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Suggestions

I suggest the wide road. My opinion is that we should be as wide as possible. That is, we are to provide both a transcription (writing as the sounds are heard) and a transliteration (conveying each letter fully). We are to transcribe to the Modern Hebrew pronunciation, for that is the extant spoken tongue today. We are to transliterate to the Tiberian standard, for that is the information scholars need to make use of. Therefore: Havura (name of article), standard Hebrew khavura, Tiberian ḥăvūrā(h). The first is in simple ASCII for interoperability. In the second, kh denotes that the standard Hebrew pronunciation has ח pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative (but this is relatively an innovation, and older Sephardis and Yemenites know it not), and the Tiberian transliteration allows the researcher, the scholar, to accurately glean the entire writing of the term in Hebrew letters, incluing the niqqud. We will thus have served the needs of both laypeople and scholars. --Shlomital 12:47, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, Khet (ח): this letter usually denotes the sound /x/. Russian also has that sound, the letter Kha (Х, х). Are you saying that as the voiceless velar fricative does not exist in English, we can't approximate it at "kh", but we must use "ḥ"? I think that would be a mistake. Most English speakers wouldn't use the correct pronunciation anyway (that is assuming that they can actually read "ḥ" and it doesn't look like a rectangle to them). They would pronounce "kh" as /k/ and "ḥ" as /h/, so strictly speaking neither is totally correct. IMO "kh" should be used for the practical reason that it's easier to write, read and for the browser to display . There is also the "being accustomed dimension". I am used to reading חומש as "Khumash" or "Chumash" in English (it's even an English word now). Why change it to something that most people wouldn't recognise for the sake of showing how sophisticated and complex transliterations can get? As I've said, no other encyclopaedia goes into such detail. The OED transcribes words into Standard British English without worrying about individual dialects. What's wrong with doing the same here? Izehar 13:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
The Hebrew language is in a different position than English, as it has an ancient literature which is of immense interest to scholars. Of course, it is also a living, modern language with a pronunciation all its own. My suggestion, this "wide road", is to serve both needs. --Shlomital 15:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Shlomital does propose ח is represented as kh in standard Hebrew transcription.
I would say that I am used to reading חומש as "Chumash" or "Humash", but not "Khumash". In fact, I would support the use of ch for ח, and kh for כ, as this indicates (1) their difference in a number of accents (2) that kh is derived from k. This also seems more familiar. jnothman talk 13:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, most English speakers would pronounce "ch" as /ʧ/. Isn't that sound represented by "צי" and is used in foreign words only. Also, transcribing it as "h" would cause confusion with "ה". When "ch" and "kh" are used together to transliterate the same sound, most readers would assume that given that it is transliterated in a different way, then "ch" must be somehow different from "kh". We know that's not true; we know that "כ"(without dagesh) and "ח" are pronounced in exactly the same way, /x/. Izehar 14:18, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
I think some speakers still pronounce ח and כ differently. A number of Hebrew tutorials on the web still say they are different sounds. I agree that kh for ח would be appropriate for standard Israeli Hebrew, but I also agree that it does look very strange.
BTW, I don't think using ch would automatically make English speakers pronounce /ʧ/; "Chanukka" is after all a rather common word. (That said, I don't think an English speaker with no knowledge of foreign languages can pronounce the vowels correctly anyway.)—Gniw (Wing) 14:44, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
It should be noted though that "ח" and "כ" are both pronounced /x/ in Standard Hebrew. "ck" is pronounced /kx/ in certain English dialects. That doesn't stop the OED transcribing "dock" as /dɔk/ (how it is pronounced in Standard British English), just because in certain dialects it is pronounced /dɔkx/. Izehar 15:15, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Many pronounce these two as significantly different sounds. I am not actually sure which is Standard Hebrew, and the article describing this does not say. The table at Hebrew alphabet lists for heth in Israeli Hebrew: [ x~ħ ] (which I have confirmed by ear). jnothman talk 03:05, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
In traditional Sephardic and (I think) Mizrachi pronounciation, het is pronounced [ħ], and chaf is [x]; in modern Hebrew (both Oriental and non-Oriental), chaf is pronounced [χ], but in Oriental modern Hebrew, het is still [ħ] (while in non-Oriental Hebrew it has merged with /x/ to become [χ]).

Minimalist vs. Maximalist

There seem to be two schools here, the minimalists, which advocate a no-fuss easy-to-read transliteration, and the maximalists, that advocate an accurate accademic transliteration. To put some order in the discussion, I suggest these two approaches be discussed separately, and each party would finalize a complete set of rules for each approach. Then, given the minimalist proposal and the maximalist proposal, we can fight over whether and when each of these approaches would be used.--Doron 13:46, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think I understand what there is to argue about. It is obvious that articles, just like the objects they describe, need some sort of an "English" name that can be used by English speakers. When an English-speaker that knows no Hebrew writes about Haifa, Hanukkah or even Chomsky, he uses such English spellings despite them not being accurate transliterations. The fact that these transliterations are "Wrong" or cause people to pronounce these words wrongly (Haifa with "h" sound, Chomsky with "ch" sound) are immaterial to the fact that these words have established spellings in English, and these spellings must be used as the articles' names. in addition to the article's name, we can also have a pronunciation guide saying how to pronounce that name. Like I said in another place, this issue is not specific to Hebrew - look for example at Illinois, Baton Rouge, and Uitenhage - no English speaker can just "guess" the correct pronunciation of these names, so pronunciation guides must be provided. But naturally, this doesn't mean that these articles' names should be changed.
What's common between the spellings Haifa, Hanukkah, Chomsky above? Nothing much. Except one important thing - that's the English name chosen by the people involved. The "Haifa" spelling is accepted by Israelis, "Hanukkah" (or a similar variant) is accepted by American Jews who celebrate it, and "Chomsky" chose how to write (and pronounce) his own name. This is a good guideline. Always look for how a person spells his own name in English, how a town calls itself in English, and so on. forget about consistency!
The only question remaining is how to spell items which have Hebrew names but no agreed upon pronunciation or English spelling. Most examples I can think of are traditional Jewish concepts which are pronounced differently by different Jews (bris/brit, etc.). I don't have a clear answer on what to do here. One alternative is translate the term, e.g. call the article "Covenant of circumcision" or "Jewish ritual circumcision", or whatever.
Nyh 14:51, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
I think one thing that has been left out of this discussion is the likely audience for some transliterations on wikipedia - Jews. As someone who can read hebrew accurately but too slowly to keep up with z'mirot, I have been relying on transliterations for many years. I find that the systems that attempt to retain too much of the scholarly information make it absolutely unreadable. So, while I understand that they are necessary for the scholars, I think every title should include both a scholarly and a simple transliteration. Moreover, I think that translations of passages within an article (see my transliterations of al hanisim, ma-oz tzur, and the brachot at Hanukkah) should be written with simplicity in mind to make them readable to their likely audience. This means no double consonants, a ' only when it is pronounced, - to separate adjacent vowels that should be pronounced independently,k instead of q always. I would also argue that people who read transliteration are much more comfortable with the "ch" than the "kh" for chets and chafs. Let me know what you thingk Nudave04 14:31, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


I don't see a very big problem. When it comes to transliterating Modern Hebrew, I think the simplest approach needs to be used. For very technical articles, like it was mentioned already, a more precise system can be used. HOWEVER, Modern Hebrew is really quite simple in pronunciation. I am definitely in favour of using 'kh' for both ח and כ. Despite some minor variations, there is really no difference in the way these two are pronounced in Modern Hebrew. And I don't think 'ch' is a good idea since, as some have already mentioned, it may be pronounced like in English, and because Hebrew does occasionally (in foreign words) use the 'ch' phoneme. I think most of the approaches that were proposed thus far are too complicated. I grew up in Israel and am fluent in Hebrew, and yet I know very little of the subtleties in pronunciation. Another important thing is regarding the vowels. I was simply scared by the current draft of the transliteration standard :). Modern Hebrew only has the standard five vowels 'a','e','o','i',u'. There is really nothing more to it. Although the nikkud system has countless symbols, rules, and combinations, the differences simply do not exist (or at least are negligible) in Modern Hebrew. I also do not understand why an apostrophe needs to be put to indicate the alef or the ain. Most of the time these function simply as vowels, or are silent, in which case I don't see why they should be written at all. In fact, I don't think that it is frequent for them to be silent at all. For those who claim that some people in Israel do distinguish certain details, in my opinion these aren't very important as most modern speakers do not make such distinctions, there are many pronunciations (as people come from all over the globe), and speaking in one's own so-called 'dialect' rarely create intelligibility problems between people of different origins. For example, the letter 'r' can be pronounced in many ways, but really it is always an 'r' and is understood as an 'r' regardless. Please note that I am really referring to pronunciation transliteration, and not translating letter-per-letter, which is a different issue.

