The

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserve ...

uses the

Hebrew alphabet 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 Jewi ...

with optional vowel diacritics. The romanization of Hebrew is the use of the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...

transliterate 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 ...

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

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 ...

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 German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

, Turkish, and so on.

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 ...

uses an alphabet to represent the letters and sounds of a word spelled in another alphabet, whereas transcription uses an alphabet to represent the sounds only. Romanization can refer to either. To go the other way, that is from English to Hebrew, see

Hebraization of English The Hebraization of English (or Hebraicization) is the use of the Hebrew alphabet to write English. Because Hebrew uses an abjad, it can render English words in multiple ways. There are many uses for hebraization, which serve as a useful tool for ...

. Both Hebraization of English and Romanization of Hebrew are forms of transliteration. Where these are formalized these are known as "transliteration systems", and, where only some words, not all, are transliterated, this is known as "transliteration policy".

Transliteration

When to transliterate

Transliteration assumes two different script systems. The use of a French word in English without translation, such as "

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. ...

", is not transliteration. The use of a Hindi word in English such as "

khaki The color khaki (, ) is a light shade of tan with a slight yellowish tinge. Khaki has been used by many armies around the world for uniforms and equipment, particularly in arid or desert regions, where it provides camouflage relative to sandy ...

" (originally खाकी) is transliteration. Transliteration of a foreign word into another language is usually the exception to translation, and often occurs when there is something distinctive about the word in the original language, such as a

double entendre A double entendre (plural double entendres) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to have a double meaning, of which one is typically obvious, whereas the other often conveys a message that would be too socially ...

uniqueness Uniqueness is a state or condition wherein someone or something is unlike anything else in comparison, or is remarkable, or unusual. When used in relation to humans, it is often in relation to a person's personality, or some specific characterist ...

, religious, cultural or political significance, or it may occur to add local flavor. In the cases of Hebrew transliteration into English, many Hebrew words have a long history of transliteration, for example

Amen Amen ( he, אָמֵן, ; grc, ἀμήν, ; syc, ܐܡܝܢ, ; ar, آمين, ) is an Abrahamic declaration of affirmation which is first found in the Hebrew Bible, and subsequently found in the New Testament. It is used in Jewish, Christian, and ...

Satan Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehoo ...

ephod An ephod ( he, אֵפוֹד ''ʾēfōḏ''; or ) was a type of apron, which according to the Hebrew Bible, was worn by the Jewish high priest the kohen gadol, an artifact and an object to be revered in ancient Israelite culture, and was closel ...

Urim and Thummim In the Hebrew Bible, the Urim ( he, ''ʾŪrīm'', "lights") and the Thummim ( he, ''Tummīm'', meaning uncertain, possibly "perfections") are elements of the ''hoshen'', the breastplate worn by the High Priest attached to the ephod. They are ...

have traditionally been transliterated, not translated. These terms were in many cases also first transliterated into Greek and Latin before English. Different publishers have different transliteration policies. For example

ArtScroll ArtScroll is an imprint of translations, books and commentaries from an Orthodox Jewish perspective published by Mesorah Publications, Ltd., a publishing company based in Rahway, New Jersey. Rabbi Nosson Scherman is the general editor. ArtScroll ...

publications generally transliterate more words relative to sources such as the

Jewish Encyclopedia ''The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times to the Present Day'' is an English-language encyclopedia containing over 15,000 articles on th ...

1911, or

Jewish Publication Society The Jewish Publication Society (JPS), originally known as the Jewish Publication Society of America, is the oldest nonprofit, nondenominational publisher of Jewish works in English. Founded in Philadelphia in 1888, by reform Rabbi Joseph Krausko ...

texts.

