4th century and 5th century Latin translations of the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible

The term Hebrew Bible is a generic reference to those books of the Bible originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew with some Biblical Aramaic....
 romanize its proper names. The familiar Biblical names in English are derived from these romanizations. The Vulgate
Vulgate

The Vulgate is an early Fifth Century version of the Bible in Latin, and largely the result of the labors of Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of Vetus Latina....
, of the early 5th century, is considered the first direct Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible. Apart from names, another term that the Vulgate romanizes is the technical term
Technical terminology

Technical terminology is the specialized vocabulary of a field, the nomenclature. These terms have specific definitions within the field, which is not necessarily the same as their meaning in common use....
 mamzer
Mamzer

In Halakha a Mamzer is a person born of certain forbidden relationships between two Jews. That is, one who is born from a married woman as a product of adultery or someone born as a product of incest between certain close relatives....
 (Hebrew ????).

With the rise of Zionism
Zionism

Zionism is the international Jewish political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine....
, some Jews promoted the use of romanization instead of Hebrew script in hopes of helping more people learn Hebrew. One such promoter was Ithamar Ben Yehuda, or Ittamar Ben Avi as he styled himself. His father Eliezer Ben Yehuda raised him to be the first modern native speaker of Hebrew. In 1927 Ben-Avi published the biography Avi in romanized Hebrew (now listed in the online catalog of the Jewish National and University Library
Jewish National and University Library

The National Library of Israel , is the National library of Israel. The library holds more than 5 million books, and is located in the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem....
). However, the innovation did not catch on.

Modern uses


Romanized Hebrew can be used to present Hebrew terminology or text to anyone who is not familiar with the Hebrew script. Many Jewish prayer books include supplementary romanization for some or all of the Hebrew-language congregational prayers.

Romanized Hebrew is also used for Hebrew-language items in library catalogs and Hebrew-language place names on maps. In Israel, most catalogs and maps use the Hebrew script, but romanized maps are easily available and road signs include romanized names. Some Hebrew speakers use romanization to communicate when using internet systems that have poor support for the Hebrew alphabet.

Standard romanizations exist for these various purposes. However, non-standard romanization is widely seen, even on some Israeli street signs. The standards are not generally taught outside of their specific organizations and disciplines.

Standards


  • Traditional, scholarly: ISO 259
    ISO 259

    ISO 259 is an international standard for the romanization of Hebrew, dating to 1984, with updated ISO 259-2 and ISO 259-3 ....
    :1984; ISO 259-2:1994 (simplified); Society of Biblical Literature
    Society of Biblical Literature

    The Society of Biblical Literature is a constituent society of the American Council of Learned Societies , with the stated mission to "Foster Bible Scholarship"....
     (SBL) Handbook of Style
  • National: Rules of Transcription: Romanization of Hebrew. Academy of the Hebrew Language
    Academy of the Hebrew Language

    The Academy of the Hebrew Language was established by the Israeli Government in 1953 as the "supreme institution for scholarship on the Hebrew language"....
    , 1957. Updated and augmented with a simplified version, 2000. Replaced by a new system altogether in 2006.
  • Artscroll transliteration
  • Bibliographic data: ANSI Z39.25-1975; ALA
    American Library Association

    The American Library Association is a group based in the United States that promotes library and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 65,000 members....
    /LC
    Library of Congress

    The Library of Congress is the de facto national library of the United States and the research arm of the United States Congress. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and holds the largest number of books....
     Romanization Tables (1991) and their book Hebraica Cataloging (1987), with Encyclopaedia Judaica
    Encyclopaedia Judaica

    The Encyclopaedia Judaica is a 26-volume English-language encyclopedia of the Jewish people and their faith, Judaism. It covers diverse areas of the Jewish world and civilization, including Jewish history in all eras, culture, Jewish holiday, Hebrew language, Torah, and Halakha....
     (1972-1993) as an authority on names and common terms. Library of Congress Authorities is an online database that records and sources the forms of subjects, names, and titles that the Library of Congress uses.
  • Geographic names: BGN
    United States Board on Geographic Names

