# Hebrew Alphabet Romanization



## TheAristocrat

Hi,
Just as I was going through the process of translating some of the Hebrew text in my verb book, it dawned on me that some of the lettering in my chart that I have been referring to is different to that of other sources. Is there a definitive set of romanized characters for the Hebrew alphabet? For instance, the first person pronoun I translate into Aniy with the chart I am using, but other places I have seen Aney or Anee. This makes me slightly more hesitant to draw conclusions on my translations into romanized form, or how it may lead me to pronounce the words. Can anyone shed some light on this? Thanks for your time.

Regards


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## tFighterPilot

The word אני can simply be transliterated to Ani, since the final Yud is not a consonant. Same way the word אתה should be transliterated as Ata and not Atah.


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## Aoyama

Of course tFighterPilot is right, but then one can ponder about "i" and "ee". "Aney" is utterly impossible, but "anee" could be _imagined_ , as you can find it in Roman transliteration of Arabic (and other languages also). But that is because "ee" is taken as an English equivalent to the "Latin 'i'". Luckily Hebrew as taken Latin as a reference for transcription (otherwise you would also have "oo" for "u"). Arabic will also use "oo" sometimes, not a good idea.
You find the same problem in Japanese and Korean (two languages that bare resemblance to Hebrew and Arabic, when it comes to closeness).


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## TheAristocrat

I have plenty of experience with Japanese and Romaji, I can see how that would be a problem with Hebrew. How best would one approach transliteration? Is there a method that iis recognised as the most accurate? A chart I could reference? As in the example I posted with Ani, I need to be able to transliterate the Hebrew into English in order to learn how to pronounce each word accurately. Would this chart be acceptable? 

http://library.princeton.edu/departments/tsd/katmandu/hebrew/trheb.html


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## anipo

The chart looks fine, as long as you pronounce the vowels in the Latin way, i.e.  *i* as in *i*nn ; *e* as in b*e*d; *a* as in l*a*rge; *u* as in t*oo*, and *o* as in m*o*rning


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## Egmont

One problem with transliterations is that the best one depends on your audience. You will have one best transliteration for academics who care about whether a Hebrew word is spelled with caf or kof, even though their pronunciation is the same, or exactly which silent letter shows up where. You'll have another if you want English speakers to be able to reproduce the sound of the Hebrew word as accurately as possible, a third if your target audience is French speakers, a fourth ... you get the idea. 

For example, the chart in the link transliterates samech as "s," but sin as "s" with an acute accent. (I don't know how to create that one on my computer.) That may be important to linguists, but the accent would just confuse English speakers trying to pronounce something. 

Bottom line is that you won't find any single, definitive chart. Sorry.


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## Aoyama

It is true that transliterations require a _system_ . This was the case with Japanese, devised by James Curtis Hepburn, an American missionary in the 19th C,who knew Latin, and who luckily, as a linguist and a phonologist, was clever enough to realize the common points between Japanese and Latin (especially regarding vowels). Using English as a reference would have been a catastrophe.
The same thing is true with Hebrew (or any other language with a different "alphabet" then Latin) it needs a well thought system to render the differences like ayin and he, tav and tet, caf and kov etc. The Chinese have it, the Koreans have it ... Such a system exists in the academic world, but the fact that there are jewish communities all over the world, each speaking their own language used as a reference to transcribe Hebrew doesn't help.
The difference between English and French speakers is one good example, you could add Spanish or Russian ...
Check out how many ways there are to spell "hanuka" ...


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## tFighterPilot

Egmont said:


> One problem with transliterations is that the best one depends on your audience. You will have one best transliteration for academics who care about whether a Hebrew word is spelled with caf or kof, even though their pronunciation is the same, or exactly which silent letter shows up where. You'll have another if you want English speakers to be able to reproduce the sound of the Hebrew word as accurately as possible, a third if your target audience is French speakers, a fourth ... you get the idea.
> 
> For example, the chart in the link transliterates samech as "s," but sin as "s" with an acute accent. (I don't know how to create that one on my computer.) That may be important to linguists, but the accent would just confuse English speakers trying to pronounce something.
> 
> Bottom line is that you won't find any single, definitive chart. Sorry.


I think the best approach is to fit the romanization to the highest common denominator and have another table that states what sound fits which letter in each dialect. Of course, making a different letter for sin is pointless since it's pronounced the same as Samekh in every Hebrew dialect existing.


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## TheAristocrat

This is all very interesting! So, I see now that the better question would be, how did you all approach transliteration personally? What worked for you? Would you do anything differently were you to go back and do it all again?


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## MuttQuad

There is no universally accepted system for transliteration of Hebrew into Latin characters; that's why you see so many different representations of the same word.

On the other hand, the Conservative Jewish movement in the US did adopt a system which it uses for its prayerbooks and other printed materials. Others are free to use it or not, or to do pretty much as they please.

Unfortunately, the system used by the Conservatives made the poor choice of representing the guttural sound (e.g. the first sound in the Hebrew word for Hanukkah) by the Roman letters "H" and "h" with a dot beneath. The trouble is that hardly any type fonts of the Latin alphabet include such a configured form.

Whatever choices you do make for your transliteration, at least use them consistently; and don't pick any characters that are not readily available in the common Latin fonts.


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## Aoyama

> Unfortunately, the system used by the Conservatives made the poor choice of representing the guttural sound (e.g. the first sound in the Hebrew word for Hanukkah) by the Roman letters "H" and "h" with a dot beneath. The trouble is that hardly any type fonts of the Latin alphabet include such a configured form.
> 
> Whatever choices you do make for your transliteration, at least use them consistently; and don't pick any characters that are not readily available in the common Latin fonts.


Both counts are right.
As for the guttural sound*s* , one of the biggest problems, French speakers can't even hear them. You will have "h","kh","ch" (maybe others) but no real differentiation between he,het,khaf, ayin etc.


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