How to transliterate

There are various

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 ...

standards or systems for Hebrew-to-English; no one system has significant common usage across all fields. Consequently, in general usage there are often no hard and fast rules in Hebrew-to-English transliteration, and many transliterations are an approximation due to a lack of equivalence between the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

and

s. Conflicting systems of transliteration often appear in the same text, as certain Hebrew words tend to associate with certain traditions of transliteration. For example, This text includes instances of the same word transliterated in different ways: The Hebrew word is transliterated as both ''Beith'' and ''Bet''. These discrepancies in transliterations of the same word can be traced to discrepancies in the transliterations of individual Hebrew letters, reflecting not only different traditions of transliteration into different languages that use Latin alphabets, but also the fact that different pronunciation styles exist for the same letters in Israel (e.g. mainstream secular pronunciations used in the media versus Mizrahi, Arab, or Orthodox Ashkenazi colloquial pronunciations). For example, ''Hanukkah'' and ''Chayyim'' are transliterated with different initial letter combinations, although in Hebrew both begin with the letter ; the use of "ch" reflects German / Yiddish influence and pronunciation, whereas the "h" or "ḥ" may indicate a softer pronunciation of as in ancient

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Arabic dialects (, ; ; ) are ethnolects formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Under the ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, enco ...

Mizrahi Hebrew Mizrahi Hebrew, or Eastern Hebrew, refers to any of the pronunciation systems for Biblical Hebrew used liturgically by Mizrahi Jews: Jews from Arab countries or east of them and with a background of Arabic, Persian or other languages of Asia. As ...

. Similarly, the Hebrew letter is transliterated as ''th'' in the word ''Beith'', ''s'' in the word ''talis'', and ''t'' in the word ''Bet'', even though it is the same letter in all three words in Hebrew. The Hebrew letter is transliterated as ''c'' in ''Isaac'', ''k'' in ''Yitzchak'', and ''q'' in ''Qehila''. Finally, the Hebrew letter is transliterated variously as ''s'' (in ''Isaac''), ''tz'' (in ''Yitzchak''), and ''ts'' (in ''Tsfat''), again reflecting different traditions of spelling or pronunciation. These inconsistencies make it more difficult for the non-Hebrew-speaking reader to recognize related word forms, or even to properly pronounce the Hebrew words thus transliterated.

Historic instances

Early

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 occurred with the contact between the

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

and the

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

s. It was influenced by earlier

into the

Greek language Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), souther ...

. For example, the name of the Roman province of

Iudaea Judaea ( la, Iudaea ; grc, Ἰουδαία, translit=Ioudaíā ) was a Roman province which incorporated the regions of Judea, Samaria, and Idumea from 6 CE, extending over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms of ...

(63 BCE) was apparently derived from the Greek words (Iouda) and (Ioudaia). These words can be seen in Chapter 1 of

Esdras The name 'Esdras' is found in the title of four texts (entitled Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras in most English versions) attributed to, or associated with, the prophet Ezra. The naming convention of the four books of Esdras differs betwe ...

(Ezra) in the

Septuagint The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond t ...

, a

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

translation of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Judah, Judas and Jude. 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 The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Vulgate The Vulgate (; also called (Bible in common tongue), ) is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels u ...

, 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 Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a particu ...

mamzer In the Hebrew Bible and Jewish religious law, a ''mamzer'' ( he, ממזר, , "estranged person"; plural ''mamzerim'') is a person who is born as the result of certain forbidden relationships or incest (as it is defined by the Bible), or the de ...

'' (). With the rise of

Zionism Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

, 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 The National Library of Israel (NLI; he, הספרייה הלאומית, translit=HaSifria HaLeumit; ar, المكتبة الوطنية في إسرائيل), formerly Jewish National and University Library (JNUL; he, בית הספרים הלא� ...

). However, the innovation did not catch on. Political activist

Ze'ev Jabotinsky Ze'ev Jabotinsky ( he, זְאֵב זַ׳בּוֹטִינְסְקִי, ''Ze'ev Zhabotinski'';, ''Wolf Zhabotinski'' 17 October 1880 – 3 August 1940), born Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky, was a Russian Jewish Revisionist Zionist leade ...

, leader of

Betar The Betar Movement ( he, תנועת בית"ר), also spelled Beitar (), is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. Chapters sprang up across Europe, even during World War II. After t ...

, and Chief Rabbi Kook, also expressed their support for the reform of Hebrew script using Latin letters.

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 in the diaspora 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. Frequently, Romanized Hebrew is also used in music scores, in part because music is written left-to-right and Hebrew is written right-to-left. 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 is a series of international standards for the romanization of Hebrew characters into Latin characters, dating to 1984, with updated ISO 259-2 (a simplification, disregarding several vowel signs, 1994) and ISO 259-3 ( Phonemic Conversion, ...