    The United States Board on Geographic Names is a United States Federal government of the United States body whose purpose is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geography names throughout the government of the United States....
    /PCGN 1962 (US and UK), approximately equivalent to UNGEGN 1977 (United Nations), as both are based on the Academy of the Hebrew Language recommendations. However, BGN provides more and somewhat different specific recommendations. The GEONet Names Server is an authoritative online database that lists BGN names and assists with font character availability and conventional forms of names.
  • Phonemic: ISO/FDIS 259-3:1999 (not an adopted standard)


Comparative table


The following table is a breakdown of each letter in the Hebrew alphabet, describing its name or names, and its Latin script transliteration
Transliteration

Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice....
 values used in academic work. If two glyphs are shown for a consonant, then the left-most glyph is the Final form of the letter (or right-most glyph if your browser doesn't support right-to-left text layout). The conventions here are ISO 259
ISO 259

ISO 259 is an international standard for the romanization of Hebrew, dating to 1984, with updated ISO 259-2 and ISO 259-3 ....
, the UNGEGN system based on the old-fashioned Hebrew Academy system, and the modern common informal Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
i transcription. In addition, an International Phonetic Alphabet
International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
 pronunciation is indicated—historical (Tiberian vocalization
Tiberian vocalization

Tiberian Hebrew is an extinct but very well documented oral tradition of pronunciation for ancient Hebrew language, especially the Hebrew of the Tanakh, that was given written form by Masoretes scholars in the Jewish community at Tiberias, in the early Middle Ages, beginning in the 8th century....
) for ISO 259, prescribed for Hebrew Academy, and in practice for Israeli. For the vowels further down, the letters ? and ? are used as symbolic anchors for vowel symbols, but should otherwise be ignored.

For the letters with dagesh
Dagesh

The dagesh is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew language orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud ....
 in ISO 259 Classical Hebrew and by the Hebrew Academy standard, they are transcribed as single graphemes (b g d k p t) at the beginnings of words, after other consonants, and after shewa ?  or ?atafim ?  ?  ? . In almost every other situation, they are transcribed as double letters (bb gg dd kk pp tt). This does not apply to common Israeli Hebrew transliteration, where there are no double consonants.

The letters at the ends of words without additional niqqud
Niqqud

In Hebrew language orthography, niqqud or nikkud is the system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of consonants of the Hebrew alphabet....
 are silent and not transliterated. The letter at the end of a word with ?olam ?  is also silent and not transliterated. The letter at the end of a word after ?iriq ?  is also silent and not transliterated. The situation of the letter at the end of a word after ?ere ?  or seggol ?  is more complicated, as they are silent in Classical Hebrew and in Hebrew Academy prescription and not transliterated in those systems, but they form diphthongs (ei) in Israeli Hebrew—see the vowels and diphthongs sections further down. In any event, the shewa na? is placed between two adjacent consonants in all situations; if there is not even a shewa na? between consonants, then the first of the two consonants is silent and not transliterated—this is usually one of , but even occasionally and rarely (in the name Issachar
Issachar

Issachar/Yissachar was, according to the Book of Genesis, a son of Jacob and Leah , and the founder of the Israelites of Tribe of Issachar; however some Biblical criticism view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation....
) are encountered silent in this fashion. In Israeli Hebrew transcription, a vowel before yud at the end of a word or before yud then shewa na? inside a word, is transcribed as a diphthong (ai oi ui)—see the diphthongs section further down.