Proposal for rendering

Transliteration (academic)

Sign Latin Transliteration Gilgamesh proposal
א ʾ ʼ
בּ b b
ב ḇ/v ḇ, b, (v)
גּ g g
ג ġ ḡ, g
דּ d d
ד ḏ ḏ, d
ה h h
הּ hh
ו w w
ז z z
ח ḥ ḥ, sometimes archaic ḫ
ט ṭ ṭ
י y y
כּ k k
כ, ך ḵ/x ḵ, k, (ḫ)
ל l l
מ, ם m m
נ, ן n n
ס s s
ע ʿ ʻ, sometimes archaic ġ
פּ p p
פ, ף f p̄, p, (f)
צ, ץ ṣ ṣ
ק q q
ר r r
שׁ š š
שׂ ś ś
תּ t t
ת ṯ ṯ, t
Sign Latin Transliteration Gilgamesh proposal
לַ a a, á
לַא ậ
הַּ, חַ, עַ (final) ª, ă
לֶ e e, é
לֶא, לֶי ệ
לֵ ē ē, (ḗ)
לֵא, לֵי ē ê
לִ i i, (ī), í
לִי ī î
לֻ u u, (ū), ú
לוּ ū û
לֹ ō ō, (ṓ)
לֹא, לוֹ ō ô
לָ (small) o o
לָ (big) ā ā
לְ (quiescent) (none) N\A
לְ (sounded) ə ə
חֲ ă ă
חֱ ĕ ĕ
חֳ ŏ ŏ

Gilgamesh's proposal is based on the transliterations used in college-level linguistics texts, dictionary appendices and highly detailed gazetteers. - Gilgamesh 22:42, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Transliteration (academic titles/mention)

Sign Gilgamesh proposal
א '
בּ b
ב bh, or simply b
גּ g
ג gh, or simply g
דּ d
ד dh, or simply d
ה h
הּ hh
ו w
ז z
ח h, sometimes archaic kh ("Rakhel")
ט t
י y
כּ k
כ, ך kh, or simply k
ל l
מ, ם m
נ, ן n
ס s
ע ', sometimes archaic gh ("Ghamorah")
פּ p
פ, ף ph, or simply p
צ, ץ s, or sometimes permissibly z
ק q always
ר r
שׁ sh
שׂ s, or sometimes permissibly lh
תּ t
ת th, or simply t
Sign Gilgamesh proposal
לַ a
לַא a
הַּ, חַ, עַ (final) a
לֶ e
לֶא, לֶי e always
לֵ e always
לֵא, לֵי e always
לִ i
לִי i
לֻ u
לוּ u
לֹ o
לֹא, לוֹ o
לָ (small) o
לָ (big) a always
לְ (quiescent) N\A
לְ (sounded) e always
חֲ a
חֱ e
חֳ o

Transcription (standard Hebrew)

Sign Latin Transcription msh210's proposal Gilgamesh proposal
א ' no transcription ʼ, unwritten initially
בּ b b b
ב v v v
גּ g g g
ג g g g
דּ d d d
ד d d d
ה h h; but, unvowelized sans mapik at end of word, no transcription same as msh210
ו v v when it's a consonant same as msh210
ז z z z
ח kh ch (or kh?) ḥ
ט t t t
י y y y
כּ k k k
כ, ך kh ch (or kh?) ḫ
ל l l l
מ, ם m m m
נ, ן n n n
ס s s s
ע ' no transcription ʻ always
פּ p p p
פ, ף f f f
צ, ץ ts tz (or ts?) ẓ
ק k k q
ר r r r
שׁ sh sh š
שׂ s s s
תּ t t t
ת t s (or t?) t
Sign Latin Transcription msh210's proposal Gilgamesh proposal
לַ a a a
לֶ e e e
לֵ e e e
לֵי, לֶי e e, (ey)
לִ i i i
לִי i i i
לֻ u u u
לוּ u u u
לֹ, לוֹ o o o
לָ (small) o o o
לָ (big) a a a
לְ (quiescent) (none) no transcription; but ' (apostrophe), to avoid confusion, in the following instances:
  • before a vowelized א or ע
  • after ת, שׂ, or ס before ה
  • after ט before ז (if tz is used for צ) or before ת,‎ שׂ, or ס (if ts is used for צ)
  • after ק before ה if kh is used for כ and/or for ח
 N\A
לְ (sounded) e ' (apostrophe) ə, e
חֲ a a a
חֱ e e e
חֳ o o o

Transcription (standard Hebrew titles/mention)

Sign Gilgamesh proposal
א ', unwritten initially
בּ b
ב v
גּ g
ג g
דּ d
ד d
ה h, unwritten when quiesced into a vowel, but written accompanying mappiq
ו v as consonant
ז z
ח h always
ט t
י y as consonant
כּ k
כ, ך kh, (h)
ל l
מ, ם m
נ, ן n
ס s
ע ' always
פּ p
פ, ף f
צ, ץ z always
ק q always
ר r
שׁ sh
שׂ s
תּ t
ת t always
Sign Gilgamesh proposal
לַ a
לֶ e
לֵ e always
לֵי, לֶי e, optionally (but not required) ey
לִ i
לִי i
לֻ u
לוּ u
לֹ, לוֹ o
לָ (small) o
לָ (big) a
לְ (quiescent) N\A, but ' can be placed between two consonants to disambiguate that they are separate phonemes
לְ (sounded) e always
חֲ a
חֱ e
חֳ o

by Shlomi Tal. --Shlomital 15:09, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

with a column added by msh210 —msh210 18:07, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Gilgamesh's proposal represents an academic transliteration of Standard Hebrew, and not the familiar spellings used in article titles nor regular mention in texts. This transliteration scheme is also encountered in atlases and gazetteers, and adequately follows common academic transliteration conventions for Semitic languages in general. Its phonology is a conservative one as drafted by Eliezer Ben Yehuda, and still used in enunciated speech in some Standard Hebrew language tutorials. - Gilgamesh 22:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