:1984; ISO 259-2:1994 (simplified);

Society of Biblical Literature The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), founded in 1880 as the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, is an American-based learned society dedicated to the academic study of the Bible and related ancient literature. Its current stated mis ...

(SBL) Handbook of Style *National: for example: **''Rules of Transcription: Romanization of Hebrew''.

Academy of the Hebrew Language The Academy of the Hebrew Language ( he, הָאָקָדֶמְיָה לַלָּשׁוֹן הָעִבְרִית, ''ha-akademyah la-lashon ha-ivrit'') was established by the Israeli government in 1953 as the "supreme institution for scholarship on t ...

, 1957. Updated and augmented with a simplified version, 2000. Replaced by a new system altogether in 2006. ** DIN 31636, the German standard. **Standard of Poland « Polska Norma "Transliteracja alfabetu hebrajskiego PN-74 / N-01211"», similar to SBL. * *Bibliographic data: ANSI Z39.25-1975; ALA/ LC Romanization Tables (1991) and their book ''Hebraica Cataloging'' (1987), with ''

Encyclopaedia Judaica The ''Encyclopaedia Judaica'' is a 22-volume English-language encyclopedia of the Jewish people, Judaism, and Israel. It covers diverse areas of the Jewish world and civilization, including Jewish history of all eras, culture, holidays, langu ...

'' (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/PCGN 1962 (US and UK), approximately equivalent to

UNGEGN The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) is one of the nine expert groups of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and deals with the national and international standardization of geographical names. E ...

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 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 ...

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

, the UNGEGN system based on the old-fashioned Hebrew Academy system,"Report on the Current Status of United Nations Romanization Systems for Geographical Names"
Compiled by the UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems Version 4.0, February 2013 and the modern common informal

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

i transcription. In addition, an

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...

pronunciation is indicated—historical (

Tiberian vocalization The Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian pointing, or Tiberian niqqud (Hebrew: ''haNīqqūḏ haṬəḇērīyānī'') is a system of diacritics (''niqqud'') devised by the Masoretes of Tiberias to add to the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible to p ...

) for ISO 259, prescribed for Hebrew Academy, and in practice for Israeli. For the vowels further down, the letters ח and ט are used as symbolic anchors for vowel symbols, but should otherwise be ignored. For the letters with

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 ...

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 Shewa ( am, ሸዋ; , om, Shawaa), formerly romanized as Shua, Shoa, Showa, Shuwa (''Scioà'' in Italian), is a historical region of Ethiopia which was formerly an autonomous kingdom within the Ethiopian Empire. The modern Ethiopian capital A ...

ְ or ẖatafim ֱ ֲ ֳ . 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 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 ...

are silent and not transliterated. The letter at the end of a word with ẖolam ֹ is also silent and not transliterated. The letter at the end of a word after ẖiriq ִ is also silent and not transliterated. The situation of the letter at the end of a word after ẕere ֵ 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 naẖ is placed between two adjacent consonants in all situations; if there is not even a shewa naẖ 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 () was, according to the Book of Genesis, the fifth of the six sons of Jacob and Leah (Jacob's ninth son), and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Issachar. However, some Biblical scholars view this as an eponymous metaphor pro ...

) 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 naẖ 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 (gāḏōl), short (qāṭān) or ultra short (ḥăṭep̄), and are transliterated as such. Ultra short vowels are always one of šəwā nāʻ ְ , ḥăṭep̄ səḡōl ֱ , ḥăṭep̄ páṯaḥ ֲ or ḥăṭep̄ qāmeṣ ֳ . Šəwā ְ is ''always'' always šəwā nāʻ (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, šəwā is realized as šəwā nāḥ (silent). The vowels ṣērē ֵ and ḥōlem ֹ are always long in all situations. The vowels ḥīreq ִ , səḡōl ֶ , páṯaḥ ַ , qāmeṣ ָ , qibbūṣ ֻ and šūreq 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 ṣērē and ḥōlem—may not force a following šəwā to become šəwā nāʻ, including for example names such as Gēršōm (not Gērəšōm as it might seem), Bēlšaṣṣạr (not Bēləšaṣṣạr) and Ṣīqlạḡ (not Ṣīqəlạḡ). Some of these seem to be learned exceptions, and most words under the same circumstances have šəwā nāʻ as expected, such as Nāṣərạṯ (not Nāṣrạṯ). (This is ''all'' moot in Israeli Hebrew, where, as already mentioned, shva nach tends to opportunistically replace

shva na Shva or, in Biblical Hebrew, shĕwa ( he, שְׁוָא) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign written as two vertical dots () beneath a letter. It indicates either the phoneme (shva na', mobile shva) or the complete absence of a vowel (/ Ø/) (shva na ...