In Classical Hebrew transliteration, vowels can be long (ga?ol), short (qa?an) or ultra short (?a?ep¯), and are transliterated as such. Ultra short vowels are always one of š?wa na? ? , ?a?ep¯ s??ol ? , ?a?ep¯ pá?a? ?  or ?a?ep¯ qame? ? . Š?wa ?  is always always š?wa na? (pronounced) if it's immediately after the word's first consonant, or after a consonant after a long vowel and before another pronounced consonant—otherwise, š?wa is realized as š?wa na? (silent). The vowels ?ere ?  and ?olem ?  are always long in all situations. The vowels ?ireq ? , s??ol ? , pá?a? ? , qame? ? , qibbu? ?  and šureq   are always long if they are the stressed syllable, or if they are in a syllable before only one consonant and another vowel, and in these cases they are transliterated as long. If they are unstressed and before a double consonant or a consonant cluster, or in the word's final unstressed syllable, then they are always short and transliterated as short. But if a vowel carries an accent ?  or a meteg ? , then it is always long—a meteg in particular is often used in places where a vowel is long but not necessarily the word's stressed syllable. Lastly, there are exceptional circumstances when long vowels—even ?ere and ?olem—may not force a following š?wa to become š?wa na?, including for example names such as Geršom
Gershom

According to the Bible, Gershom was the firstborn son of Moses and Zipporah. The name appears to mean a sojourner there , which the text argues was a reference to Moses' flight from Egypt; biblical criticism regard the name as being essentially the same as Gershon, and it is Gershom rather than Gershon who is sometimes li...
 (not Ger?šom as it might seem), Belša???r
Belshazzar

Belshazzar was the king of Babylon, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, the last king of Babylon according to the Book of Daniel. In the Book of Daniel of the Judaism Tanakh or Christianity Old Testament, Belshazzar is the King of Babylon before the advent of the Medes and Persians....
 (not Bel?ša???r) and ?iql??
Ziklag

Ziklag is the Bible name of a town that was located in the Negev region in the south of what was the Kingdom of Judah. Its exact location has not been identified with any certainty, though by the end of the 19th century, both Haluza and Khirbet Zuheiliqah had been suggested....
 (not ?iq?l??). Some of these seem to be learned exceptions, and most words under the same circumstances have š?wa na? as expected, such as Na??r??
Nazareth

Nazareth is the capital and largest Cities in Israel in the North District . It also serves as an unofficial Arab capital for Israel's Arab citizens of Israel who make up the vast majority of the population there....
 (not Na?r??). (This is all moot in Israeli Hebrew, where as already mentioned, shva nach tends to opportunistically replace shva na where comfortable, so is Natzrat not Natzerat, etc.)

For the vowel qama? ?, whether the vowel is long or short in Classical Hebrew affects the pronunciation in Academy or Israeli Hebrew, even though vowel length is not phonemic in those systems, and the difference is transliterated accordingly. Qama? qatan when short is /o/, except when at the end of a word when not before a final consonant, in which case it is /a/. Qama? gadol is usually /a/, but in rare situations in Classical Hebrew it can be treated as a long open /?/, which although pronounced identically to /a/ (both were ), this a/o distinction is clearly made in the pronunciation of Academy and Israeli Hebrew, and is thus transliterated.

If any word ends with one of , then the vowel pata? is pronounced before the consonant, not after as it is written, and so the transliterated sequence is /ah/, /a?/, /a?/, etc.

In certain rare words that are meant to begin with two consecutive consonants even in Classical Hebrew, an invisible s??ol qa?an vowel is pronounced before the two consonants in Classical Hebrew and is so transcribed, because Classical words may not begin with more than one consonant. This rule does not apply to Academy and Israeli Hebrew, where consonant clusters are more tolerated. For example, the word ?????????? ("two") would appear as štáyim, but is actually 'eštáyim. However, it remains simply shtayim in Academy and Israeli Hebrew.

In 2006, the Hebrew Academy replaced their 1953 transliteration rules with new rules, and these were adopted as a United Nations standard in 2007. , migration to the new transliteration standard is still underway, and many signs and documents still use the 1953 conventions. The new 2006 rules attempt to more closely follow Israeli Hebrew vowel habits (such as the collapse of many shva na), but stop short of adopting most of the informal transliteration patterns. It still transliterates the diphthong as /e/, and it still transliterates separate /?/ and /kh/ in all cases. It is unspecific about rules governing the transliteration of phonemes not traditionally native to Hebrew.

