If the goal is the former, then Hebrew letters that sound alike in modern Israel should look the same if the latter, those letters should always look different.Īt HaYidion, we chose to create a transliteration style that adapts elements from existing systems in a way that seems faithful to the Hebrew language although not beholden to any one particular pronunciation. Is the aim to enable someone who does not know any Hebrew to approximate Hebrew pronunciation by getting as close to the original using English (or American) spelling and sounds? Or is it to help people who know Hebrew, whether novices or experts, to reproduce the original quickly? Each goal would dictate a different set of transliteration choices. Just consider how many ways the holiday of Chanukkah is spelled-is the first sound H, Ch, or Kh? Two ks or one? Ending in a or ah? Or even this Yiddish version: Chanike? Additionally, with such a common Jewish word, the question arises as to whose pronunciation the spelling aims to replicate, that of an American (Hanəkə) or an Israeli (Chanookkah)?Īside from these issues, any person or organization designing a standard for Hebrew translation must grapple with the question of goal. This welter encourages a kind of willed ignorance on the topic among many Jews. There are different guides used by different communities: academic, rabbinic, denominational, camps, etc. The second challenge to Hebrew transliteration is the lack of uniform standards. Who is doing the transliterating, and in what context, may make a great deal of difference for how the language looks on the page. Students may learn rabbinic Hebrew during tefillah, biblical Hebrew in Tanakh class, and modern Hebrew during “Hebrew.” They may speak with an Israeli accent at school and an Ashkenazi accent in shul. This challenge is compounded by the fact that we teach more than one kind of Hebrew in our schools at the same time. When we transliterate, then, we must ask several questions: how was the Hebrew pronounced in the source text, how do the readers pronounce it, and which system takes preference? Biblical norms (which themselves were not uniform, but that’s another story…) dictate one transliteration poems of Bialik were written for an Ashkenazic (“Yiddish”) pronunciation there are several variations of Sephardic Hebrew and modern Israeli Hebrew, often referred to as “Sephardic,” is in reality a simplified hybrid of elements not found in any other Hebrew dialect (for examples, see “Homophonic vowels” below). The original Ashkenazi pronunciation can be gleaned from the nickname “Yankel” for Yaakov. (Increasingly, Torah readers are picking up on this “authentic” way of distinguishing ayin from alef.) In contemporary Israel, the ayin falls silent, an approach pleasing to American speakers whose throat muscles are not accustomed to guttural sounds. If you want to hear a “real” ayin, listen to a Yemenite speaker, who can produce the right inflection in the back of the throat thanks to his or her familiarity with the same sound in Arabic. However, in its pronunciation Hebrew has varied significantly across time and culture. In its orthography, the Hebrew language has indeed preserved remarkable consistency: unlike English, whose spelling has changed radically over the centuries, the Hebrew of the Torah is spelled the same way as the Hebrew of Yediot Achronot today. The first lies in the fact that, when we’re talking about Hebrew, we are not talking about one consistent language. There are two main challenges to Hebrew transliteration. Challenges: Multiple Hebrews, Lack of Uniform Standards
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