where comfortable, so is Natzrat not Natzerat, etc.) For the vowel qamaẕ ָ, 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. Qamaẕ 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/. Qamaẕ gadol is ''usually'' /a/, but in rare situations in Classical Hebrew it can be treated as a long open /ọ/, which although pronounced identically to /ā/ (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 pataẖ is pronounced ''before'' the consonant, not after as it is written, and so the ''transliterated'' sequence is , , , etc. In certain rare words that are meant to begin with two consecutive consonants even in Classical Hebrew, an invisible səḡōl qāṭān 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 ʼeštáyim. 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 , and it still transliterates separate and in all cases. It is unspecific about rules governing the transliteration of phonemes not traditionally native to Hebrew.

Table

=Notes

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 ''Matres lectionis'' (from Latin "mothers of reading", singular form: ''mater lectionis'', from he, אֵם קְרִיאָה ) are consonants that are used to indicate a vowel, primarily in the writing down of Semitic languages such as Arabic, ...

. There was no way to indicate vowels clearly in Hebrew writing until the time of the

Second Temple The Second Temple (, , ), later known as Herod's Temple, was the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem between and 70 CE. It replaced Solomon's Temple, which had been built at the same location in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited ...

. 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

, 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 The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

) and of the Samaritans. 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 or

fricatives A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators 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 t ...

("spirantized"). For example, the letter bet can be pronounced as "b" or "v". Tiberian vocalization marks a hard consonant with a ''

kal'' (in the Hebrew term) or ''lene'' (Latin). A soft consonant lacks a ''dagesh kal'', and is sometimes explicitly marked using ''

rafe In Hebrew orthography the rafe or raphe ( he, רָפֶה, , meaning "weak, limp") is a diacritic (), a subtle horizontal overbar placed above certain letters to indicate that they are to be pronounced as fricatives. It originated with the Ti ...

'', 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 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 ...

. 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 ט צ ק ח ע), due to being pronounced traditionally toward the back of the mouth. They may be transliterated distinctively by using an underdot. * The letter "vav" (ו) was once pronounced like English "w", in contrast to its current pronunciation identical to the letter "vet" (the soft letter ב). * The Karmeli transcription (see link at bottom of page) creates additional letters based on similar Hebrew or Cyrillic letters to represent the sounds that 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.

Examples

Below is the word " שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם" ( , "Peace be upon you") in various transliteration systems.https://alittlehebrew.com/transliterate/

References

;Bibliography * * * * * Excellent, lively summary of issues and options for transliteration of Hebrew. *

External links

The entire Hebrew bible transliterated in two different formats
Matthew Anstey

* " ttp://www.jpost.com/magazine/features/hebrish-or-engbrew Hebrish or Engbrew, Talya Halkin in ''The Jerusalem Post'' (July 6, 2006).
United Nations romanization of Hebrew

Library of Congress Authorities
* Society of Biblical Literature
SBL Handbook of Style 2nd edition (archived)

SBL Handbook of Style 2nd edition

Student Supplement for the SBL Handbook of Style, Second edition
'.'' * Transliterated text of the

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

and all

Haftarot The ''haftara'' or (in Ashkenazic pronunciation) ''haftorah'' (alt. ''haftarah, haphtara'', he, הפטרה) "parting," "taking leave", (plural form: ''haftarot'' or ''haftoros'') is a series of selections from the books of ''Nevi'im'' ("Pro ...

are available from http://bible.ort.org/ based on

Sephardi Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...

pronunciation.
The Karmeli Alphabet
(Romanization developed in Israel that uses extra invented letters).
Automatic Hebrew Transliteration (Hebrew-Braille, English, Finnish, German, IPA, Russian and Spanish
{{DEFAULTSORT:Romanization Of Hebrew

Hebrew language Hebrew alphabet