(for academic transliteration) I largely agree with Shlomi, but if you look in some of my much older linguistics edits, I used a lot of simpler transliterations that—although kept the same amount of detail as the rich Unicode I use now—were scaled down to what most Windows fonts could display. However, a scholar even more studied than me pointed out that deviating from the highest academic standards is ideosyncratic and unprofessional, and constitutes original research. It is thus more acceptable to use what you can find in college-level textbooks and in the appendices of books like the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. In these cases, all the soft forms of בגדכפת are transliterated either no differently from their hard forms (bgdkpt), or with a disambiguating macron (either above or below: ḇḡḏḵp̄ṯ). In a crunch, h-appended forms can be used (bh gh dh kh ph th) or the softened labials (בפ) can be transliterated v or f, but otherwise, this is the standard academic way to transliterate them. Though some linguists never indicate the difference between hard and soft (e.g. "kéleb" instead of "kéleḇ"), it is still important to indicate the difference where there are subtle grammatical differences between hard and soft forms (e.g. "kalbê" is the construct of "kalbáyim" and "kalḇê" is the construct of "kəlāḇîm"), though this is not useful when the source text has no nequddoth to indicate this difference. As for aleph and ayin, the half-circles you use are acceptable and do appear in some academic publications, but it is also acceptable to use ʼ (ʼ) and ʻ (ʻ), which in Unicode are actually classified as letters rather than punctuation—in fact, ʻ is also used for ʻokina in Hawaiian. For the archaic uvulars kheth and ghayin (lost entirely sometime during the Mishnaic period), the special transliterations ḫ and ġ can be used (to disambiguate them from soft khaph and soft ghimel), and academically understood to change entirely to heth (ḥ) and ayin (ʻ) by the time of the Masoretes. As for the vowels, the schwa (ə) is indeed proper for shewa (ְ), as are the superscript letters for the hateph vowels. However, it is also permissible to transliterate the hateph vowels as normal vowels with breve diacritics (ĕăŏ)—this is particularly useful as it is doesn't look radically different from (ə), and also because Unicode superscripts are even harder to display. There are also HTML superscripts, which I would use in a crunch. As for the "helper" pathah (like "a" in "Noah" or "mashiah"), a superscripted "a" can be inserted before the final consonant, or a normal "a" can be used as long as the transliteration clearly indicates that the vowel before it is the stressed vowel. Additionally, though it is permissible to transliterate the long Tiberian vowels with a macron in all cases except for seghol and pathah and with an acute mark for seghol and pathah (īēéáāōū), in practice a circumflex (îêệậâôû) can be used to indicate that the vowel quiesces with a following consonant, usually aleph, waw or yodh (אוי—please no "oy" jokes ^_^). This is also permissible for he (ה), but in practice it is acceptable to transliterate the consonant (h) even if it is quiesced, and write it doubled (hh) if the he is marked with a mappiq. In any event, "hh" is unambiguous. Finally, though most academic transliterations always put an acute mark over the penultimate vowel in a segolate (e.g. in "oren", "sheqel"), Unicode provides special vowels ḗṓ (but no a-macron-acute exists) that can indicate this, but in practice the acute mark can be omitted, and the transliteration still understood to be a segholate because the last value is usually seghol or pathah which are rarely stressed at the end of a word unless the previous vowel is either schwa or a hateph. However, the infinitive forms of verbs (kāṯáḇ, pāʻál) could be mistaken for segholates, so an acute mark can be written over the final vowel to make sure there is no confusion which syllable is stressed. And those are my comments on the matter for now... - Gilgamesh 19:49, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
(for modern Standard transliteration) Yes, that looks more or less suitable. But if I recall from the standard form, Eliezer Ben Yehuda did differentiate and assume separate pronunciations for the guttural consonants. It is suspected that these conservative pronunciations did survive for a time until perhaps the early 20th century, but were gradually eliminated by the Ashkenazi cultural establishment in the British Mandate of Palestine. As I understand it, the actual on-the-books academic standard for Standard Hebrew differs from what is widely spoken in the street in these subtle small ways, similar to how Standard American English is based on dialect of the American Midwest but most televized media uses prestigeous variations from the major media centers of New York and Los Angeles. I know this may add an extra layer of confusion for some, but that's often how standardized language goes—however, this can be disambiguated by using the one-the-street popular transliteration for the lay person in most parts of the article text. Dry Standard transliterations can often be found in sources like National Geographic maps, where even as a child I noticed that Jerusalem's alternate form was given as "Yerušalayim", and Haifa as the academic (and admittedly rarely pronounced) "Ḥefa". These forms are also widely used by gazetteers. Though pedantic to the lay person on the street, they are useful for people who want to know the dryest standards, no matter what they may be. - Gilgamesh 19:49, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Gilgamesh - with your proposal I agree except on one thing: the use of digraphs (such as gh for the voiced velar fricative). In a transliteration, digraphs are a no-no. There must be a one-to-one correspondence between sounds (phonemes at the very least, allophones if you're pedantic) and signs. --Shlomital 07:51, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. In the cleanest of transliterations, this is a no-no, which is why some academic papers either use the macrons or use no separate indication for soft consonants at all. But (as I said before) the softness of the consonants in all circumstances is not 100% obvious, particularly in certain subtle grammatical distinctions, which is why I opt for the softening to be indicated if possibile. However, my academic proposal does indicate that, so I'll modify it.
Shalom Shlomi :-) I like your suggestion in general. There’ just a few things I am not sure I agree 100 % with:
  • In the academic transliteration, could we consider using ḇ rather than v for ב? This would be clearer from a root perspective, and it would also be more inclusive of variant traditions, since quite a few traditions pronounce the non-dagesh ב as a bilabial plosive (at least Syrian and Algerian Sephardim, as well as Spanish and Portuguese Jews from NW Europe and the Americas) or as a bilabial fricative (at least Gibraltar and parts of Morocco).
I've added it as an option. But then I don't know what we should do about peh rafah (currently f). --Shlomital 19:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Also, I would suggest to use the more conventional ă/ĕ/ŏ rather than superscript vowels. But that is no big issue either.
This is much better than my original proposal, thanks! Superscript is a styling option and isn't portable (gets lost upon copying and pasting into a text editor, for example). --Shlomital 19:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
  • It looks like you are suggesting to include only ṣērē ḥāsēr for the ē transliteration. As far as I know (but I could be wrong), no traditional form of Hebrew outside North America differentiates between the mālē (אֵי) and ḥāsēr (אֵ), and the two forms are more or less interchangeable in actual writing (e.g., תֵּיבָה = תֵּבָה).
I mean for ē to represent all kinds of tsere. The yod has never affected pronunciation, it has been a solely scribal matter from the start.
I don't agree. In Israeli Hebrew, a tsere sounds like "e", while a tsere male sounds like an "ey". Compare ליצן to ספר, for example. It is true that in specific words, like ממד and תבה (and all words in this mishqal), a drift as occured in pronunciation, even to the point that the second example the Academy of the Hebrew language mandates that you add a yod in niqqud-less spelling. However, this drift cannot be (in my opinion) be viewed as a change in the "chaser" tsere's pronunciation, but rather a need to change the vowelization. Why am I saying that? Consider ממד ("dimension"), often pronounce "meymad" in Israel, and then consider its inflections like ממדים and ממדי (dimensions, dimensional). These inflections do not even have a tsere, but rather, a schwa - and people still pronounce them with an "ey" sound, and often even write them with a yod! So it's obvious that it's not that a schwa is suddenly pronounced as "ey", but rather a drift occured so that this word now, in colloquial "wrong" Hebrew, has a tsere male (which stays throughout the inflection) Nyh 09:11, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
You have to appreciate that not every Hebrew scholar even studies spoken Israeli Hebrew, particularly when their primary studies are older texts and documented standards. As important as Israeli Hebrew is, it's not the only authority and shouldn't be the absolute final consideration. Where scholarly and Israeli conventions widely differ, I think the 19th century standard would be a fine compromise. - Gilgamesh 13:33, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Regarding your proposal for a general/standard transcription, I find it all good and constructive and have nothing to add except for one question and one issue:
  • Are you proposing to include or exclude silent ה? For example, would you propose ‘Amida or ‘Amidah? (Sounded ה as in Shemeh should obviously be included.)
I think the standard Hebrew transcription can do with a final quiescent H for final quiescent ה. Note, though, that this would conflict with a final ח if we decide on H for ח (which I'm against). --Shlomital 19:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Like I tried to explain time and again, in Hebrew the final ה is not an h sound, and has nothing to do with an "h", and shouldn't be transliterated as such, especially not in the "academic" transliteration. Only when the final ה has a mapiq, then we should add an "h" to the transliteration. For a little historical perspective: Originally in ancient Hebrew, there were only consonants, and no vowels whatsoever were written down. So that both kelev ("dog") and kalba ("bitch") were written כלב. As time passed (and continues to pass), more and more vowel hints started to appear, in the form of "imot kria" - the letters אהוי that originally were consonants, but started to be used as vowel hints. But despite the fact that the same graphic letter is used, in the transliteration we must make the distinction. Just like we don't translate a vowel ו into "w" (but rather use "u" or "o"), or a vowel י into y (but rather use "i"), we must not translate a vowel (what you called "silent") ה into "h", but rather use "a". So כלבה is kalba, not kalbah. Only when the ה is a consonant, namely, there is a makiq, it should be written with an h. For example: הגה ("steering wheel") - "hegeh". Nyh 09:11, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
I think I can also offer a guess where this final "h" in some transliterations (e.g., Hanukkah come from. In English, final vowels tend to become shorter, to the point that they are not pronounced at all. So a "ah" at the end of the word became a way to say that this is a "a" like in "car". I remember, amused, visiting Russia with an American. We went to a restaurant, and he saw a sign "PECTOPAH" - which should be pronounced, obviously, "restoran", but he pronounced it, "pec-toh-pah" :-) Nyh 09:11, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree that in academic transliteration, it would be incorrect to have final h without mappiq. In transcription, though, I think it may be necessary, as you say, for English readers to get a close approximation. jnothman talk 09:50, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
I am fully aware of all that. But as I said, it is still often done so in practice largely because of long-established tradition in English to do so, stemming largely from the extremely influential KJV Bible, one of the most important literary works of rht English language. However, I cannot say you are wrong. In any case, "hh" is unambiguous, and I would always transliterate mappiq that way anyway. - Gilgamesh 18:51, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I find the kh representation of ḥet to be troublesome. It seems to me that the use of h would be easier all in all. I realise that my bias is different than the mainstream Ashkenazi-Israeli one, since I actually pronounce ח (throaty h) and כ (back-tongue fricative) differently. But it seems that Hanukka(h) is a more non-marked English rendering than Khanukka(h); hakham is easier on the reader than khakham; and, similarly, haroset rather than kharoset, hatima(h) rather than khatima(h), Hummash rather than Khummash, havura(h) rather than khavura(h), Hasidic rather than Khasidic, etc. Alternatively, I don’t think it would be so preposterous to go with encouraging the use of ḥ either (Ḥanukka(h), ḥakham, ḥaroset, ḥatima(h), Ḥummash, ḥavura(h), Ḥasidic) — it is, after all, used as the general (i.e., including non-scholarly) standard by the Conservative movement in North America, and also quite frequently in Reconstructionist publications. -- Olve 18:46, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
On my mind was the representation of the letter ח as it is currently pronounced by the majority, and definitely the younger generations, in Israel today. It is an unvoiced velar fricative. Only old people from the Islamic countries, and sometimes their children, still pronounce ח as an unvoiced pharyngeal fricative. --Shlomital 19:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
As well as mizrahi and sephardi communities in the diaspora, some Israeli Arabs, older generations of Yerushalmim and Ben Yehuda's (even the AHL?) Standard Hebrew, to my knowledge... As I have noted earlier, and in agreeance with Olve's measure of readability, I think kh is very rarely used for heth. Common transcription is one of {Ḥ, h, ch}. jnothman talk 08:17, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Another thing I forgot in my table is the dagesh when signifying a long consonant (gemination): it should be by a double consonant in the academic transliteration (לּ = ll) and a single consonant in the standard Hebrew transcription (לּ = l). --Shlomital 19:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
And yet we more commonly get some doublings written, eg kibbutz, kippah, mostly because these clarify the pronunciation for an English speaker. Then again, we also have knesset. jnothman talk 08:17, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Bereshith 1:1 to Bereshith 1:5 in Gilgamesh's academic proposals: In academic transliteration for Tiberian vocalization:

