Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Hebrew)/Archive 1

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Contents 1 Copied from Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Hebrew and Israeli names 1.1 Regarding the guidelines linked above 2 romanization of Hebrew 3 shva always no vowel?? 4 Consensus? 4.1 No consensus, yet... 5 shuruk, kubbutz, tzereh 6 Kuf - K or Q? 7 Those funny marks 7.1 Disputed changes by Gilgamesh 8 General discussion 9 Vote proposal 9.1 KISS=Common usage 9.1.1 Follow KISS/Common usage 9.1.2 Follow academic standards only 9.1.3 Undecided 9.1.4 Adamantly Opposed 9.1.5 Both? 10 Proposal to romanize any item of Hebrew-language text 11 Danny's rule of thumb 11.1 Discoverability and legibility 11.1.1 Romanisation Issue 12 Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) 12.1 Artscroll transliteration 13 Pronunciation 14 Smile

Copied from Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Hebrew and Israeli names

There's a wide variety of different spellings of Hebrew and Israeli names in Wikipedia. Following past debates on this subject, and for the purpose of uniformity, I propose to make a naming convention for article titles.

• The Academy of the Hebrew Language provides transliteration instructions, which I suggest to adopt.
  • Consonant and vowel transliteration is straightforward (bet->B, gimel->G, etc.).
  • Dagesh hazak is transformed into a repetition of the consonant (e.g., sibba), unless it stems from a prefix or the consonant is a digraph (e.g., matsil, not matstsil; habayit, not habbayit).
  • For alef and ayin, an apostrophe is prefixed in the following cases:
    • Between E and I (e.g., me'ir).
    • Preferably between any two vowels (e.g., ma'or, ne'emar).
    • Between consonants that can be wrongly interpreted as a digraph (e.g., mat'sis, mats'hiv).
  • Only when pronounced, yod is transliterated as Y (e.g., minyan).
  • The Academy rules leave some room for choice.
    • Either K or Q can stand for kof (Kiryat vs. Qiryat). I propose to prefer K.

I propose to prefer qiryath or qiryaþ. Tomer ^TALK 21:58, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll note that the use of Q for kof is a lot less common, though both are considered correct by the Hebrew Academy rules.--Doron 11:05, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I prefer the use of "K" we should follow Jerusalem Post styles. Klonimus 04:39, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Ditto, "K" is a lot better. How are the road signs transliterated in Israel?? Let's take a page out of their book. Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 17:44, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Ditto, "K" is preferred. This is used in most Jewish papers and magazines. Yoninah 20:24, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

• • • Either V or W can stand for vav (David vs. Dawid - as in the official name of Kibbutz Mishmar Dawid). I propose to prefer V.

I agree with "V". We really ought to be consistent and not allow for "either/or" decisions. Yoninah 20:24, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

• • • The ayin can be distinguished from alef by prefixing with a grave accent (`) (e.g., `amit, na'`im, geva`). I propose not to.
    • The tseire male vowel can be transliterated as EI instead of E (bne, vs. bnei). I propose to use EI.
    • One can separate proclitic prepositions and articles from the main word with a dash (hamishmar vs. ha-mishmar). I propose not to use the dash.
    • I propose using capital letters as they are used in English (beginning of a sentence, names, etc.).
  • In some instances, it may be preferable to deviate from the Academy rules.
    • They transliterate het as X. I propose the more common H. Note that kaf without a dagesh is transliterated as KH.
    • While they propose TS for tsadi, it is very common to use TZ. Comments?

I am so used to "tz" in newspapers and mags that I must vote for it. It also looks the way it sounds, i.e. "Tzvi" rather than "Zvi." Yoninah 20:24, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

• • • Abbreviations and acronyms are transliterated as they are pronounced, with a double quote mark (") before the last syllable. I propose to drop the double quote.
• Given the long history of translation from Hebrew, there are many common English transliterations of Hebrew names that predate standardization (e.g., biblical names). Those should be preferred (e.g., Israel vs. yisra'el).
• Often there are English names to Hebrew and Israeli terms that are not transliterations, or an English equivalent is readily available ("Irgun" vs. "'etzel'", "General Staff" vs. "matkal"). The common English name should be preferred.
  • Go with what the IDF itself uses. Our style ought ot match that Haaretz or Jpost Klonimus 04:45, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
• Some institutions and organizations have an official English name ("Communist Party of Israel" vs. "maki"). I propose to prefer the official name, unless it is obscure, and other candidate names are common.

Your comments please.--Doron 07:41, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

A reply, although not well-formulated:

• Some use a sort of CamelCase when prefixes are added to words, eg HaNoar haOved vehaLomed. I suggest that these capitalisations are not used. I would rather Hanoar Haoved Vehalomed.

I agree, those seem inappropriate for an encyclopedia.--Doron 09:21, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

• Sometimes organisations, persons, or locations will have preferred English transcriptions. I assume these should be preferred even if unconventional. For instance, "Hashomer Hatzair" shouldn't be "Hashomer Hatza'ir"
• With regards to ts vs tz for tsadi, I think we prefer tz merely because it makes it unambiguously unenglish. In particular, I find it much difficult to read a word with ts for tsadi if that tsadi is word-internal or final, eg hitsil or haluts. At the beginning of the word it is fine, though, because English never has the affricate as word-initial: tsadik, tselal.

That's my choice as well.--Doron 09:21, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

• I often use the double quote in acronyms and find it useful, but it may be unfamiliar when the target audience is viewers of an English encyclopaedia.
• Sheva na' has not been mentioned: does it become 'e'? Do we end up with Samuel as Shemu'el? That looks pretty strange if you ask me! Should we distinguish between na' and nah? Although it has an accepted English translation, it would be strange to refer to "Habonim Deror" or any such thing when the shewa na' is dropped.

The Academy's instructions don't mention it, but it is indeed common to use E for schwa na`. Note that this is often different from modern pronunciation, (one pronounces "Dror", not "Deror"). I prefer not to distinguish (e.g., Habonim Dror).--Doron 09:21, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

• This is fine for Modern Hebrew, but some terms of Biblical Studies and Classical Hebrew may need to follow more academic conventions with regards to quf, waw, etc.

--jnothman ^talk 08:44, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Another issue I haven't mentioned is the letter he ending a word. The Academy rules distinguish between two cases that I personally find very hard to distinguish, so I propose to drop the H unless it is followed by a vowel (however, words like "mitzvah" have earlier and very common transliteration, which is preferred as suggested above).

Whuddabout mappiq? Not that it happens a lot in WP articles, but I'm sure there's gotta be one somewhere... Tomer ^TALK 21:56, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

On second thought, perhaps the Academy rules are not so hard to follow. If I am not mistaken, they say the he should appear as H if it is either pronounced, or it is part of the root. Figuring out the roots of words is fairly easy, so I proposed stick to these rules. Did I get it right?--Doron 11:05, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I think we should be consistent. If words like mitzvah are commonly accepted, we should use "h" on all words that end in he. Yoninah 20:24, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

The he is part of the root צוה, which is why the H is there. This is consistent with the Academy rules.--Doron 22:26, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

You might want to consider moving this discussion to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Hebrew).

Regarding the guidelines linked above

Please note that the document linked above describes a set of guidelines intended specifically to enable electronic correspondence in Hebrew in cases where it is technically impossible to use the Hebrew script. As the document itself clearly states (in bold type):

אין הכללים שלהלן באים להחליף את כללי התעתיק מכתב עברי לאותיות לטיניות שקבעה האקדמיה ללשון העברית ושנועדו בעיקר לכתיבת שמות פרטיים (של אנשים, של מקומות, של פרסומים וכד').‏

The instructions below do not replace the Rules for Transliteration from Hebrew script to Latin Letters, which tha Academy of the Hebrew Language had set, and which are intended mainly for writing proper names (of people, places, publications, etc.).

Wikipedia's needs clearly do not fall under the intended scope of these guidelines. Rather, Wikipedia's use of Hebrew transliteration is mainly for proper names. Therefore, Wikipedia should use the Academy's official rules (which, e.g. do not permit using "k" for qoph), rather than the guidelines in the linked page. -- uriber 18:36, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

The Academy's Rules for Transliteration can be found here (PDF, in Hebrew; I copied the link from Hoziron's proposal below). Of the variants described in the rules, I suggest we use the "exact" transliteration (3rd column from the right in the table). -- uriber 19:04, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

romanization of Hebrew

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)

Thanks a lot for an interesting article! You are obviously quite knowledgeable about the subject, so I hope you can contribute to the formation of a naming convention. I know there's a long history of romanization and transliteration, which creates a wide variety of different possible spellings. I believe standardization may be beneficial for consistency, do you share this view? By the way, the Academy rules I referred to are based on the 1957 rules and are intended for electronic communication (which possibly means they were reviewed recently?). Do you have any reservations with regards to these rules?--Doron 19:34, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh, good to know. I had read something else that led me to believe the Academy wasn't working on this in recent years. Now I've looked into it further.

