Hebrew transliterration

Colin, you have a good point about hesed
and an especially good point about not going against a standard.

I'm sorry if this discussion is continuing longer than you wanted,
but your question has prompted something which I think could be very useful
for users who want to get to the original language, but don't have Hebrew.
I think we are on the cusp of coming up with a system which is both
easy to read in a fairly intuitive way
and conveys the actual Hebrew to someone who needs it.

I agree that I would normally write something like "hesed"
but I'd prefer to have a reference source which had it as "hesed",
because otherwise I wouldn't know which of the following to look up in the lexicon:
he-sin-dalet
he-samek-dalet
he-stade-dalet
chet-sin-dalet
chet-samek-dalet
chet-stade-dalet

Your other point about the problem of going against the standard is very important.
I agree that a system which looks similar to a standard one will confuse people.
However, I'm not sure any expert will be confused by what I'm proposing,
because the differences are obvious - other systems don't use underlining.
There is no standard way of expressing long vowels,
though some systems do use circumflex (as I'm proposing),
and in the absence of standards, I don't think anyone will be confused.

I've attached a layout which has a couple of new suggestions:
* I've incorporated differences for bpt with/without dagesh
* I've used w for vav, so it isn't confused with the soft bet
* I've got rid of é by using éy instead
* I've added " ' " (ie an uncurley single quote) for the athnah,
  so that things like hamma'im is said correctly
  (otherwise an English reader would regard "ai" as a diphthong)
* I've used ë for the strong "e" with two dots under (cos it is more memorable this way)

This means the circumflex â ê ô are used only for 'triangle'-shaped pointing (ie 3 dots or T)
and the underlined i o u are used only when there is a letter such as yod or vav
- all easily ignorable if you just want to read it, but memorable if you want know what Hebrew underlies it.

This makes Genesis 1.1 read as:
         berë'shit bârâ'  'êlohim 'ët hasshâmayim we'ët hâ'ârêz.
We could make things easier by ignoring the length of vowels
ie       bere'shit bara'  'elohim 'et hasshamayim we'et ha'arez.

but even with the accents, it is fairly straightforward to read,
and the accents mean you can reconstruct the Hebrew (if you wish),
though a few dagesh forms will be missed (of no consequence, as far as I know).

However, I'm concerned that this may create a lot of unnecessary work.
I could write a Word macro to convert Unicode Hebrew to this transliteration.
And I guess similar code could be used for other conversions.

Am I winning you over yet?

David IB

I think it's worth having _a_ way of speaking, even if it's not
authentic, for communication purposes and to help learn the language and
terms. (I can remember hesed, even if it's pronounced with the wrong h,
but couldn't remember three random symbols and a handful of dots!)

I'm
still not sure it's wise to go for something which is similar to a
standard scheme but with subtle differences, as anyone who has access to
our material then happens upon (say) an IVP dictionary is liable to be
confused.

(Not my problem for data entry though - I'm intending to type direct in
Hebrew as it's easier to check that way.)

Colin

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Posted By Tyndale STEP Project to Tyndale STEP - Programming on 11/12/2009 08:38:00 AM