  1. bərêšîṯ bārâ ʼĕlōhîm ʼēṯ haššāmáyim wəʼēṯ hāʼāreṣ
  2. wəhāʼāreṣ hāyəṯāh ṯōhû wāḇōhû wəḥōšeḵ ʻal-pənê ṯəhôm wərûªḥ ʼĕlōhîm məraḥép̄eṯ ʻal-pənê hammáyim
  3. wayyômer ʼĕlōhîm yəhî ʼôr wayəhî-ʼôr
  4. wayyarə ʼĕlōhîm ʼeṯ-hāʼôr kî-ṭôḇ wayyaḇdēl ʼĕlōhîm bên hāʼôr ûḇên haḥōšeḵ
  5. wayyiqrâ ʼĕlōhîm lāʼôr yôm wəlaḥōšeḵ qārâ lāyəlāh wayəhî-ʻéreḇ wayəhî-ḇōqer yôm ʼeḥāḏ

- Gilgamesh 00:12, 17 November 2005 (UTC) In common mention for academic transliteration for Tiberian vocalization (though not for academic examples such as this, but I hope you understand what I mean):

  1. bereshith bara 'elohim 'eth hasshamayim we'eth ha'ares
  2. weha'ares hayethah thohu wabhohu wehoshekh 'al-pene thehom weruah 'elohim merahepheth 'al-pene hammayim
  3. wayyomer 'elohim yehi 'or wayehi-'or
  4. wayyare 'elohim 'eth-ha'or ki-tobh wayyabhdel 'elohim ben ha'or ubhen hahoshekh
  5. wayyiqra 'elohim la'or yom welahoshekh qara layelah wayehi-'erebh wayehi-bhoqer yom 'ehadh

- Gilgamesh 14:13, 17 November 2005 (UTC) In academic transliteration for Standard:

  1. bərešit bara elohim et haššamáyim vəʼet haʼáreẓ
  2. vəhaʼáreẓ hayəta tohu vavohu vəḥóšeḫ ʻal-pəne təhom vərúaḥ elohim məraḥéfet ʻal-pəne hammáyim
  3. vayyómer elohim yəhi or vayəhi-or
  4. vayyarə elohim et-haʼor ki-tov vayyavdel elohim ben haʼor uven haḥóšeḫ
  5. vayyiqra elohim laʼor yom vəlaḥóšeḫ qara layəla vayəhi-ʻérev vayəhi-vóqer yom eḥad

- Gilgamesh 00:12, 17 November 2005 (UTC) In common mention for Standard:

  1. bereshit bara elohim et hasshamayim ve'et ha'arez
  2. veha'arez hayeta tohu vavohu vehoshekh 'al-pene tehom veruah elohim merahefet 'al-pene hammayim
  3. vayyomer elohim yehi or vayehi-or
  4. vayyare elohim et-ha'or ki-tov vayyavdel elohim ben ha'or uven hahoshekh
  5. vayyiqra elohim la'or yom velahoshekh qara layela vayehi-'erev vayehi-voqer yom ehad