Here are my comments so far:

1. Let's use the applicable revision of the 1957 rules which is online, adopted in 2000 [1]. It's not the one you linked. It's very similar, though, and due to the Academy's mandate, the Israeli government has to follow it. Even better, it's wrapped in a discussion of the history of the Academy's discussions about transliteration to the Latin alphabet and the issues they're still not satisfied with. [2] Unfortunately, it's all in Hebrew with all rights reserved. We can at least paraphrase and summarize for the benefit of those who can transliterate but can't actually read scholarly discourse in Hebrew. (I could do that later. Let me get these comments out first.) I think we should adopt this set of rules for our article titles that transliterate modern Hebrew. Using these official rules might help limit the number of people who say "Who came up with this lousy transliteration? Here's one I made that's much better." (Someone always will!) Also, it takes a lot into account, including shva na.
2. I don't see much reason to deviate from the year-2000 rules (the easier transliteration, Hebrew "muqal"). I suppose some of us won't like some of the assignments, such as het = h, tsade = z, gimel chupchik = g hacek, zayin chupchik = z hacek, tsade chupchik = z hacek. I guess I'm willing to bend on a couple of those. I don't see a need to change tsade = "ts". I think "ts" has merit because, unlike "tz", "ts" correctly suggests an unvoiced sibilant.
3. Usability should be the number one goal, not uniformity. There are two real questions: What do writers need? What do readers need? In fact the needs are different depending on the subject matter and the context:
   • Modern geographical names shouldn't deviate too much from what maps designed for English speakers use. We can check the GEONet Names Server database for that ([3], use the menu link "GNS Search"). In fact, the entire Israel data set can be downloaded from the FTP site there. The GEONet Names Server database is the official name repository for BGN, the U.S. organization that authorizes geographic names for U.S. government use. BGN and PCGN (the UK equivalent) both use transliteration based on the 1957 Academy rules, with a few tiny tweaks.
   • Biblical names should prefer a form familiar in English, probably from the Authorized Version (King James Version).
   • Hebrew terminology outside of Israel and the Yishuv that preceded it should probably be transliterated according to Tiberian vocalization. The Society for Biblical Literature rules are excellent for that.
   • Actually, I mostly notice transliteration on Wikipedia outside of titles, when it's used to explain the Hebrew orthography for a term that's familiar in English. For example: Jacob (Hebrew יעקב, ya'akov) is the son of Isaac in the Hebrew Bible, blah blah blah. That's a whole other brawl that we can't settle here.
4. There's a need for what librarians call authority control. It's a step-by-step process for deciding the authoritative form of a name. The first step is not transliteration. It's to see whether the person or authoritative organization has a preference. If it's a living person or existing organization, ask them. The next step is to check a standard reference work to see whether there's a conventional form of the name. Systematic transliteration is actually the last resort.

Agreed. There are also times when the Ashkenazi spelling must be respected, especially in people's names (my name is YONASSAN, not YONATAN!) If there were a page on me (which there isn't) it had better say "Yonassan Gershom" and not "Yonatan Gershom" or "Jonathan Gershom" -- otherwise nobody could find it! Ditto for a lot of other Diasporan people and subjects. The current wiki usage is to cross-reference and disambiguate alternate spellings. I prefer this to "standardizing" because, frankly, I resent the anti-Yiddish attitudes of some Israelis trying to impose their views on the whole Jewish world. 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

In Wikipedia, People's names are always given in their English form (if it exists) and not transliterated. By the way, if you don't mind me asking, why do you spell your name with a double 'S'?--Doron 22:48, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

1. It would be very technical to do, and I'm not sure whether current policy smiles on it, but we could conceivably implement automated transliteration using "subst" templates.

Sorry I don't have time to write more concisely! --Hoziron 02:43, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

shva always no vowel??

Surely not!:

• Mdinat Yisrael
• Yhudim
• Mkor Hayim
• Mfarshim

Maybe word-initial sheva should be optionally 'e', also when preceded by definite article, eg Hamedina. I can't think of any examples where a mid-word sheva is commonly transcribed as 'e'. --jnothman ^talk 13:04, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps we should use E when it is pronounced as E? This would apply to all your examples, as well as the mid-word "nigmeru", and we will still have "dror" rather than "deror" (which I find less appropriate). How about that?--Doron 21:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Although, again, this is context sensitive: there is a song title nearly always pronounced as "Deror Yikra"... yet for some reason it seems more correct to write it as "Dror Yikra". I think these are us applying our English phonology to Hebrew when transcribing... --jnothman ^talk 07:03, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't know that specific example, isn't it a medieval poem? "Dror" still looks better to me than "deror", even if the shva na is pronounced as E, I don't know. Anyway, the proposed convention is meant as a guideline, a starting point for any future discussion on naming of articles, not a strict rule, and I'm sure there are bound to be all sorts of exceptions.--Doron 13:45, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

sh'va na as an apostrophe also makes sense to me - t'fillin, m'farshim, m'kor. D'ror yikra is one of the z'mirot sung on Shabbat. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:17, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

sheva na‘ as an apostrophe makes no sense to me - tefillin, mefarshim, mekor, barekhu. Deror yikra is one of the pizmonim sung on Shabbat. — in other words: The marking of shevá as ’ is one that may be appropriate for Ashkenazi pronunciation, but in Sephardi Hebrew, the vowel is always clearly pronounced as a sound which varies between an [e] sound (in most cases) and an [a] sound (when the shevá na‘ has a meteg). -- Olve 04:51, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Aspergers... m'qor, yiqra... Tomer ^TALK 21:33, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Tomer, you have advocated the use of this same symbol for aleph, below. jnothman ^talk 12:53, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Not actually...I prefer to use ë for shva na` and nothing at all for shva nach. I was just using Jay's apostrophe here... Tomer ^TALK 01:06, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I strongly object, this would appear to be a shva nah. The consonant with a shva na is at the beginning of a syllable, this would make it appear like it is at the end of the preceding syllable.--Doron 11:05, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I haven't understood... jnothman ^talk 12:53, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

The apostrophe is used to separate between syllables when it is not clear (e.g. Yir'u="they will see", as opposed to Yiru="they will shoot"). But shva na (נע) is in the beginning of a syllable, unlike shva nah (נח), and putting an apostrophe after it would separate between the consonant with the shva na and the rest of its syllable. That's why I object to it and prefer sticking with the Academy rules, which state E should used, unless it is not pronounced as E.--Doron 13:29, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

This indenting's getting a bit much for me. I still don't get what you mean by "But shva na (נע) is in the beginning of a syllable, unlike shva nah (נח)". Shva nah is unpronounced, so it is nowhere in the syllable. It is a figment of orthography. Shva na`, to my knowledge, is always preceded in a syllable by a consonant, and is never followed. While this is not so relevant, it also means that although you complain that ' is used for two things, its use to represent shva will always be between two consonants, and in your example it is acutally being used to represent an aleph. jnothman ^talk 13:58, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

The reason an apostrophe is used in yir'u is indeed to indicate there is an alef, otherwise one may think there is a resh with a shuruk. This breaks the word into the two syllables "yir" and "u", rather than "yi" and "ru". The apostrophe is always used, according to the Academy rules, when it separates between syllables, never in the middle of a syllable. In tefillin, the first syllable is tefi (the E represents a shva na), and if you use an apostrophe instead, it would appear that the "t" stands by itself, which is why I object it. Anyway, what reason is there in this case to deviate from the Academy rules?--Doron 21:28, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

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)

If the vowel after the tav is a sheva na, then by definition the first syllable of the word is te. So I'm a little confused by Doron's use of the word syllable and being at the end or the middle of it. But I nonetheless now get his point. I think, though, that a sheva should be distinguished--in whatever transcription we use--from a segol, because if the first syllable of a word has a sheva na, it may be pronounced without one, but if it has a segol, it isn't. jnothman ^talk 09:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