Symbol Common Israeli Hebrew Academy ISO 259
2006 1953
Name Xlit. IPA Name Xlit. Name Xlit. Name Xlit. IPA
Consonants
(1) (1) (2)
(4)    
(4)
(4)    
(4)
(4)    
(4)    
(4)
(4)    
(4)
(4)
(4)    
(4)
(3)
(1) (1)
(4)    
(4)
(4)
(4)    
(4)    
(4)
(4)
(4)
(4)
(4)    
(4)
Vowels
       
(5)(5) (5)
Israeli Diphthongs


Transcription vs. transliteration


Different purposes call for different choices of romanization. One extreme is to make a phonetic transcription of one person's speech on one occasion.

In Israel, a pronunciation known as General Israeli Hebrew or Standard Hebrew is widely used and documented. For Israeli speech and text where linguistic groups are not at issue, romanization can use a phonetic transcription according to Standard Hebrew pronunciation. However, there are many Israeli groups with differing pronunciations of Hebrew and differing social priorities.

An attempt to devise a more general system of romanization is complicated by the long and varied history of the Hebrew language. Most Hebrew texts can be appropriately pronounced according to several different systems of pronunciation, both traditional and modern. Even today, it is customary to write Hebrew using only consonants and matres lectionis. There was no way to indicate vowels clearly in Hebrew writing until the time of the Second Temple
Second Temple

The Second Temple was the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem which stood between 516 BCE and 70 CE. During this time, it was the center of Judaism worship, which focused on the sacrifices known as the korbanot....
. Since an earlier time, multiple geographically separated communities have used Hebrew as a language of literature rather than conversation.

One system of assigning and indicating pronunciation in Hebrew, the Tiberian vocalization
Tiberian vocalization

Tiberian Hebrew is an extinct but very well documented oral tradition of pronunciation for ancient Hebrew language, especially the Hebrew of the Tanakh, that was given written form by Masoretes scholars in the Jewish community at Tiberias, in the early Middle Ages, beginning in the 8th century....
, is broadly authoritative for Hebrew text since the end of the Second Temple period (Sáenz-Badillos, page xi). It is possible to accommodate the pronunciations of different communities by transliterating the Tiberian vocalization without attempting to transcribe a specific phonetic pronunciation.

Notable varieties of Hebrew for which Tiberian vocalization is not suitable are the Hebrew of the Qumran community (as known from the Dead Sea Scrolls
Dead Sea scrolls

The Dead Sea scrolls consist of roughly 900 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the Wadi Qumran near the ruins of the ancient settlement of Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea....
) and of the Samaritan
Samaritan

The Samaritans , known in the Talmud as Cuthim , are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Ancestrally, they claim descent from a group of Israelite inhabitants who have connections to ancient Samaria from the beginning of the Babylonian Exile up to the beginning of the Common Era....
s. For romanizations of Samaritan pronunciation, it is advisable to take quotations directly from a Samaritan edition of the Hebrew Bible, which has approximately 6,000 textual variations from Jewish editions.

It is appropriate to focus only on the consonantal spelling when discussing unusually structured words from ancient or medieval works.

Use of Tiberian principles


The Tiberian vocalization was devised in order to add indications of pronunciation to the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible, without changing the consonantal text. It was intended for experts in Biblical Hebrew grammar and morphology.

Transliterations usually avoid the typographically complex marks that are used in Tiberian vocalization. They also attempt to indicate vowels and syllables more explicitly than Tiberian vocalization does. Therefore a technical transliteration requires the use of Tiberian principles, as mentioned below, rather than simply representing the Tiberian symbols. Many transliteration standards require a thorough knowledge of these principles, yet they usually do not provide practical details.

Vowels

  • There are seven basic vowels.
  • A vowel may be long, short, or ultrashort.
  • The vowel "shva" may be sounded (shva na) or silent (shva nach).
  • Consonants that have been used historically to indicate vowels, the "matres lectionis", are no substitute for proper vowel marks.
  • The vowel "kamets" may have its usual sound (kamets gadol - long "a") or a different sound (kamets katan - short "o").