- Gilgamesh 13:38, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm sort of new at this, so i edited the page before noticing there is a (very long!) discussion about it...anyway from my knowledge 'TH' is the correct transliteration for 'tav' both in Israel ("Yedioth Ahronoth") and abroad ("Beth Israel" etc.). I'll be more careful next time..:)
- Sangil 21:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

simple = good

I'm very happy to see this subject being discussed, because it's clearly something that needs to be talked about. I don't have very strong feelings on any particular facets of transliteration (although I do have strong feelings that a standard needs to be created), but I do have one general thought. I think that we should try to avoid non-English characters, especially for the titles of pages. I know this is horribly anti-academic, but I think it's important. When a user wants to find information on the five books of moses, they're most likely going to type humash or chumash into the wikipedia search - most people don't have easy access to the ḥ on the keyboard, and therefore will not type ḥumash. (Keep in mind that the search function also searches the body of articles - if someone's looking for pages which mention mehitza, but can't find it cause we keep spelling it meḥitza, that's not good). Gilgamesh's proposal may be more accurate and useful for people who have taken college level linguistics courses, but remember that this is an encyclopedia that should be accesible to all. --Bachrach44 03:41, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Simple answer: Redirect pages. There is absolutely no problem in having Humash, Chummesch, Khumesh etc. redirect to, e.g., Ḥummaš. In other words, this should not be an issue. It is of course important that we are really diligent in creating the relevant redirects. It should also be noted that the problem is not significantly bigger if article names use “non-English” letters, as someone who types “Humash” will be equally lost whether the article is named “Chumash” or “Ḥummaš” as long as there is no redirect. -- Olve 07:17, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes there is a problem with such redirects: I can't SEE all the letter of Ḥummaš on my computer, and I don't know how to read the ones I can see. Humash is a better title: phonetic transcriptions should be inside the article, not replacing the title. --Woggly 09:57, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
As has been noted in the archives, titles should be English characters only; for readability, for common knowledge and compatibility. I am interested to try develop a script to give a selection of transcription permutations given a particular word. jnothman talk 08:23, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Writing a script would be very easy; could be an editor-side program, an editor-side browser JavaScript, maybe a server-side template. (Not sure about the last one, and using it without subst would surely be a drain.) For what it's worth, I think the last of Gilgamesh's examples best matches the way I transliterate Modern Hebrew. For the older stuff, I use (what is apparently called — the more you know!) the Tiberian vocalization.
When I was learning Hebrew to begin with, I also used my programming skills to try to write libraries that could automagically transliterate Hebrew text in document files. However, though 98% of it is simple and straightforward, some of it is not indicated in simple nequddoth. One of the biggest sticking points is when a seemingly silent shewa should in fact be pronounced openly. Examples include נָצְרַת (Noṣraṯ or Nāṣəraṯ?) and וַיְהִי (wayhî or wayəhî?). Of the simple nequddoth, only two—zere and holem—are always long vowels, and that's why it's safe to assume most of the time, for example, that גֵּרְשֹׁם is Gērəšōm. Also, combinations like ־ָהֲ are almost always āhă, because ohă would be weird. Simple nequddoth also does not usually indicate syllable stress, though in most cases this can be ascertained by context (such as in most segholate words). Simple nequddoth is displayable in browsers and adequate for most vocalizations of Hebrew texts, but sometimes the true pronunciations of words must be gleaned from the more complex nequddoth used in a kasher Masoretic Text. However, in our electronic medium, we make up for this largely by adding academic transliterations next to them, so that, for the researcher, there can be no misunderstanding. - Gilgamesh 19:09, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
I think a lot of this is a question of context. For words that appear in older texts (e.g. Chanukkah, Chumash, etc.), I think both should be given; in the case of Modern Hebrew (e.g. falafel, Likud, Histadrut), I think it's sufficient to give only the modern pronunciation. Of course, I'm a latecomer and a non-native speaker. --Mgreenbe 16:12, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Another problem with using Ḥummaš is that people don't always search for titles - they also search the bodies of pages. If I'm searching for all pages which mention the word humash or chumash, I'm going to find zero results. The average person doesn't ever use any of the special characters, so we have to keep in mind that we need to make the titles and the body of the text easily accesible and searchable. --Bachrach44 15:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
I think you misunderstood my proposal—I have no problem with using "Hummash" for article titles and text bodies in common mention. My proposal is for the academic transliteration of Standard Hebrew. - Gilgamesh 13:33, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
You are correct - I misunderstood and I apologize for using your name. --Bachrach44 15:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Too much for Wikipedia

Wikipedia is not a repository of lexical data. However, Wiktionary fits that role (better). We can put technical transliterations in wiktionary:Category:Hebrew_language, the category for definitions of Hebrew words within the English-language Wiktionary. We can link Wikipedia articles to Wiktionary using Template:wiktionary. See Shibboleth for an example.

The Hebrew transliteration rules in Wiktionary ought to be made clear, either project-wide or (better) entry by entry. Consider that Chinese words in the English-language Wiktionary, such as wiktionary:天文学, present Pinyin romanization. They use the word "Pinyin" to clarify that the romanization is not idiosyncratic and not, for example, Wade-Giles. Also compare wiktionary:Wiktionary:About Japanese/Transliteration. Wiktionary has a draft proposal on transliteration in general, wiktionary:Wiktionary:Policy_-_Transliteration.

Also, it would be nice to create a short Wikibook explaining how pronunciation is affected by various puzzling widgets in Tiberian vocalized Hebrew (dagesh kal/hazak, mappiq, emot kria aka matres lectionis; shva na/nach, kamets katan/gadol; makaf, meteg, trope aka te'amim). --Hoziron 13:57, 20 November 2005 (UTC), minor revision 06:17, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for my absence. Anyway. I think you misunderstand what I mean here. This isn't about different transliteration standards of the same language as much as it is about different standards that are mutually intelligible in most ways. One is a very old religious standard, and the other is a more modern international secular standard that is also used by some religious groups today, though other religious groups continue to refer the medieval standard for all their Hebrew use (in its various different pronunciation schemes). But they do have their differences. Linguistically, they are most likely the same language, but for their purposes, they are, for all intents and purposes, diasystems of the same language. Compare Hindi with Urdu, Bulgarian with Macedonian, British English with American English, etc. One may never get these standards to completely unify into one, because there are still disagreements that cause some people to accept one and reject the other. In the case of Hebrew, there are still people who reject the use of Standard Hebrew, preferring instead to use Biblical Hebrew for religious purposes with a religious lexicon and a culturally-derived dialect of Tiberian vocalization. Are there not still Ashkenazi Jews who insistently still prefer "beys" for בֵּית and consider "bet" or "beit" inappropriate? Though the traditional religious vs. modern secular debate over Hebrew is far less divisive than it once was, it hasn't completely vanished. It just seems to make far more sense to accommodate. That...and I don't want to give up detail if I can help it—it just feels wrong and unnatural to do so in Wikipedia. - Gilgamesh 10:50, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Let me give an example of what I'm proposing now (notice that all of the Wiktionary links are to definitions written in English):

   
Look up kosher, כשרות, or כשר in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Kashrut (Hebrew: כַּשְׁרוּת) or "keeping kosher" (Hebrew: כָּשֵׁר) is the name of the Jewish dietary laws. ....

I believe that would be more helpful to users than what we have now, while just as helpful to scholars what we have now. Here is what we have now:

Kashrut (Hebrew: כַּשְׁרוּת; Standard Hebrew: kašrut) or "keeping kosher" (Hebrew: כָּשֵׁר; Standard Hebrew: kášer) is the name of the Jewish dietary laws. ....

When Wikipedia accumulates details that don't contribute to the purpose of encyclopedia articles, often the solution has been to push those details into a sister project (Wikispecies, Wiktionary, etc.). The purpose of encyclopedia articles, of course, is to introduce the general reader to a particular topic. Including lexical data or other research data often does not contribute to that purpose.