The point is, shva is not a vowel (neither of them), but it is sometimes pronounced as a short vowel, and thus romanized as a vowel. So in Hebrew, the first syllable of tefillin is "tefi" (or "tfi"), because the E after the T doesn't represent a Hebrew vowel. A shva na always appears at the beginning of a syllable (regardless of how it is romanized), it never closes a syllable, and thus putting an apostrophe to represent it appears misleading to me. The Academy rules state that a shva na is romanized like a shva nah, except for when it is pronounced as a vowel, in which case the vowel is used. I see no reason to deviate from these rules. Sure, we can make an effort and distinguish between hataf-segol and segol, and between kamatz-katan and holam-male, but I think it would make things unnecessarily cluttered. That's why I proposed a dual system -- one for regular use, that would be simple and without diacritics, and another for when an accurate and scientific transliteration is necessary.--Doron 10:14, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, Doron, but it is simply not correct that shevá is no vowel. Shevá nakh is no vowel, agreed. But shevá na‘ is in fact a vowel which is characterised by its minimal stress and phonemic neutrality as far as sound quality goes. In Yemenite Hebrew, and under some circumstances also in Northern European Sephardi Hebrew, it is an [a] sound. In most forms of Sephardi Hebrew and in the carefully enunciated style of Ashkenazi Hebrew, it is normally a lax e sound. In informal Ashkenazi Hebrew, and borrowed thence into colloquial Modern Israeli Hebrew, shevá is often more-or-less ignored in all cases. That does not make it a non-vowel. It just makes it a vowel of neutral sound quality which may be pronounced or slurred-over depending on one’s accent and on one’s degree of formal speech. I think that ə would be ideal from a phonological point of view, but for general use in article names etc., just plain e is more accessible, reasonably in accordance with general usage, and in practice precise enough. -- Olve 05:01, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

As I said to jnothman in my talk page: It's fairly basic, I'm no linguist, I just remember this stuff from highschool.

מתוך א. אבן-שושן, המילון העברי המרוכז, מוסף ג', עמ' 921: עיצור שאינו מונע בתנועה מסומן בשוא מתחת לאות... יש שני מיני שווא: א) שווא הנמשך אל התנועה שלפניו -- נקרא "שווא נח", למשל: יצ-חק. ב) שווא הנמשך אל התנועה שלאחריו -- נקרא "שווא נע", למשל: בני, ראה

Thus a shva (either nah or na) is not a vowel (tnu'a).--Doron 07:54, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll believe Even Shoshan, but I might get to look in a library tomorrow, or at Gesenius online tonight. jnothman ^talk 08:47, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

There are many cases where open sheva is not silent even in Modern Hebrew. Ashkelon, Ashkenaz, Be'er Sheva, Levanon, Menashe, Netanya, Netzarim, Rehovot, Yerushalayim. The problem is that some cases pronounce the open sheva, and some cases do not. Rather than say that sheva is always silent, for words with no commonly universal English transliteration, it's far better practice to transliterate the open sheva wherever it is found. That's why I renamed obscure Israeli place names that way—the diacritics were after the Turkish, Romanian, etc. article name precedents as mentioned further down. But I had no idea people felt so strongly about it, so I'll be flexible here. I still think it's better (for Standard Hebrew) to transliterate het as "h" (not "ch"), zadi as "z" (not "tz"), qof as "q" (not "k"), and zere male as "e" (not "ei"), as per modern linguistic standard, even if not colloquial Ashkenazi Israeli practice. - Gilgamesh 10:51, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Consensus?

Does this proposal have a consensus such that it can become a naming convention proper? Hiding talk 20:13, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually I started this some time ago but there's still a lot of work and I haven't had the time. I'll try to complete it soon and see if it gets support.--Doron 20:53, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

No consensus, yet...

• No consensus yet, many Users' input still required! I will contact some of them. See also Users at Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism and Wikipedia:WikiProject Hebrew languages, maybe some others too. IZAK 17:05, 11 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)

• The proposed convention is quite straightforward. However, it is only really appropriate for modern standard Hebrew. Even then, it does not account for the many Hebrew speakers who do pronounce the emphatics. One cannot automatically recreate the original Hebrew text after it has been transliterated by this scheme: it is a lossy scheme. I would suggest that a scientific transliteration standard be proposed as well. --Gareth Hughes 18:57, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

• The proposal is too straightforward and is not very usable except for modern Ashkenazim-style Israeli Hebrew. (Yes, I wrote the plural of Ashkenazi for a reason: It is admittedly not the Ashkenazi pronunciation as such, but it is a heavily Ashkenazi-coloured one: The diphthongised "ei" is not used in mainstream Israeli Hebrew, and those Sephardi traditions that distinguish between segol and ṣéré do usually not pronounce the latter as a diphthong. Also, the idea of skipping or minimising the shev na‘ is one which isn't acceptable even in careful Ashkenazi pronunciation — let alone in Sephardi pronunciation of any traditional kind.) I am optimistic that we can reach a consensus, but please do not rush it too much. There are many views to be heard and many concerns that need to be seriously addressed. -- Olve 05:09, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Olve, I agree with you 100% that we should not rush to reach a consensus, the differences of view are too wide-spread. Much more discussion , and probably voting, is needed to reach consensus. IZAK 02:21, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

shuruk, kubbutz, tzereh

I'm not keen on the proposal to use "U" for these vowels, primarily because it is likely to be mispronounced when read by an English speaker. Typically and English speaker will pronounce this as in "cup", when it is really pronounced more like "oo", as in "coop". For example, it should be "nikood", rather than "nikkud", which will end up being pronounced "nih - cud". I'm also about concerned about "ei" for tzereh - I've seen that mangled (pronounced as in Seinfeld, or as in Goldstein, or as in deify). "ay" might be clearer. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:29, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I think we're talking about a naming convention, like a convention for page titles, in which it would be disastrous to use a pronounciation that would be understandable to an English speaker (e.g. nikood). Please correct me if I'm wrong. Having said that, I fully support including a pronounciation for English speakers in the article itself. -- Ynhockey || Talk 19:41, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Shuruq and Qubbutz should be transliterated u, or as ū and u, respectively, and the ignorant be damned... and Tzerei as e, or possibly as ē. To me at least "ay" is [ai], as in buy high thigh, and "oo" is 2nd grade. Also, it's nīqūð. Tomer ^TALK 21:50, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

nīqqūð or nīq:ūð, excuse me! Where has your dāɣēʃ gone? And I agree, no oo or ay business. It seems to be popular among american transliterations, but there are many uses of 'u' for [u] or similar in English. But I also don't think we need to show long vowels with bars. Also, I think there are some instances where ei should be used as alternatives (with redirects), due to common use, eg Eloheinu. jnothman ^talk 12:39, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I didn't use a dāɣēš because I get sloppy sometimes. I don't use ʃ because, despite what IZAK likes to insist to the contrary, I don't write things like shabath, maqom and ethrogh [or eþroɣ] because I fancy myself a linguist, but because that's how I say them. As for showing vowel length, I agree, it's a bit superfluous except for doing more exact transliterations, but that's not what this proposal is all about. Tomer ^TALK 01:18, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

אֻ and אוּ can both be written simply as u. Oo is unnecessarily anglisised. אֵ and אֵי should not be written ei if it can be avoided — both in Israeli and Sephardi Hebrew, this vowel is most commonly NOT a dipthong, but rather a mid-front tense vowel which may or may not be long. Ay will not work, since it is even further removed from the Israeli and Sephardi pronunciation, and additionally to be confused with ay as in vaday. I propose that é be used (tébá, bené Yisraél) ; this is a letter which is already much used in French loanwords in English (e.g., résumé, blasé). -- Olve 05:02, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Olve: While é may be known for résumé and blasé in English, it is NOT commonly used in Hebrew transliterations. Why would you want Wikipedia to be out of sync with the "real world" in favor of silly academic shows of arrogance? IZAK 02:17, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

IZAK: é is actually commonly used in transliterations of Hebrew in an English setting in the Spanish and Portuguese tradition — and possibly in some other traditions as well. I don’t see any reason why you have to respond in such an unfriendly way, throwing words like “out of sync with the ‘real world’” and “silly academic shows of arrogance”. Better watch out, or I might start doing the same... ;-P Olve 18:09, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Olve: The "Spanish and Portuguese tradition" are not the central points here. This is not the Spanish or Portuguese Wikipedia. This is the English Wikipedia, and in the commonly used English language, when Hebrew words are quoted, I repeat what I stated above: "While é may be known for résumé and blasé in English, it is NOT commonly used in Hebrew transliterations." And yes, I stress, one must always be on guard to avoid the pitfalls of living in an ivory tower as all I am doing is attempting to alert everyone to this problem, sorry if you think that's being "unfriendly". Nothing personal bud. IZAK 03:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

IZAK, we discussed this before. You do not insult nor belittle your fellow editors. Treat them, their interests and their expertise with as much respect as you regard your own. You have a place here, and so does everyone else. As I suggested before, if you cannot comment in a respectful manner, it may be a good idea for you to log out and return when you are prepared to be polite. This is a discussion that balances world use, scientific usefulness and disseminating the dry facts to our audience. This is not a holy war. - Gilgamesh 19:28, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Stop lecturing me Gilgamesh, it's silly. IZAK 03:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Honestly, IZAK, the way you reply to Gilgamesh’s concerns strongly suggests you need some lecturing, and I commend Gilgamesh for providing it. As far as your belittling the Spanish and Portuguese tradition, you have totally misrepresented what I wrote: The Spanish and Portuguese tradition has plenty of English language literature — e.g., from London and New York. It is this English-language literature I referred to. I recommend that you take a look in ‘Hochmat Shelomoh = Wisdom of Solomon : Torah cantillation according to the Spanish and Portuguese custom by M.M. Rodrigues Pereira (published (in English) by Tara Publications in 1994, ISBN 0933676379) as one example. I suggest that you “permit” those of us who have a different background from yours to state our views without being ridiculed and belittled. I also suggest that you try to learn a bit about the Spanish and Portuguese tradition — e.g., the completely basic fact that it is a tradition with as legitimate English-language traditions as is the case with the Ashkenazi tradition/s. Might be easier to respect you and listen to your arguments too if you do that. -- Olve 17:50, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Kuf - K or Q?