Consonants


  • Six consonants (beth, gimel, daleth, kaph, pe, and tav) can be hard or soft. To be specific, they are pronounced either as stops
    Stop consonant

    A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms....
     or fricatives
    Fricative consonant

    Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two Place of articulation close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German language , the final consonant of Bach; or the side of the tongue ag...
     ("spirantized"). For example, the letter bet can be pronounced as "b" or "v". Tiberian vocalization marks a hard consonant with a dagesh
    Dagesh

    The dagesh is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew language orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud ....
     kal     (in the Hebrew term) or lene (Latin). A soft consonant lacks a dagesh kal, and is sometimes explicitly marked using rafe, an overbar. Transliterations sometimes also use an overbar or underbar to mark a soft consonant. (In Modern Sephardic Hebrew, however, only three consonants -- bet, kaph, and pe -- retain the hard-soft distinction. In the Ashkenazic style of pronunciation, the soft tav is sounded as "s".)
  • A letter that looks like shin may be that letter (when marked with a shin dot) or the letter sin (when marked with a sin dot).
  • Most consonants can undergo gemination
    Gemination

    In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant.Consonant length is distinctive in some languages, for instance Arabic language, Estonian language, Finnish language, Russian language, Hebrew language, Hungarian language, Italian language, Japanese language, L...
    . Tiberian vocalization marks gemination with a dagesh hazak (in the Hebrew term) or forte (Latin), which looks the same as dagesh kal.
  • A consonant that is normally silent (most often he) may be sounded if it is a root consonant or possessive ending. Tiberian vocalization marks such a consonant using a mapiq, which looks like a dagesh.
  • A silent vav may be used to hold a holem vowel, but sometimes a vav with holem has consonant value.


Additional transliteration principles


A further complication is that the Roman alphabet does not have as many letters for certain sounds found in the Hebrew alphabet, and sometimes no letter at all. Some romanizations resolve this problem using additional non-Tiberian principles:

  • The two letters that represent a stop may be written using the forward and backward quote marks, or similar marks.
  • Certain consonants are considered "emphatic" (the consonants ? ? ?), due to being pronounced traditionally toward the back of the mouth. They may be transliterated distinctively by using an underdot.
  • The letter "vav" was once pronounced like English "w", in contrast to its current pronunciation identical to the letter "vet" (the soft letter ?).
  • The Karmeli transcription (see link at bottom of page) creates additional letters based on similar Hebrew or Cyrillic letters to represent the sounds which lack Roman letters.


Finally, for ease of reading it is common to apply certain principles foreign to Hebrew:
  • Use a hyphen between common prefixes or suffixes and a romanized word.
  • Capitalize the first letter of a proper name, but not its prefixes.


See also

  • Hebraization of English
    Hebraization of English

    The Hebraization of English is the use of the Hebrew alphabet to transliterate English words.For example, the English name spelled "Timothy" in the English alphabet can be Hebraized as "??????" in the Hebrew alphabet....
  • International Phonetic Alphabet for Hebrew
  • Arabic transliteration
    Arabic transliteration

    Different approaches and methods for the romanization of Arabic language exist. They vary in the way that they address the inherent problems of rendering written and spoken Arabic in the Latin alphabet; they also use different symbols for Arabic phonemes that do not exist in English language or other European languages....
  • Other alphabets in Morse code#Hebrew
    Other alphabets in Morse code

    This is a summary of the use of Morse code to represent alphabets other than Latin alphabet....


External links

  • "", Talya Halkin in Jerusalem Post (July 6, 2006).
  • "" (in Hebrew) of the Academy of the Hebrew Language, 2007.
  • Society of Biblical Literature, .
  • Transliterated text of the Torah
    Torah

    The term "Torah" , or Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, refers to the entirety of Judaism's founding Halakha and ethical religious texts....
     and all Haftarot
    Haftarah

    The haftarah or haftorah is a series of selections from the books of Nevi'im of the Hebrew Bible that is publicly read in synagogue as part of Judaism....
     are available from http://bible.ort.org/ based on Sephardi pronunciation.
  • ; a Romanization developed in Israel which uses extra invented letters
  • ; a script that automatically transliterates pointed Unicode Hebrew text into Roman letters.