As for diasystems, they are generally too much for Wikipedia as well. I'm speaking of the following arrangements:

  • English Wikipedia accepts American or British English equally and doesn't tolerate people who pointlessly "correct" one to the other. While controlling for bias ("NPOV") is one of Wikipedia's non-negotiable policies, it is not considered generally relevant to the choice of American vs. British English.
  • Wikipedia displays wiki-linked dates in any of various formats, according to user preference.
  • Wikipedia stores Simplified Chinese characters. [Or Traditional, whichever the writer typed. Thanks, Gniw. --Hoziron 02:58 UTC] It displays Simplified or Traditional Chinese characters according to user preference.
Wikipedia stores either simplified or traditional characters, or a mixture of both, depending on how the user(s) has/have edited the article. When displaying the article, it displays either simplified characters, or traditional Chinese characters, or the version stored in Wikipedia's database, according to the user's preference (except when displaying internal links, where conversion is usually not done).
The simple reason for this is that storing the article in simplified Chinese always produces "spelling mistakes" when force-converted into traditional, no matter how good the automatic converter is. Technically speaking, it is much more lossy to convert always from simplified to traditional, than from traditional to simplified. It would not make technical sense to always store simplified with an option of display traditional, as such a fixed system will introduce a lot of "spelling mistakes" that are impossible to correct. In fact, it is not unusual to find articles written originally in simplified Chinese, with "spelling corrections" in traditional Chinese scattered around the article.—Gniw (Wing) 14:46, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia will display Danish, Bokmal, or Nynorsk for the same article's sourcetext, according to user preference. I'm not sure it does now, but this is the plan endorsed by Jimmy Wales.
  • Wikipedia will display Bosnian, Serbian, or Croatian (thus Latin alphabet or Cyrillic alphabet) for the same article's sourcetext, according to user preference. Again, this is according to the plan endorsed by Jimmy Wales.

--Hoziron 14:00, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Recap of the (mostly) KISS proponents

There is a lot of talk here, and because the last page was archived (at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Hebrew)/Archive 1), the following are recorded here (in their own words) as proposing simple usable formats for naming conventions of Hebrew on Wikipedia IZAK 11:07, 29 November 2005 (UTC) :

  • How are the road signs transliterated in Israel?? Let's take a page out of their book. Sebastian Kessel
  • This is used in most Jewish papers and magazines. Yoninah 20:24, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Go with what the IDF itself uses. Our style ought ot match that Haaretz or Jpost Klonimus 04:45, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Please read article romanization of Hebrew. It's my start at documenting the issues and options in Hebrew transliteration within the article space. The Academy rules (1957) are not the first or last word on the subject. And when our hapless contributors ask what in the world is "dagesh hazak" and why should I care, the answer ought to be available in articles, perhaps gemination. --Hoziron 12:27, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Plus the academic transliterations are unintelligible to the average Jew reading them and can, in some cases, lead to garbled Hebrew. (Keep in mind that the spelling and mis-pronunciation "Jehovah" originally came from an academic transliteration source!) Rooster613 13:26, 29 September 2005 (UTC)Rooster613
  • Possibly this varies by location? I (an American Ashkenazi Jew) certainly pronounce תפילין as three syllables: te-fi-lin. A shva at the beginning of a word is always a shva na, and I at least pronounce all shva'im na'im. If most Israelis don't, this will have to be taken into account. —Simetrical (talk) 03:47, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I haven't read the entire discussion, but I think we should go by the most widely accepted spelling. There's practically nothing in Hebrew that hasn't been transliterated to English before. However, if it's something really obscure, I don't see anything wrong with the current info on the main page. Don't think we should go into elaborate linguistic rules, and not any rules that require the user to know nikkud, because the Hebrew Wiki usually doesn't list nikkud for anything, and most people will have trouble finding it out. So, for those obscure subjects, let's just use a purely phonetical modern translitaeration. -- Ynhockey || Talk 18:33, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I think a simple romanization without too much fuss and without diacritics makes the text more readable, and avoids display problems. The accurate transliteration can supplement it (say, in parenthesis), but the simple romanization should be used in titles and throughout the text, IMO.--Doron 22:26, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • The KISS principle is the only reasonable solution for this quagmire. Use Modern Hebrew transliteration with normal consonants. Most Israelis and Diaspora Jews cannot vocalise the difference between Asher with an Alef and Asher with an Ayin. The transliteration, contrary to Gilgamesh' point, is of minimal importance - who cares how Jews 2000 years ago may have proncounced a certain term. This is only relevant if there are practical differences, and there are not. The use of Unicode should be banned - it serves no purpose. Really. The only exceptions would be where the non-Modern Hebrew form is actually standard (Agudas Yisroel comes to mind, because that's mainly run by Ashkenaz Haredim) and where an English alternative is more commonly used in English texts (e.g. Moses vs Moshe). JFW | T@lk 20:20, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree entirely - KISS should over-ride all other considerations... Fintor 08:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree as well. Jayjg (talk) 17:56, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree with KISS. Some of the transliterations I've seen here on Wikipedia have left me baffled and bewildered, and discouraged me from editing Hebrew language articles. --Woggly 06:59, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Follow KISS/Common usage: Yes, for above reasons. IZAK 03:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I agree with Shlomital, though I don't see what's "undecided" about it: Always follow KISS in title. In body text, use either KISS or academic style depending on the esotericity of the term in question--Woggly 11:43, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Support, per IZAK -- Ynhockey || [[User talk:Ynhockey|Talk]] 12:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Support Izehar 19:18, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Reject. Simple transliterations in title and in most casual mentions in the body—academic transliterations used sparingly to fulfill the interests of linguistic contexts. Note that I finished moving most of the article names in Category:Cities in Israel back to simple transliterations. Besides, even if the average Jew will not understand this, the subject of Hebrew linguistics is not purely a Jewish topic, as it is of interest to all Abrahamic religious studies as well as in the history of world literature. The Hebrew language is just far too old, has given far too much influence and is far too important to pigeon-hole it only to a Jewish Israeli issue. - Gilgamesh 12:26, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Danny's rule of thumb: Wow, this is getting really crazy. Our first objective should be that non-Wikipedians using Wikipedia, or Wikipedians who are not expert in the intricacies of Hebrew grammar, be able to find articles easily. If they want to look up קרית ארבע, they should not have to go to Qiryaþ 'Arba‘, or anything like that. Rule of thumb, keep it simple and use lots of redirects. Danny 16:22, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Support KISS--Doron 07:31, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Support Yoninah 07:39, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Support Use simple transliterations, the only issue I have is using H for a Chet. The standard used by jews everywhere is Ch. Chanukah and Chumash for example (I've seen Hanukah, but never Humash). Using H just makes people think that their inability to produce the sound Chet isn't a problem, because it's really an H anyway. And I'm so glad they got rid of using a q for a Kuf. Niqud instead of Nikud. Ku is much closer to the proper sound. (I keep hearing neek-wu-ood when it's a q.) 67.165.96.26 18:58, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, maybe I'm misunderstanding. Exactly what are we talking about again? Place names in Israel? (I already agreed to help simplify them.) Biblical articles? (They need detail because of all the overlapping interests.) Exactly what are we talking about? Look, it's like this. Common transliterations per article in regular mention. Standard Hebrew in parentheses, along with Israeli Arabic with full transliteration. Biblical Hebrew in parentheses if there is Biblical significance. Most Israelis today may not care how it was pronounced 1200 years ago, but Christian Hebrew students (as well as many secular historians and linguists) do care a great deal, and it is, after all, the multireligious and heavily culturally significant Holy Land. Biblical Hebrew might be a more esoteric study, but it is a thriving study. So I'm willing to maintain Biblical linguistic details for articles of Biblical (and therefore multireligious) significance—Beersheba, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Jericho, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Elath, Beth-el, Jezreel, etc. Don't lose sight of the intense lasting interests in these subjects. If you don't understand the details, that's fine, leave them alone. But don't insist on their deletion just because your uncle in Rishon LeZion isn't familiar with them. I can understand anyone's wish to keep something simple and easy to understand. But the fact and truth of the matter is that the complex historical, political and cultural nature of Hebrew, Abrahamic religion and Israel means that it will never ever be simple, and that anyone who wants it to just be simple is inviting grave disappointment. Subjects of such immense encyclopedic significance deserve coverage on many fronts, which requires the huge cooperation from a huge number of different (sometimes even conflicting) disciplines, but without their participation, the articles will continue to fail some of their significance so long as they sacrifice them for the sake of simplicity. It's probable that no one of us will ever acquire all the significant detail important to these articles, which is partially why some of us are here—to fill in what we do know, and cooperate with others with what they know. KISS = POV because these topics are not simple, and to force it to one person's sense of simplicity is an editing bias worthy of reversion. - Gilgamesh 19:50, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