I always thought that the letter ק/kuf was transliterated as "q" to distinguish it from כ/kaf. The archaic Greek version of this letter, qoppa, is transliterated q and was the ancestor of the Latin Q. See, e.g., qoph.

Not only is it transliterated q as opposed to k, it's pronounced q as opposed to k. Also ע and א, which aren't pronounced even remotely similarly, should be transliterated ` and ' respectively, unless alef is unpronounced [beginning of a word, certain positions within words, in borrowings from other languages, etc.] ... This proposal also fails to differentiate between ה and ח, which are pronounced quite differently as well. I'll refrain from making any political statements, but this proposal is, IMNSHO, just plain bad. Well-intentioned, I have no doubt, but something I for one have to cast a "definite oppose" vote for. [not that there's a vote happening, but... ] Tomer ^TALK 21:41, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

There was an argument made further up the page that many encyclopaedic Hebrew words have been romanized at some time, so we shouldn't reinvent the wheel. I always prefer q to k for this letter, and I pronounce them differently. However, many Hebrew words romanize it as k. It would be daft to correct what are accepted spellings. If a word is not well known in romanization, or has varient spellings, I would prefer q (it contains more information). Some people will want to make this sound like kw, but not too many I hope. However, as the Academy has a transliteration standard, we should use it. However, I would suggest that we only use Academy spellings for a purely modern Hebrew context, so rabbinic, mediaeval, biblical and ancient texts should use a different standard. --Gareth Hughes 23:04, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Q is better, but can live with K. -- Olve 05:04, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I prefer q for qoph so as to distinquish it from kaph. This shouldn't cause any confusion q is pronounced like k in English (its qu thats pronounced "kw" with the q pronounced "k" and the u pronounced "w"). Kuratowski's Ghost 05:09, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I prefer K all the way, especially for modern Hebrew transliteration. Q is not pronounced differently, except be very few people. Sticking too hard to the Hebrew Alphabet and the Academy rules creates monstrosities such as Petach Tiqwa for פתח תקווה, for which i strongly prefer Petach Tikva. Only for scientific etymologies or biblical terms i would go with Q.--Amir E. Aharoni 18:54, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

How about petaḥ tiqva? Petaḥ tiqwa isn’t so bad either in my ears/eyes... :) “Ch”, on the other hand, lends itself so easily to the mispronunciation “sh” or “tsh”/“tch”... Olve 06:02, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I remember reading a number of months ago (I don't remember where) that the Israeli government has decided to standardise its transcription in signage (currently a smorgasboard of what we have here), including the abolished use of q and w which have otherwise made peta&#7717 tiqwa. jnothman ^talk 09:44, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I do like "K" better but, as I said up there, maybe we can take a page out of the israelis and use it as they do in their road signs? The occasional tourist who may have been to Israel will be also benefited in that case. Sebastian Kessel ^Talk 17:53, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

"K" for qoph is to me unacceptable. Qoph is "q", in any reasonable standard I ever saw. "Petaḥ Tiqwa" seems right to me, not a "monstrosity". -- uriber 18:25, 13 November 2005 (UTC) Struck-out by me, see below. -- uriber 19:24, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Really, what's so unacceptable here? Differentiating between Kaf and Qof is even less relevant than between `Ayin and Alef. In all of my life in Israel i have met only one person in whose speech there was a difference in the pronunciation of Kaf and Qof (and - oh goodness - why do you have to write Qoph?? What is the letter F for?). It would be plausible to differentiate between Alef/`Ayin, Kaf/Qof, Khet/Khaf, Sin/Samekh etc. in the transcription, if anyone who reads the transcription would actually care about the difference. The world is changing - not everyone is a linguist, and by using Q, W, Ḥ and other weird letters you're not making reading Hebrew easier for people who don't speak it, you're making it harder.

As regards ph, there are two reasons I can think of: (1) to show derivation from p and not a separate phoneme (p and ph are in English); (2) because it's likely the sound was pronounced [ɸ], bilabial and not labio-dental like [f]. Not really relevant, but for your interest. jnothman ^talk 20:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

As for those who do care - well, Hebrew is not Japanese, with only 22 letters the Hebrew alphabet is one of the shortest in the world. A serious researcher of the Hebrew language for whom knowing with what letters the word was written probably knows them already and can simply read the original word in Hebrew.

For article naming conventions, i tend to agree with the guidelines at the bottom of this page, which are practical enough. A serious overhaul is necessary to Wikipedia articles on this matter, but i'd wait for the updated Hebrew Language Academy guidelines and the Israeli Road Signs project ... On the other hand it could man a really long wait :)--Amir E. Aharoni 18:54, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I came here to strike my comment above, because I really think Wikipedia should not make up its own standard, but instead follow existing standards. This way we can avoid discussion of specific issues (like this one). I generally support Hoziron's proposal below, which suggests using the most applicable standard in each situation. (For place names in Israel, it suggests using the spelling used by the Israeli Beauro of Census, which generally follows the AHL's standard, which says qoph is "q"). -- uriber 19:24, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Even though I agree in principle with Uriber's statement that "Wikipedia should not make up its own standard", yet nevertheless, "K" is also very commonly used and recognized as a transliteration for ק as in Kibbutz (and not Qibbutz !), Kabbalah (and not Qabbalah !), Kiddush (and not Qiddush !), Karaim (and not Qaraim !), Tikkun olam (and not Tiqqun olam !)...these examples should suffice to prove the absolute silliness of artificially attempting to twist all Hebrew transliteration uses of "k" into "q" in an ancyclopedia that is meant to avoid the pitfall of absurd and arrogant academic extremism. Ordinary readers, looking for basic information, will scorn Wikipedia if it becomes a format for the talking heads of the world to impose their artificial world view/s as if this was exclusively a "journal for specialists" only. IZAK 02:46, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Those funny marks

Call me old-fashioned (or am I new-fashioned?) but — and I think this is consistent with the 2000 on-line convention binding on the Israeli government, a link is provided above, we should try to limit using two letters in English to represent one letter in English as much as possible. Right now it is very easy for someone to use "Š" instead of "sh" for shin, for example. Right now, we cannot (well, at least, I cannot) properly represent chet as an h with a dot under it, or tzadi as a z with a dot under it rather than "tz" or "ts." I am looking below, at the box that says "insert" and has all sorts of accented letters, so people do not have to use the ASCII code. Well, if we enable and encourage English speakers to use accent marks required by other languages, can this "insert" box be supplemented with the necessary letters? I realize I am new to this discussion, having only now seen IZAK's notice (thanks) and may be asking for something that is either technically impossible or that everyone else thinks is unnecessary. I like it because it makes sense to me that one letter be transliterated as one letter, and because I am used to it from reading academic work. I realize many readers will be unfamiliar with it. Of course, readers like me may not know how to pronounce Norwegian letters or Czech accent marks — but I think we should still use them, especially as naming conventions. If Wikipedia can have an article Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (and I am in no way disparaging that article), then we should be able to use the h and the z with dots underneath.Slrubenstein | Talk 23:37, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

If you want ḥ/Ḥ, ṣ/Ṣ, ṭ/Ṭ or ẓ/Ẓ, all you have to do is look at the wikitext that lies beneath this page. --Gareth Hughes 23:53, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry Gareth, I am looking and do not see it. As I am editing, I see that you have inserted "unicode|&#7717". I don't see the actual letters themselves. Do you know what I am doing wrong? (and of course, we still need to discuss whether we should use these in hebrew naming conventions) Slrubenstein | Talk 00:01, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh dear! I was using {{unicode}} to make sure that you could see these characters. The template tells obsolete browsers, like Internet Explorer, what to do with them. It must just be that you don't have a Unicode font installed, or you are forcing yor browser to use a font that does not cover this part of the range. I think Code2000 and Arial Unicode MS are freely available fonts that do the trick.

