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TheHebrew language uses theHebrew alphabet with optionalvowel diacritics. Theromanization of Hebrew is the use of theLatin alphabet totransliterate Hebrew words.For example, the Hebrew nameיִשְׂרָאֵל ('Israel') can be romanized asYisrael orYiśrāʼēl.

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 asGerman,Spanish,Turkish, and so on. Transliteration uses an alphabet to represent the letters and sounds of a word spelled in another alphabet, whereastranscription uses an alphabet to represent the sounds only. Romanization can refer to either.

To go the other way, that is from English to Hebrew, seeHebraization of English. Both Hebraization of English and Romanization of Hebrew are forms of transliteration. Where these are formalized these are known astransliteration systems, and, where only some words, not all, are transliterated, this is known astransliteration policy.

Transliteration assumes two differentscript systems. 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 adouble entendre, uniqueness, religious, cultural or political significance, or it may add local flavor.^[1]Many Hebrew words have a long history of transliteration, for exampleAmen,Satan,ephod,Urim and Thummim have traditionally been transliterated, not translated.^[2] These terms were in many cases also first transliterated intoGreek andLatin before English.(See alsoTransliteration of Greek into English)

Different publishers have different transliteration policies. For exampleArtScroll publications generally transliterate more words relative to sources such asThe Jewish Encyclopedia 1911 orJewish Publication Society texts.^{[citation needed]}

There are varioustransliteration 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 theEnglish andHebrew alphabets. Conflicting systems of transliteration often appear in the same text, as certain Hebrew words tend to associate with certain traditions of transliteration. For example,

ForHanukkah at the synagogueBeith Sheer Chayyim,Isaac donned histalis thatYitzchak sent him fromBet Qehila inTsfat, Israel.

This text includes instances of the same word transliterated in different ways: The Hebrew wordבית is transliterated as bothBeith andBet.

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 Hebrew itself (e.g. mainstream secular pronunciations used in the media versusMizrahi,Arab, or OrthodoxAshkenazi colloquial pronunciations). For example,Hanukkah andChayyim are transliterated with different initial letter combinations, although in Hebrew both begin with the letterח‎; the use of⟨ch⟩ reflectsGerman orYiddish influence and pronunciation (e.g.[x] or[χ]), whereas the⟨h⟩ or⟨ḥ⟩ may indicate a softer pronunciation ofח‎ as in ancientHebrew,Judeo-Arabic orMizrahi Hebrew (e.g.[h] or[ħ]). Similarly:

• ת‎ is transliterated as⟨th⟩ inBeith,⟨s⟩ intalis (as inAshkenazi Hebrew), and⟨t⟩ inBet (as inSephardi Hebrew)
• ק‎ is transliterated as⟨c⟩ inIsaac,⟨k⟩ inYitzchak, and⟨q⟩ inQehila
• צ‎ is transliterated as⟨s⟩ inIsaac^{[dubious –discuss]},⟨tz⟩ inYitzchak, and⟨ts⟩ inTsfat

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.

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Earlyromanization of Hebrew occurred with the contact between theRomans and theJews. It was influenced by earliertransliteration into theGreek language. For example, the name of the Roman province ofIudaea (63 BCE) was apparently derived from the Greek wordsἸούδα (Iouda) andἸουδαία (Ioudaia). These words can be seen in Chapter 1 ofEsdras (Ezra) in theSeptuagint, aHellenistic translation of theHebrew Bible into Greek. The Greek words in turn are transliterations of the Hebrew wordיהודה (Yehuda) that wasanglicized as the namesJudah, Judas and Jude.

In the 1st century,Satire 14:96 of Juvenal uses the Hebraic wordssabbata,Iudaicum, andMoyses, apparently adapted from the Greek.

The 4th-century and 5th-century Latin translations of theHebrew Bible romanize its proper names. The familiar Biblical names in English are derived from these romanizations. TheVulgate, 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 thetechnical termmamzer (ממזר).

With the rise ofZionism, 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, orIttamar Ben Avi, as he styled himself. His fatherEliezer Ben Yehuda raised him to be the first modern native speaker of Hebrew. In 1927, Ben-Avi published the biographyAvi in romanized Hebrew (now listed in the online catalog of theJewish National and University Library). However, the innovation did not catch on.

Political activistZe'ev Jabotinsky, leader ofBetar, and ChiefRabbi Kook, also expressed their support for the reform of Hebrew script using Latin letters.^{[citation needed]}

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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.