By the way, someone pointed out recently that the Israeli government already has a list of official transliterations for Israeli place names. And I've seen these names many places before—they appear on international world maps, guide books, commerce sites, etc. Elat, Ashqelon, Be'er Ya'aqov, Bet She'an, Bene Beraq, Zikhron Ya'aqov, Hazor HaGelilit, Kefar Sava, Kefar Qasem, Nes Ziyyona, etc. Understandably, if a particularly English name is better known in English, maps will show spellings like Jerusalem, Beersheba, Caesarea, etc. Why not just use these spellings for the article names where no traditional English form predominates? It would seem most NPOV, IMO. - Gilgamesh 20:48, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I just realized something else... Another important historical and culturally significant language, the Greek language, has a main article which is a general description and disambiguation article for the historically important dialects, rather than a direct description of the modern language. Today, Greek in only one form—Demotic Modern Greek—is an official language in only two places, Greece and Cyprus, but because of the great historical significance of classical forms (and their continued study in modern academic circles), Classical Greek and Modern Greek are treated with equal importance. And I think this is also true with Hebrew—there are many historically significant varieties, only one standard variety in one country, but it remains an extremely influential language with studies far beyond just the Jewish or Israeli world, and across religious and even non-religious archaeological and cultural studies. It all must be covered, as much as the Greek articles regard the historical forms as just as important as the modern forms. In fact, there was a reason I went into studying Biblical Hebrew—I primarily study linguistics and religious texts (primarily the Tanakh) for academic purposes (where we study it and other Hebrew, Israelite and Jewish studies in a non-Jewish class at a non-Jewish university), and to be absolutely honest, I don't have an interest in practicing Israeli Hebrew unless I were going to Israel myself, which I'm not doing tomorrow nor next week. (Until such a time, every Israeli I know online speaks English.) At the same time, I realize that there are other editors who care only about Hebrew in a modern Israeli context, and don't have much interest in how it's studied in other contexts. I'm saying here and now that these interests need not be mutually exclusive in encyclopedic article space. Why can't we all just agree that the scope of what we study here is almost always going to be a lot more than we ourselves personally are familiar with, and make allowances for the other studies? It can't be simple, but that's why we organize, categorize and otherwise trying to efficiently disseminate complicated information in an encyclopedia that scales from the interests of the lay reader up to the well-read academic. - Gilgamesh 03:50, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to thank you, Gilgamesh, for finally expressing your thoughts in a clear, convincing and non-confrontational manner. I haven't been able to follow all this discussion's heavily technical, nikkudot talk, but I will now agree with you to include common spellings and transliterations along with Bible Hebrew and Arabic translations, as well as anything else used by scholars of various religions, and not siphon them off into redirects or Wikidictionary. However, I don't agree about using the Israeli government's spelling system for place names. I live here and I can tell you, they are unintelligible and often inaccurate. Nes Ziyyona should look like what it say, "Nes Tziona"! Yoninah 21:31, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
I have a question - assuming Gilgamesh's proposal was accepted, how would extensive Jewish texts auch as the Alenu be transliterated? I like the way it is currently transliterated, but I can't use Gilgamesh's proposal there, it's not possible. It is only possible in small phrases. There is a practical side to this, and I remind you that Britannica uses non-fuss transliterations. Izehar 21:39, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm not criticising anything - two or more transliterations would be fine IMO. My main concern is how to implement them. Is your proposal going to apply only in the case of names, or whole texts, because if it did, then we'd have a problem. Izehar 22:13, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
That shouldn't be a problem. Notice that I fixed the bulk of Category:Cities in Israel. - Gilgamesh 00:25, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, one of the appeals of Standard Hebrew is that it is both fairly conservative and uses fewer diacritics than the transliterations of Masoretic texts. You know how I've made extensive templates for individual Hebrew letters and niqqud? I'm thinking it might also be a good idea to make some templates for some of the more complicated letters commonly used in academic Semitic transliteration (Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Amharic, Akkadian, etc.), so that they will both display as appropriately as possible, and be editable and readable in the editing window. My Hebrew alphabet and niqqud templates have very brief but descriptive names like "hbralef", "hbrsheva", etc., and there are template redirects so that "hbrsheva", "hbrshva", "hbrshewa" and "hbrschwa" all work identically. I'm thinking of using a similar format for Semitic transliteration letters, such as "semsh" for š, "semkh" for ḫ, "semk_" for ḵ, "semt." for ṭ, "semayn" for ʻ, "semschwa" for ə, etc. As for transliterations, it really is no different from snippets of text in other languages—rather than changing the spellings to adapt to English, just use a fairly simple internationally neutral transliteration scheme (which is most NPOV, IMHO), rather than the myriad different cultural systems targetted at specific localized audiences. And, where clear, use the acute mark for non-final vowels that are accented. The result remains reasonable and fairly simple. For example: "Bərešit bara Elohim et hašŠamáyim və'et ha'Áreẓ." Anyway, I think I'll get started on some templates. ^_^ - Gilgamesh 00:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Semitic transliteration templates

