ISO ISO is the most common abbreviation for the International Organization for Standardization. ISO or Iso may also refer to: Business and finance * Iso (supermarket), a chain of Danish supermarkets incorporated into the SuperBest chain in 2007 * Iso ...

259 is a series of international standards for the

romanization Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, a ...

of Hebrew characters into

Latin characters The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Ital ...

, dating to 1984, with updated ISO 259-2 (a simplification, disregarding several vowel signs, 1994) and ISO 259-3 (

Phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...

Conversion, 1999).

ISO 259

ISO 259, dating to 1984, is a

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

of the

Hebrew script The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish ...

, including the

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

al signs (''

niqqud In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in the ...

'') used for Biblical Hebrew. The ''

dagesh The dagesh () is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud (vowel points). It takes the form of a dot placed inside a Hebrew letter and has the effect of modi ...

'' (dot inside the letter) is always transcribed with an

overdot When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the '' interpunct'' ( · ), or to the glyphs "combining dot above" ( ◌̇ ) and "combining dot below" ( ◌̣ ) which may be combined with some letters of t ...

: ''ḃ'', ''ġ'', ''ż'', etc. The apostrophe (‎) in the table above is the Hebrew sign ''

geresh Geresh ( in Hebrew: ‎ or ‎ , or medieval ) is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings. #An apostrophe-like sign (also known colloquially as a ''chupchik'') placed after a letter: #* as a diacritic that modifies the pronunciation ...

'' used after some letters to write down non-Hebrew sounds: , , , etc..

ISO 259-2

ISO 259-2 simplifies the diacritical signs for vowels of ISO 259, and is designed for

Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the H ...

. The ''

'' is not transcribed excepted in the indicated cases. The apostrophe (‎) in the table above is the Hebrew sign ''

'' used after some letters to write down non-Hebrew sounds.

ISO 259-3

ISO 259-3 is Uzzi Ornan's romanization, which reached the stage of an

Final Draft ( FDIS) but not of a published International Standard (IS).Search for ISO 259
on the

website. It is designed to deliver the common structure of the Hebrew word throughout the different dialects or pronunciation styles of Hebrew, in a way that it can be reconstructed into the original Hebrew characters by both man and machine. It is neither a character-by-character

nor a

phonetic transcription Phonetic transcription (also known as phonetic script or phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or ''phones'') by means of symbols. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the I ...

of one pronunciation style of Hebrew, but is instead

phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...

from the view point that all the different dialects and pronunciations of Hebrew through the generations can be regarded as different realizations of the same structure, and by predefined reading rules every pronunciation style can be directly derived from it. Each consonant character in the Hebrew script is converted into its unique Latin character. ISO 259-3 has five

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

characters, corresponding to the five vowel phonemes of

: a, e, i, o, u. In addition there is a sixth sign for denoting the vowel or that is written followed by ⟨⟩ in common Hebrew spelling: . The dagesh ''forte'' (

gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...

in Biblical Hebrew) is transcribed with a double consonant. Non-

vowels are ignored, such as: * schwa , which is however transcribed with an underscore (_) between two identical consonants in order to distinguish it from a geminate consonant: "boys" = ''yladim'', "

Hallelujah ''Hallelujah'' ( ; he, ''haləlū-Yāh'', meaning "praise Yah") is an interjection used as an expression of gratitude to God. The term is used 24 times in the Hebrew Bible (in the book of Psalms), twice in deuterocanonical books, and four tim ...

" = ''hal_luyah'', * "

segolate Segolates are words in the Hebrew language whose end is of the form CVCVC, where the penultimate vowel receives syllable stress. Such words are called "segolates" because the final unstressed vowel is typically (but not always) ''segol''. These w ...

" vowel (on the second to last consonant an unaccented vowel , which can also be the vowel on some

laryngeal consonants Laryngeal consonants (a term often used interchangeably with guttural consonants) are consonants with their primary articulation in the larynx. The laryngeal consonants comprise the pharyngeal consonants (including the epiglottals), the glottal ...

, or , etc.) : "

golem A golem ( ; he, , gōlem) is an animated, Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is entirely created from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the l ...

" = ''golm'', "opening, window" = ''cohr'', * "furtive" ''

pataḥ Pataḥ ( he, פַּתָּח ', , Biblical Hebrew: ') is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a horizontal line underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew, it indicates the phoneme which is close to the " sound in the English word ''far'' an ...

'' (an unaccented sound before some final laryngeal consonants): "breeze, spirit" = ''ruḥ'', but ISO 259-3 also allows -- (in section 5., "SIMPLIFIED VERSION") -- the transcription with ''a'' for non-linguistic purposes: ''ruaḥ''.ISO 259-3
/ref>

ISO 259

ISO 259-2

ISO 259-3

References

See also