• Traditional, scholarly:ISO 259:1984;ISO 259-2:1994 (simplified);Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) Handbook of Style
• National: for example:
  • Rules of Transcription: Romanization of Hebrew.Academy of the Hebrew Language, 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"»,^[3] similar to SBL.
• Artscroll § Transliteration system
• Bibliographic data: ANSI Z39.25-1975;ALA/LC Romanization Tables (1991) and their bookHebraica Cataloging (1987), withEncyclopaedia Judaica (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 toUNGEGN 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)

The following table is a breakdown of each letter in the Hebrew alphabet, describing its name or names, and itsLatin scripttransliteration 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 does not support right-to-left text layout). The conventions here areISO 259, the UNGEGN system based on the old-fashioned Hebrew Academy system,^[4] and the modern common informalIsraeli transcription. In addition, anInternational Phonetic Alphabet pronunciation is indicated—historical (Tiberian vocalization) 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 lettersבּ גּ דּ כּ פּ תּ‎ withdagesh 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 aftershewa ְ  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 lettersא ה‎ at the ends of words without additionalniqqud are silent and not transliterated. The letterו‎ at the end of a word with ẖolam ֹ  is also silent and not transliterated. The letterי‎ at the end of a word after ẖiriq ִ  is also silent and not transliterated. The situation of the letterי‎ 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 ofא ו י‎, but even occasionallyה‎ and rarelyש‎ (in the nameיִשָּׂשכָר‎Issachar) 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 ְ  isalways always šəwā nāʻ (pronounced) if it is 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 šūreqוּ‎  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 finalunstressed 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 asגֵּרְשֹׁם‎Gēršōm (not Gērəšōm as it might seem),בֵּלְשַׁאצַּר‎Bēlšaṣṣạr (not Bēləšaṣṣạr) andצִֽקְלַג‎Ṣīqlạḡ (not Ṣīqəlạḡ). Some of these seem to be learned exceptions, and most words under the same circumstances have šəwā nāʻ as expected, such asנָֽצְרַת‎Nāṣərạṯ (not Nāṣrạṯ). (This isall moot in Israeli Hebrew, where, as already mentioned,shva nach tends to opportunistically replaceshva na where comfortable, soנָֽצְרַת‎ 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 isusually /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[ɔː]), 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 ofהַּ חַ עַ‎, then the vowel pataẖ is pronouncedbefore the consonant, not after as it is written, and so thetransliterated sequence is⟨ah⟩,⟨aẖ⟩,⟨aʻ⟩, 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 wordשְׁתַּ֫יִם‎ ("two") would appear as štáyim, but is actually ʼeštáyim.^{[dubious –discuss]} 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.^[4] As of 2008^[update], 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[e̞j] as⟨e⟩, and it still transliterates separate⟨ẖ⟩ and⟨kh⟩ in all cases. It is unspecific about rules governing the transliteration of phonemes not traditionally native to Hebrew.

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 andmatres lectionis. There was no way to indicate vowels clearly in Hebrew writing until the time of theSecond Temple. 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, theTiberian vocalization, 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 theDead Sea Scrolls) and of theSamaritans. 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.

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.

• 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").

• Six consonants (beth, gimel, daleth, kaph, pe, and tav) can be hard or soft. To be specific, they are pronounced either asstops orfricatives ("spirantized"). For example, the letter bet can be pronounced as "b" or "v". Tiberian vocalization marks a hard consonant with adagesh kal (in the Hebrew term) orlene (Latin). A soft consonant lacks adagesh kal, and is sometimes explicitly marked usingrafe, 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 undergogemination. Tiberian vocalization marks gemination with adagesh hazak (in the Hebrew term) orforte (Latin), which looks the same asdagesh 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.

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 consonantsט 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 letterב‎).
• 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.

Below is the phrase "שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם" (pronounced[ʃaˈloːmʕaleːˈxem], "Peace be upon you") in various transliteration systems.^[7]

• Anglicisation
• Hebraization of English
• Help:IPA/Hebrew
• Other alphabets in Morse code#Hebrew
• Romanization of Arabic
• Romanization of Yiddish

Bibliography

• Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (2000) [1993].A History of the Hebrew Language. Cambridge University Press.ISBN 0-521-55634-1.
• "The Jewish diaspora: Rome". Archived fromthe original on April 18, 2016. RetrievedAugust 9, 2005.
• "Parallel texts of Ezra in various languages".Unbound Bible. RetrievedAugust 16, 2005.
• Juvenal."Satire 14".The Latin Library. RetrievedAugust 9, 2005.
• "Transliteration". RetrievedAugust 9, 2005. Excellent, lively summary of issues and options for transliteration of Hebrew.
• Arenstein, Benjamin (2018)."Scripted History: Hebrew Romanization in Interwar British Mandate Palestine"(PDF). Columbia University. RetrievedNovember 19, 2019.

• The entire Hebrew bible transliterated in two different formats, Matthew Anstey
• Transliteration between Hebrew and Standard English or ISO 259Archived 2008-04-02 at theWayback Machine
• "Hebrish or Engbrew", Talya Halkin inThe Jerusalem Post (July 6, 2006).
• United Nations romanization of Hebrew
• ALA/LC romanization of Hebrew
• 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 theTorah and allHaftarot are available fromhttp://bible.ort.org/Archived 2011-03-05 at theWayback Machine based onSephardi 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

• Romanization
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• Hebrew alphabet

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