Well, I have never actually done or not done anything (I am not technically proficient); all I know is, when I hit the edit button and the edit box comes up, underneath, below the "save page," "show preview" and "show changes" buttons is a box that starte "insert:" and then has a whole range of letters with diacritical marks. My question to you is, am I the only one, or are many Wikipedia users in my situation? If the anser is the latter, then I am asking if there is a way to add these fonts to that "insert" box, so any user can use them. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:29, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

It is possible that the template is calling a font that is unsuitable on your machine first. If that's the case, ḥ/Ḥ, ṣ/Ṣ, ṭ/Ṭ or ẓ/Ẓ should look better. Otherwise, I can only direct you to the talk page for the template, and suggest you have a look at the fonts. --Gareth Hughes 00:57, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I propose using straightforward proper Unicode using the Unicode template, or the Template:Semxlit template I designed (and could improve upon) for transliteration of common Semitic languages like Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and Amharic.

• For Standard Hebrew:
  • ʼ v b g d h v z ḥ t y ḫ k l m n s ʻ f p ẓ q r š s t ə i í e é a á o ó u ú or
  • ʼ v b g d h v z ḥ t y ḫ k l m n s ʻ f p ẓ q r š s t ə i í e é a á o ó u ú
• For Mishnaic and Tiberian Hebrew (the original standard that used niqqud):
  • ʼ ḇ b ḡ g ḏ d h w z ḥ (ḫ) ṭ y ḵ k l m n s ʻ (ġ) p̄ p ṣ q r š ś ṯ t ə ĕ ă ŏ i í ī î ē ê e é ệ ª a á ậ ā â o ō ô u ú ū û or
  • ʼ ḇ b ḡ g ḏ d h w z ḥ (ḫ) ṭ y ḵ k l m n s ʻ (ġ) p̄ p ṣ q r š ś ṯ t ə ĕ ă ŏ i í ī î ē ê e é ệ ª a á ậ ā â o ō ô u ú ū û

Simple transliterations are useful for most of the text, but it is still important to include academic detail at least once where it can be useful for researchers. - Gilgamesh 07:58, 12 November 2005 (UTC) For simple transliterations, I'd lean towards being academically conservative within layman's displayability. ' for alef, h for het, kh for khaf, ` for ayin, z for zadi, q for qof, sh for shin, e for sheva. But for established familiar English transliterations regardless of academic basis (Jerusalem, Haifa, Nazareth, Beersheba, Eilat), I'd leave them as is. - Gilgamesh 08:03, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I, personally, would be happy if letters with diacritics such as ḥ (for ḥet), ṣ for (ṣade), ə (for Schwa), and š (for šin) could be adopted as our standard spelling, and as the standard Hebrew Romanization in general, but the truth is that absolutely no-one uses them (except archaeologists and etymologists in serious dictionaries, such as Webster's, but i hate it - and i'm a linguist myself). We shouldn't use something that no-one can read. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is not yet important enough to influence the lazy Hebrew Academy that should thoroughly revise the Romanization ... or maybe i give up too quickly :) ?

In practice - i see no problem with sh for shin. TZ for tzade is kinda ugly, but it's unambiguous and intuitive and that's what most people use. For Khet and Khaf i prefer KH and not CH, because CH can be confused for the CH sound of "church"; although it is not used in the Hebrew language proper, it does sometimes occur in related names (actually, i would use X, but that's too extreme and no-one would be able to read it). And for Schwa-Na` i would use simply E, such as Medinat-Hayehudim. Yes, that's an over-simplification, but the Academy is not too cooperative, so to hell with it.--Amir E. Aharoni 06:14, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Disputed changes by Gilgamesh

Unfortunately, Gilgamesh is now imposing his own views by changing the transliterated Hebrew names of articles with redirects to unreadable Hebrew names and fonts, as if his criteria are the only ones to reckon with, when there are in fact several. My computer, as I am sure many others' as well, does not pick up his type of fonts, and thus he is messing up articles such as Safed, Hadera, Holon, Afula, Arad, Israel and many others defacing them and making them unreadable on the web. He is going to DESTROY the normal usage of Wikipedia's Hebrew transliterations to satisfy his own needs without there being any consensus. Common usages are being thrown out in favor of obscure and pedantic academic usages familiar to only a handful of unkown academics. He should be called upon to stop BEFORE he rushes to do further damage without any consensus being reached. All his changes should therefore be reverted. See all his recent contributions via: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Gilgamesh I thank you for your interest, and urge all readers here to act. IZAK 03:15, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No personal attacks - Gilgamesh 16:45, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

You seem to have a problem with respecting your colleagues. I tried to explain this stuff before, but you couldn't grasp it. Besides, I already stopped days ago when someone asked. (I didn't occur to me before then that someone would ask.) And then I joined this discussion, and some of my comments are here. Now, I have bent over backwards to meet your comments as an editor, but when you post angrily and beligerently like this, it makes it hard for us to carry polite editorial/academic discussions. Examples of impolite speech: "Crazy changes", "he is going to destroy", "pedantic" "unkown academics", "do further damage". We have discussed these issues many times before, including the issue of fonts. Now. The texts are proper Unicode characters designed precisely for these purposes—whether an end-user's browser can display the characters is absolutely none of my concern as a serious academic, and is instead a concern for the design of the browser, the availability of the fonts, and the use of fonts in the particular operating environment. If you can't see the characters, download appropriate fonts and copy them in your c:\windows\fonts directory. If you're using Internet Explorer, further displayability problems can be fixed by using Template:Unicode to surround texts as they occur. Now please...be polite and respect the academic seriousness of your fellow Wikipedians. - Gilgamesh 13:04, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

The fact that there are problems displaying these non-standard characters is not something to take lightly. Sure, there are usually ways to fix this, but you have to realize this may pose a problem to some readers/editors. That's why I suggest having two different methods for two different purposes. 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)

I have been asked to weigh in. First off, I'm a Unicode aficionado, and ever since I had trouble entering the character þ on a Hebrew Windows 3.11 system, I see Unicode as a blessing and a technology that should be taken advantage of. But ... portability considerations should be kept in mind. All desktop environments of end 2005 are capable of displaying Unicode, but not all users access the pages from desktop environments. Consider text terminals, screen readers for the blind, handheld computers and embedded systems - you can't take Unicode support for granted on those platforms, even in the future (embedded systems, for example, are minimalistic). I suggest the following rule: filenames are ASCII's last stand. It's good to use Unicode extended characters in the body text, but the title had best be left in ASCII. Use "Safed" for the title, and "Ṣafed" only in the body text. --Shlomital 18:16, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't go so far as to say filenames should be ASCII-only, but they should certainly only use characters found in Arial (which is, I think, the default font used?). —Simetrical (talk) 19:42, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good criterion, the reason being that font repertoires change all the time. I remember when Arial didn't have Hebrew characters in it, and now it does, and characters are added with each new version of Windows. --Shlomital 07:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

See two examples of what my usage is: Aladdin and Badroulbadour, which I have recently edited. I have not changed the name, neither in title nor in body text. For the purpose of academic professionalism, I have added the transliteration in the brackets. This is an encyclopedia, but this isn't, for example, the Encyclopedia of Islam. That's the balance. --Shlomital 07:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Also, do we need this Tiberian vs Standard Hebrew nonsense. Kuratowski's Ghost 05:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Of course we do. If you knew what they are... Besides, they are not vs. each other, they are simply separate authoritative standards of transliterating Hebrew writing with niqqud. Standard is today's standard, and Tiberian is an important medieval standard that dates from the use of the niqqud in the Masoretic Text when it was compiled.

Exactly Tiberian is for medieval not modern. Whats wrong with just having the modern instead of confusing people? Kuratowski's Ghost 14:27, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Because Standard Hebrew is not the only Hebrew study in the world—it's a new standard only a little more than a century old. I've been studying Hebrew for years and 90% of it has been in the Hebrew of the Masoretic Texts from medieval Tiberias, where the very vowel system Standard Hebrew uses was originally adapted and simplified from. The purpose of the additional transliterations are of usefulness to researchers, not the lay person. The introductory text is suitable for lay people, but to get rid of very important academic detail out of the pretext of protecting the easily confused is unconscionably discriminatory if it cuts off a useful for higher learners. The more academic detail, the better, and it's in parentheses to keep it neatly in one place. Besides, there is absolutely nothing POV with being pedantic—I in fact am as pedantic as I can possibly be if it can better faciliate the dissemination of information. The key is organizing it properly to scale from the simple reader to the more highly academic reader. - Gilgamesh 16:45, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

From an academic and research point of view, it is critical in understanding Hebrew, as virtually all Jewish Hebrew dialects today are descended from it in different liturgical standards. It was far too messy to list all these standards, but most of them had very regular differences from the Tiberian standard, so the Tiberian transliterations are very logical to use this way. - Gilgamesh 13:04, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

General discussion

First, I'm happy this discussion has started to attract attention. I started this a long time ago but had very little time to push it forward, thanks IZAK for calling attention to it.