Okay, I've finished some templates for a variety of Semitic languages (I don't know yet if I have everything necessary for Ge'ez and Amharic though). These templates don't have the Unicode template already encoded into them (there are good reasons for that), so the Unicode template will have to be enclosed around single characters or groupings of them. Here are the relevant templates for special letters for Hebrew and associated Canaanite languages in their various forms. The vast majorty of these are not used in Standard Hebrew, but they have their occurrances in Canaanite linguistics studies.
{{sem'}} = ʼ. {{sem`}} = ʻ.
{{sem@@a}} = ª.
{{usem@a}} = Ă. {{sem@a}} = ă.
{{usema.}} = Ạ. {{sema.}} = ạ.
{{usema'}} = Á. {{sema'}} = á.
{{usema.^}} = Ậ. {{sema.^}} = ậ.
{{usemoa}} = Å. {{semoa}} = å.
{{usemoa'}} = Ǻ. {{semoa'}} = ǻ.
{{usema:}} = Ā. {{sema:}} = ā.
{{usema^}} = Â. {{sema^}} = â.
{{usema^'}} = Ấ. {{sema^'}} = ấ.
{{usembh}} = Ḇ. {{sembh}} = ḇ.
{{usemch}} = Č. {{semch}} = č.
{{usemdh}} = Ḏ. {{semdh}} = ḏ.
{{usem@}} = Ə. {{sem@}} = ə.
{{usem@e}} = Ĕ. {{sem@e}} = ĕ.
{{useme.}} = Ẹ. {{seme.}} = ẹ.
{{useme'}} = É. {{seme'}} = é.
{{useme.^}} = Ệ. {{seme.^}} = ệ.
{{useme:}} = Ē. {{seme:}} = ē.
{{useme:'}} = Ḗ. {{seme:'}} = ḗ.
{{useme^}} = Ê. {{seme^}} = ê.
{{useme^'}} = Ế. {{seme^'}} = ế.
{{usemgy}} = Ǧ. {{semgy}} = ǧ.
{{usemgh}} = Ḡ. {{semgh}} = ḡ.
{{usemgg}} = Ġ. {{semgg}} = ġ.
{{usemh.}} = Ḥ. {{semh.}} = ḥ.
{{usemhh}} = Ḫ. {{semhh}} = ḫ.
{{usemi:}} = Ī. {{semi:}} = ī.
{{usemi'}} = Í. {{semi'}} = í.
{{usemi^}} = Î. {{semi^}} = î.
{{usemkh}} = Ḵ. {{semkh}} = ḵ.
{{usemk.}} = Ḳ. {{semk.}} = ḳ.
{{usem@o}} = Ŏ. {{sem@o}} = ŏ.
{{usemo:}} = Ō. {{semo:}} = ō.
{{usemo'}} = Ó. {{semo'}} = ó.
{{usemo:'}} = Ṓ. {{semo:'}} = ṓ.
{{usemo^}} = Ô. {{semo^}} = ô.
{{usemo^'}} = Ố. {{semo^'}} = ố.
{{usemph}} = P̱. {{semph}} = p̄.
{{usemss}} = S̱. {{semss}} = s̱.
{{usems.}} = Ṣ. {{sems.}} = ṣ.
{{usemsh}} = Š. {{semsh}} = š.
{{usemlh}} = Ś. {{semlh}} = ś.
{{usemlh.}} = Ṣ́. {{semlh.}} = ṣ́.
{{usemth}} = Ṯ. {{semth}} = ṯ.
{{usemt.}} = Ṭ. {{semt.}} = ṭ.
{{usemu:}} = Ū. {{semu:}} = ū.
{{usemu'}} = Ú. {{semu'}} = ú.
{{usemu^}} = Û. {{semu^}} = û.
{{usemzz}} = Ẕ. {{semzz}} = ẕ.
{{usemz.}} = Ẓ. {{semz.}} = ẓ.
{{usemzh}} = Ž. {{semzh}} = ž.
- Gilgamesh 04:47, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I cannot imagine what these may be useful for. I suggest, instead, we build a decent "Semitic" section in MediaWiki:Edittools, and/or a transliteration section in the "Hebrew" menu there (as I've done already for Arabic). Please use {{Semxlit}} to mark transliterations of Semitic, until we have a template marking Hebrew transliterations in particualar (along the lines of {{ArabDIN}}). dab (ᛏ) 15:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Infobox

A box template has been created to display a Hebrew word and its transliteration has been created. The template was then proposed for deletion. Please see Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Hebrewterm --Hoziron 13:02, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Keeping it simple

My opinion now is that:

  1. The most helpful thing is to give a simple presentation of the most common 1 or 2 contemporary pronunciations (like "bayit, bayis" or IPA: [' bajit], / ' bajɪs/).
  2. The most precise thing is to present the vocalized Hebrew with a link to an encyclopedia article that explains vocalized Hebrew script (like Hebrew: בַּיֵת).

Unfortunately, the current revision of Hebrew alphabet is bad for that purpose. I would like us to make it as clear as Gujarati script is (at least, for those who have Indic script support). It only took me a couple of minutes to understand how "dhanyawaad" (thank you) is spelled in Gujarati script.

--Hoziron 04:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Does Standard Hebrew use /a/ or /ɑ/? Tomertalk 01:55, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Brushing up

It seems that there hasn't been any discussion on this page for a while, and therefore I must assume that the transliteration written on the page is the final version. That's good, I agree with everything there. We should go on and label this as policy and seal it. However, there are still two issues:

  • Hey HaYedia - do we write words with it (as an example, HaSharon) as HaSharon, Ha-Sharon, Ha-sharon, Hasharon, Hassharon or any other way? I personally like capitalizing the start of the actual word (HaSharon), although a user has previously disagreed with me on this. We should probably reach a consensus on this before finalizing the page.
"ha" is not a noun but an article. I don't know whether it should be capitalised or not, I can think of arguments going both ways. But I do like the idea of capitalising the start of the actual noun. --woggly 11:11, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
While as a direct transliteration, maybe capitalizing the 'ha' is unnecessary, IMO it looks awkward (as far as the English language goes) when put in context. Then again, so does capitalizing a letter in the middle of a word. However, I definitely don't think there should be a hyphen in words with hey hayedia. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 11:57, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Dagesh Hazak - there is already a convention on this on the page, but it seems strange - most Hebrew speakers can't tell immediately where there is a Dagesh Hazak and therefore will definitely not search for the word they want with a double letter. Moreover, it's highly impractical to have Dagesh Hazak in some constructions. Going back to the earlier issue with Hey HaYedia, if Dagesh Hazak is to always double the letter, we'd get: Heyl HaMmishtara HaTtzvayit, HaShsharon/HaSsharon, etc. This is definitely not something anyone will expect and no one writes this way. Please reconsider this rule. — Ynhockey (Talk) 10:02, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Recent changes

The reasons for what I wrote are as follows:

Yud / i:
A yud will result in an "i" (although it is not part of a hirik malle) in the following cases, especially at the end of a word:

לַי/לָי = lai
לֵי = lei
לוֹי = loi
לוּי = lui

These sounds are, I believe, consistent with their English pronunciations, and are their usual Hebrew transliterations. A yud which is a mater lectionis will not be transcribed at all (אֶחָיו = ehav, not ehaiv or ehayv), but I cannot think of a "quick n' easy" way to tell when a yud is a mater lectionis.

Shva na/nah:
The difference between a shva na (נע) and nah (נח) is that the shva na represents a syllable (the schwa), while a shva nah simply represents a stop. For instance, the shva in מְנַשֶה ( M'nashe(h) ) is a shva na, while the shva in אֶפְרַיִם (Efrayim) is a shva nah, and is not "pronounced" at all. A shva na requires an apostrophe to indicate the existence of a syllable. I believe this must be what the original "always no vowel" meant.

--Eliyak T·C 16:23, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that "ai" and "oi" should be written as such, and it makes sense for consistency's sake to write "ui" as such; and I agree that sh'va na should be marked with an apostrophe. I've reverted your changes to the page, though, as such changes should be discussed first. (And we don't need a quick-and-easy way to identify silent yuds; we simply specify that silent yuds are omitted, and if someone doesn't know whether a given yud is silent, then they shouldn't be messing with the transliterations.) Ruakh 17:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
The original entry for yod, before you changed it, was: "Y only when pronounced as a consonant," which you changed to "y, except omitted when it doesn't have a vowel." The original entry for shva was "always no vowel" (changed by you to "omitted"). To me, it seems that while the original version was somewhat ambiguous, my "changes" are fully in line with their intent as well as with actual usage. I believe that your version does not give accurate rules for these two entries, as I have described above. If my changes are to be reverted pending discussion, then yours must be as well. --Eliyak T·C 01:21, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
  • My apologies- I was in a bad mood when I wrote the above comment and it's a bit out of character for me. Just do whatever you think is right with the page. --Eliyak T·C 15:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Don't apologize; a true discussion requires stating one's opinions, and I don't think you stated yours rudely or anything. Re: "when pronounced as a consonant" vs. "when it [has] a vowel": You're right — I screwed up and wasn't think of "ai" and such — but I've fixed that. Re: "always no vowel" being ambiguous: I guess you're right. Since shva na is a vowel, writing it as no vowel means omitting it completely; but the writer might well have meant "no vowel letter (A/E/I/O/U)." The reason I thought my changes were okay was that I didn't intend them as substantive changes; that is, I meant to keep the policy the same, but to state it more clearly. I guess I screwed up on that front, though, and I apologize. Ruakh 16:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Shva before vowel

Should it be an apostrophe? We've had an entry called Giv'atayim for ages and it seems to be the accepted spelling. Har'el (הראל), not Harel, seems to be another good example. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 11:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

  • I think that in those examples the apostrophe is more a result of the alef/ayin, and falls under the rules for those letters. --Eliyak T·C 02:16, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
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