The purpose of this convention was to provide a set of rules for translating Hebrew words for use in the titles and body of English Wikipedia articles. Over the long history of romanizing Hebrew words, there have been many different methods of doing so, and I find it is necessary to decide on a standard method to be used in Wikipedia.

Following the discussions above, there are probably three different things we may be seeking:

• A method to render Hebrew words in roman letters to be used in an English text.
• A method for accurate transliteration that follows strict linguistic rules.
• A method to render Hebrew words in a way that is easy for an English reader to pronounce (like using 'oo' for shuruk).

I believe these should be three different things. The first is intended to be easy to use, yet close to the original Hebrew word. To make things clear, in accordance with Wikipedia naming conventions, for words and names that already have a standard or widely-used romanization (Israel, Mitzvah, Maimonides, Moses, Chabad), these should be used, even if they do not conform to any acceptable standard. In particular, people's names should be used the way they spell them, if applicable (Uri Avnery, Benjamin Netanyahu). For words that do not have a standard or widely-used romanization, I think the Academy rules mentioned above are best for this purpose, with, perhaps, some minor adjustments, pending consensus.

The second is to be used whenever an accurate transliteration is needed. It is not good for general use in English text and titles because it harder for the uninitiated, both reader and editor. There must be several different standards, I supposed a preferred one should be chosen.

The third may be useful, I haven't seen this form used often in Wikipedia, neither in Hebrew nor in other languages which have a different way of pronouncing roman letters. We should decide on a standard nevertheless, so it is available for the editor who wishes to clarify a word's pronunciation.

I think each has a different purpose, and the discussions shouldn't mix between them.--Doron 11:05, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Doron, what you say sounds sensible thus far. But have you seen what User:Gilgamesh has been doing lately? You must look into his arbitrary changes to Hebrew names/articles that do not follow what you are suggesting here! IZAK 05:11, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

As I have said. I didn't even know this discussion existed until a few days ago. Someone asked me to stop, and I did. Then I was notified of the existence of this discussion group, and I joined. I had taken precedent for renaming articles with Unicode characters from the recent unicodization of Turkish named articles. Since Unicode is both more widely supported and widely used in Wikipedia now, it seemed to make perfect sense to follow the new trend. - Gilgamesh 13:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Note that unlike Turkish, Hebrew does not have one standard for romanization. The purpose of this whole naming convention was to resolve this issue and decide on one standard for Wikipedia. But surely you had nothing but good intentions...:)--Doron 22:26, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. - Gilgamesh 10:41, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

We can make as many redirects as we like. I think that unless there is a very standard English spelling (eg Mitzvah), actual article titles should then be decided on the basis of whether they are relevant in Modern Hebrew or in a more classical Hebrew (and how classical probably makes some difference). Then I think we have a few sets of spellings:

• Close/strict scholarly (one-to-one) transliteration: miqrā'
• English-keyboard-typable scholarly transliteration: miqra
• Modern-Hebrew-style transliteration: mikra
• Other comon spellings

And yet we still haven't discussed the dagesh qal, the dagesh hazaq, the sheva, the waw... which all make things much more difficult. I think in the end, we should try to follow external transliteration guides, such as the Academy's or the Jewish Encyclopedia's. Still, redirects are cheap. jnothman ^talk 12:56, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

It's not just a question of redirects, it's for every Hebrew word that is used in the text, section titles and article names. I don't think the strict linguistic method is good for this purpose, but it is useful for when an accurate transliteration is needed. The dagesh kal and other issues should each be discussed separately in each of these contexts (e.g., dagesh kal is commonly ignored, even according to the Academy rules, but in a strict transliteration it is probably marked somehow).--Doron 13:39, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

What does it mean that the dagesh kal is commonly ignored? In letters like bet, kaph, pe, it is commonly exhibited! The question is whether we use f or ph or just p; v or bh or just b; ch or kh or just k? jnothman ^talk 13:49, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, in gimel, dalet and tav it is ignored. But my main point is that I believe there are two different uses for romanization, each requiring a different method with different rules. One that is easy to write and understand, and that is commonly used, and the other that is accurate and scientific.--Doron 21:28, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

• Well, would one make the distinction among the romanisation of letter clusters or a letter with a dagesh, raphe, vakira or geresh? For example, pe-geresh and pe-vakira are both commonly romanised as "f" and never "ph" while pe-raphe can be romanised as either "ph" or "f". The heart of my question here is would a distinction be made between the Israeli Hebrew from Sephardic Hebrew? On a similar token, what about Yiddish or Arabic words that entered into Hebrew? Would they be spelled as they would in their original form or in the proposed Hebrew spelling? CJLippert 04:31, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Using ph is nice as it shows that the sound is a variant of p (in pure Hebrew words at least), but I can live with f. Similarly I would use kh for khaf. bh in place of v however would confuse readers. Kuratowski's Ghost 05:31, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Since redirects are "cheap", I prefer "Close/strict scholarly (one-to-one) transliteration: miqrā'." Some may object to this as a departure from current practice, but after all, that is precisely what we are talking about. Wikipedia is a constant work in progress and I think we have reached the point where we should have a consistent transliteration template that conforms to academic and Israeli State standards. As with any such situation (deciding on clear conventions) it will take a little getting used to for some, but sooner or later everyone will be used to it. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:25, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I disagree somewhat. Some titles may need a linguistic transliteration, but it really depends on the context. For instance, taking from Japanese naming conventions, the correct transliteration for the name Toshiro is Tōshirō. However, most people named Toshiro spell it Toshiro in English, so that is what Wikipedia uses. However, there are fictional characters named Toshiro which appear in Japanese works, in which cases most of the time Tōshirō is used. I think the same thinking can be applied here - for a word like Eilat (modern city), Eilat should be used, but if describing it in a Biblical context, one may use Elath. However, in both cases (unless it's a minor part of an article), a reference to the most common alternative should be listed. -- Ynhockey || Talk 18:50, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

• Is that "Tōshirô" = "とおしろう/toosirou" or "Tôshirô" = "とうしろう/tousirou"? Both are commonly romanised as "Tōshirō" but generally written in English as "Toshiro". Maybe, the solution here is no-matter how a word is romanised, to alway use the UniCode function to provide the the Hebrew (or in this example, Japanese) so that any ambiguities are resolved by the provided text. CJLippert 04:42, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Overall, I like this proposal. A few points:

1. When dealing with a strictly Ashkenazic subject, S should be used instead of T for a tav without a dagesh. I can't think of an example offhand, admittedly, but I'm sure they're out there.
2. There's not really any need for a strict one-to-one transliteration. If someone's that interested, they can read the actual Hebrew characters that invariably accompany transliterations here.
3. For pronunciation, we should use IPA, listing the few most prominent variant pronunciations. Wikipedia uses IPA a lot already for transliterations; my understanding is that it's commonly used as a pronunciation key in European dictionaries, including British ones, so it's probably the most accessible unified pronunciation format.

Other than that, sounds good. —Simetrical (talk) 04:05, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, I myself find the "Ashkenazic"(Hassidic) transliteration annoying and imprescise. We should go by modern hebrew practice as used in Israel as much as possible. Shabbat and not Shabbos. Beit Mikdash, and not Beis Mikdash, etc. Klonimus

This has basically been followed until now, with minor exceptions. IZAK 05:11, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

beith hamiqdash!!! Tomer ^TALK 05:46, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Béth hammiqdaš, Bét hammiqdash, Bét hammikdash, Bét hammikdash and Bét hamikdash are some alternatives there. If one wants to go with the Israeli and/or traditional Sephardi pronunciation/s, beit with the diphthong ei does not belong there. -- Olve 05:50, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know what you guys are carrying on about, it's basically a moot point...the main article that deals with the Beit HaMikdash (or Bais HaMikdosh) is to be found at Temple in Jerusalem. IZAK 06:33, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Why so unfriendly? The point is that this is an example which conveniently throws some light on several aspects of what we are talking about. If you prefer different examples — by all means suggest some. -- Olve 07:04, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree, "e" instead of "ei" is proper in Sephardic and Standard transliteration. "ei" is appropriate for subjects of an informal nature. - Gilgamesh 13:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

If you read what I wrote elsewhere, you'd notice that if it were up to me, it would be bēþ hammiqdåš... TShilo12 07:15, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

You have GOT to be KIDDING. Not only can I not write like that, I can't even READ that. Might as well just leave it בית מקדש, if all you're going to do anyway is ignore the needs and preferences of anyone with less than academic knowledge of Hebrew. --Woggly 11:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

• Wow! I agree with Woggly 100%. What the heck is a "bēþ" supposed to mean to most people? Multiple choices: "bep"? "beb"? "beq"? "ber"? "bey"? "beo"? "bed"? "beg"? "bec"? This is opening the door to the absurd. IZAK 04:02, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I haven't worked out why TShilo12 chooses þ either. I am only familiar with its use in Old English! jnothman ^talk 07:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Israel is not inherently more worthy than חוץ לארץ in terms of pronunciation. However, I do agree that it's best to have a standard, and Israeli pronunciation is the most valuable benchmark. Inconsistency (such as kamatz as <o> instead of <A>) is immaterial; if we aren't distinguishing between long and short vowels anyway, the only difference is ת. —Simetrical (talk) 22:16, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, you're saying that the largest resevoir of native Hebrew speakers should not have more of a say as to how to pronounce their own language, than other people who only know the language as a second language? I'm not sure I agree. --Woggly 11:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Woggly. Israeli Hebrew should be the main guidepost for pronounciation as much as possible. To ignore this is to ignore, and deny, reality. (Rough analogy: No one cares how the French speak Italian, even though they both speak pure Romance languages.) IZAK 04:02, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Excluding, say, an article related to Yiddish or Yiddish culture, I couldn't think of any examples that would require use of a 'sav' over a 'tav' or 'taw' or 'thaw'. As to IPA, we're all in here using different IPA conventions, and realistically IPA is made to describe sounds, which in most cases are pretty far from any way we would like to describe them. As to the use of Hebrew in articles, I agree it should be used, but at the moment pointed Hebrew is a little messed up by MediaWiki (and web browsers and fonts). And encyclopedias not tailored to a biblical-studies audience have traditionally preferred to offer a transliteration in preference of the original lettering. jnothman ^talk 09:57, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

1) Right, there aren't going to be many cases where we'll want <s> for ת, but there are doubtless going to be a few.

2) As I said, IPA would be used for describing pronunciation only, not for general-purpose transcription. It's valuable to note the Israeli pronunciation of Eilat in that article, say, and for that we'd say "Modern Hebrew pronunciation: [e'lɑt]" or whatever.

3) Using the proper templates, pointed Hebrew displays well enough on most computers to be perfectly sufficient. When it doesn't, the problem can invariably be remedied by installing an appropriate font, assuming you aren't running something preposterously old. —Simetrical (talk) 22:16, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

There's not much point going back and forth about it, but I can't imagine, except where describing Israeli or Hebrew phonology, where the detail of an IPA transcription would be more useful than a 1-1 transliteration of the Hebrew. Re niqqud, what are the proper templates? As I understood, there are issues with ordering of niqqud as per Wikipedia:Niqqud. jnothman ^talk 01:24, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Remember, most Wikipedia articles are primarily intended for laypeople. While we Hebrew speakers can pronounce a word given a one-to-one transliteration of the Hebrew, most people can't. For them, we need a more conventional transliteration system.

As for niqqud, I don't see any evidence of that on the page you linked. The only example given is this, which shows no visible change in either Firefox or IE. At worst, people will have to make sure they have the latest versions of their browsers; the WP:Niqqud page mentions that upgrading XP to SP2 apparently solves the problem for IE. While it's best to accomodate older browsers wherever practical, adding lines to many articles that will to the vast majority of viewers be redundant gibberish isn't in my view reasonable. As far as I can see, most people will see the niqqud correctly―am I wrong? —Simetrical (talk) 19:48, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

As a student of Arabic and Islam, what is required of me? If I want to explain Arabic grammar, I use an academic transliteration for the example and an ASCII-like transcription for the translation. For example, kataba ẖālidun maktūban lifāṭimata "Khalid wrote a letter to Fatima". You see the different usages here. Of the various ways of writing the name of the prophet of Islam in Latin letters, Mohammed is an unprofessional form that should be avoided; Muhammad acceptable, and should be used when writing out the name in a run of mainly English text; and Muḥammad the academic transliteration, which I would use to supply the readers with all the information they need to know how to pronounce and write the name properly (since fahm "understanding" and faḥm "coal" are different words, with just one phoneme bearing their distinction). I have brought you this standard usage from my academic life. The usage for Hebrew is, I believe, quite the same. --Shlomital 21:10, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Vote proposal

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)

Strongly disagree. Linguists care. Researchers may care. This is not a Jewish-only nor Israeli-only resource. Names in titles and familiar text can use simple transliterations as you say, but finer academic detail deserves a place inside parentheses or presented in a similar fashion which scales up to the higher studies, which lay people can skip over if they so choose. Besides, Tiberian Hebrew is not 2000 years old—it's more like 1200 years old. - Gilgamesh 22:57, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Agree with KISS: "Keep It Simple...Stupid" IZAK 03:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with KISS only if it can be (a) consistent; (b) not POV in its choice of accent; (c) either pointed Tiberian Hebrew or close transliterations are given for main topics. I do think that, if we want to hold some standard as an encyclopedia, we have to give as much academic information as possible. A close transcription may be alienating for non-academics, but use of the pointed Hebrew may be moreso, as it alienates some in the academic world too. jnothman [[User_talk:jnothman|^talk]] 04:44, 15 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)

Then learn niqqud. If you edit, be prepared with your data. If you do not know all the data, add what you do know, and move on. - Gilgamesh 09:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

That was an extremely rude and unhelpful response. I am a native speaker of Hebrew, who, in fact, makes her living editing and working with words. I am also a native speaker of English. If I'm not good enough to edit articles on Hebrew on Wikipedia without investing in extra study, let me tell you, very few people are. Unless of course, you actually want to discourage people from contributing. --Woggly 11:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

The problem here is that Israeli Hebrew is not the only Hebrew standard. I studied a greal deal of Hebrew without even getting to Israeli until much later. You are a useful scholar of Israeli Hebrew, but there are other valid concerns and some of them only partially overlap. I make no apology for using my training to its fullest potential to help disseminate the scientific nature of data to free access. - Gilgamesh 19:41, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm with Gilgamesh here, but for a completely different reason... Without wanting to sound hysterical like some others here, this appalling proposal smacks of linguistic imperialism. TShilo12 07:11, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

"The use of Unicode should be banned - it serves no purpose"?! I most strongly disagree! Has it escaped your mind that this is an encyclopedia? An encyclopedia, not a tourist guide, not a high-school textbook, not any kind of resource for beginners, for people who need just the basics. This is a scholarly resource and should be treated as such. University students learn the art of transliteration and transcription as an obligatory course in their first year. The encyclopedias those students look up all have serious, academic transliterations in them. It's a matter of professionalism, as a foreign-language text without a proper transliteration is of little use to the researcher. What good is a transcription like hat'ama when you don't know if it stands for התאמה or הטעמה? With a transliteration like haṯʾāmā or haṭʿāmā you know which one is meant, and you can give it the reconstructed historical pronunciation, as well as garner its pronunciation in various traditions (Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Yemenite), instead of being confined to the modern Hebrew rendering. Unicode is a boon and should be used where appropriate. --Shlomital 11:08, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely beautiful. Emphatically agreed. I as an online linguist would be absolutely lost without Unicode, and I fully intend to use it. There can be no such thing as too much academic detail in articles. To dumb down the content only serves to defeat the purpose of an encyclopedia that aims for academic excellence. - Gilgamesh 19:41, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

KISS=Common usage

It seems that some sort of "polarization" is taking place here! Those who favor KISS (i.e. keeping things "simple" -- in the sense of avoiding "academese" -- because we are not, so to speak, "medical doctors in training" who need to be inducted into high-falutin specialists' jargon.) While some of us may have specialised interests and training, we are nevertheless trying to follow one of Wikipedia's basic rules of style, such as outlined in Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Which style to use? that actually says we should use News style or in Wikipedia:Summary style. See also Wikipedia:Explain jargon. So here is a place to vote on the question of: Do you think Hebrew transliteration/romanization on Wikipedia should (mostly) follow the KISS/"common usage" style, or should there be a Hebrew style that tries to adhere to a (mostly) highly academic methodology? IZAK 03:20, 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)

Follow academic standards only

Undecided

• Always follow KISS in title. In body text, use either KISS or academic style depending on the esotericity of the term in question. Always include an academic transliteration in brackets following the opening of the body. See Aladdin and Badroulbadour for examples of how I have done this for Arabic names. --Shlomital 07:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• Similar to User:Shlomital above: Always follow KISS in titles. Always follow KISS in the body of the text, academic transliteration in brackets. Both KISS and academic standards still need to be formalized and agreed upon.--Doron 08:49, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Adamantly Opposed

• As I've said elsewhere previously, this is not the SIMPLE ENGLISH WP!!! TShilo12 07:09, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
• Agreed. --Briangotts [[User Talk:Briangotts|(talk)]] 13:56, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Both?

• Does this "KISS" recommendation differ from the procedure that I suggested? Specifically: use the requested or attested spelling for individuals/organizations; use the conventional form of geographical names (i.e. Tel Aviv not Tel 'Abhibh); use the English-language dictionary for other terms. If other options are not available, only then do we apply systematic romanization.
  
  What is KISS? Is it different from Academy of the Hebrew Language "muqal" (lightweight) romanization? Is it Artscroll transliteration, and if so, why?
  
  Are we banning non-Latin-1 characters in titles? But that would mean no SBL academic romanization (which is explained clearly on e-page 38, printed page 26, of [4]). Then how do we handle terms that are neither common in English, nor primarily attached to modern Hebrew, and yet are important concepts and are pronounced differently in dozens of religious communities? Titles of Talmud tractates might be an example. Do we just go with the earliest author's preference?
  --Hoziron 14:11, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I think your system is pretty close to what I perceive as KISS, except that you're using too many words to describe it. Minimise regulations, maximise common sense. Use the simplest, most common and most user friendly spellings whenever those are clearly identifiable; in case of uncertainty, or any unusual circumstances, use your head and think of other people. Remember that the people who read and use Wikipedia are mostly non academics, remember that many of them are not Hebrew speakers, and that barely any of them are historical linguists. --Woggly 16:16, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Titles are a front-end issue: we must accommodate various user agents, some of which cannot handle extended characters. Anything outside ASCII is already problematic (if you've ever tried to access Hebrew filenames on WinXP in recovery mode, you've got a taste of that). Outside Microsoft Windows Codepage 1252 is more problematic. Outside WGL4 is even more problematic. Redirection, far from solving the problem, might make things worse: suppose you type to Holon and are redirected to Ḥolon - if the user agent can't handle that special character (U+1E24, outside even WGL4), then the results can be unexpected, possibly even a system crash. --Shlomital 14:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

In my case, I see a little square at the beginning of Ḥolon where I'd expect the H to be. --Woggly 16:21, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

You must be using Internet Explorer, or if not, then have no font containing the character. A modern browser can find a font for each Unicode character, even if the main (specified) font doesn't have it. That way, with Firefox you often see polytonic Greek in two different fonts (one for basic Greek and one for the extended Greek characters), looking ugly but legible. Internet Explorer is still behind on this one. I hope with version 7.0, along with PNG transparency support, we'll get the font handling fixed as well. --Shlomital 20:58, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal to romanize any item of Hebrew-language text

Please consider the following procedure. Unlike any other proposal I've seen here, this attempts to account for NPOV across the wide variety of places and times in which Hebrew has been used. The necessary databases and transliteration rules are all online in various places.

1. Current names. If the text is a name belonging to a living person or existing organization: Ask the person or organization. Use their own conventional form, if they provide one. If none is provided, continue to the next applicable procedure.

2. Places. If the text is a geographic name as used by the State of Israel or otherwise in modern Hebrew: Consult [5], an official file from the Israeli Beauro of Census listing the Hebrew names of all Israeli localities and their English transliterations (and additional information). Nyh Consult the GEONet Names Server online. Note, this US resource does not constitute pro-US bias. UK (PCGN), UN (GEGN), and Israel (Academy of the Hebrew Language) all use essentially the same romanization as the BGN romanization that the GEONet Names Server uses. Use the conventional form, if one is listed. If no conventional form, use the BGN form, if one is listed. (In effect this is the same as the Academy form.) If no form is listed, derive the Academy of the Hebrew Language form.

3. Other names. If the text is a name as used in modern Hebrew, belonging to a person or organization, but not settled by (1) or (2) above: Consult materials of the person or organization, such as published works. Use the form appearing there, if one is found. If none is found, or materials are inconvenient to obtain, consult Library of Congress authority files (once again, this is not pro-US bias, merely a convenient info source): Use forms attributed to original sources there. However, do not use Library of Congress systematic romanization that is often found in the Library of Congress authority files. If still no form is found, derive the Academy of the Hebrew Language form.

4. Modern Hebrew. If the text is a modern subject or text (any modern Hebrew terminology not otherwise classified): Derive the Academy of the Hebrew Language form.

5. (Rabbinical) Jewish Hebrew. If the text is a name, subject, or text where Tiberian vocalization is applicable, in particular, in Hebrew after the Second Temple (not in the Samaritan community); also, in Hebrew up to the Second Temple period, and under discussion primarily within the tradition of Rabbinical Judaism: Prefer a form found in a widely used dictionary of English. If the term is not known in dictionaries of English, or if it is useful to present an additional transliteration based more directly on the Hebrew, then find vocalized text in the Tiberian style. This can be found either in an edition of the Hebrew Bible such as the one at Mechon Mamre, or else in a dictionary of Hebrew. Use the vocalized text to derive the Society of Biblical Literature academic form. In nearly all cases this is the simplest name convention that we can allow because Rabbinical Judaism includes substantial variation in the pronunciation of Hebrew, both historical and present.

6. Samaritan Hebrew. If the text is a name, subject, or text in Samaritan Hebrew: Be careful to consult a Samaritan text. The Samaritan edition of the Hebrew Bible has about 6,000 differences from the Masoretic Text. Derive the Society of Biblical Literature academic form. (I think it's applicable to Samaritan Hebrew. If it isn't, we'll just have to find something else that is.)

7. Alternative vocalizations. If the text is a name, subject, or text vocalized in a style other than the familiar Tiberian vocalization (such as Babylonian or Palestinian): It will be surprising if this actually comes up. But it's true that Tiberian vocalization is theoretically not the only vocalization system for Hebrew. Derive the Society of Biblical Literature academic form. (I think it's applicable to Babylonian & Palestinian vocalizations. If it isn't, we'll just have to find something else that is.)

8. No vocalization. If the text is a text that is unvocalized, where Tiberian vocalization is not applicable, as in Hebrew up to the Second Temple period and outside of Rabbinical Judaism: Derive the Society of Biblical Literature academic form, without any vowels. It may be helpful to the reader to provide a secondary, informational transliteration that fills in the vowels according to #5.

--Hoziron 06:00, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Looks good, but in order for us to be able to use this, we need references (or quotation) of the various sets of rules.--Doron 08:55, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

It does look good; are AHL transcription rules available online? jnothman ^talk 10:25, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

SBL rules are in the SBL Handbook of Style [6], which is also listed as an external link in article Society of Biblical Literature. I suppose we can summarize and paraphrase those rules on this project page.

AHL rules are at [7]. They're in Hebrew, with all rights reserved. I can't just post a straight translation. But I suppose we can also summarize and paraphrase the AHL rules (handling of dagesh, shva, matres lectionis also known as emot kria, etc.) on this project page. The table that Doron created is already a version of the AHL rules.

The tables on pages 2-3 of the PDF that I just mentioned are fairly obvious even without knowing any Hebrew words. I would suggest using the "muqal" (lightweight) version. That version consists of the second column from the right, as modified by the second column from the left. It is not reversible. It includes the h-underbar for het. Where the h-underbar character is not available, we can substitute "x" according to the AHL rules for e-mail that Doron pointed out [8].

I think the h with under-dot is more available than underbar, and so maybe we should use that despite the standard. jnothman ^talk 20:32, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

I haven't examined whether SBL and AHL transliterations would look strange next to each other. Even if they do, I'm not sure that's worth worrying about.

Unavoidably, every transliteration is a compromise. Every transliteration looks stupid when compared to a more familiar spelling. For those who read Hebrew there are thoughtful notes at [9] about what's still not entirely satisfying about the AHL rules. I think AHL is still the best alternative for modern Hebrew. The alternatives that I know about are mentioned in article romanization of Hebrew. For example, ISO draft 259-3 is particularly well thought-out, but I don't want us to standardize on a draft standard.

--Hoziron 14:12, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

• I vote "Yes" on Hoziron's procedure. -- uriber 18:49, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
• I also vote "Yes" on this procedure. - Gilgamesh 22:59, 14 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)

Yeah this is pretty much what I meant in my previous posts. It's pretty well-summarized in Horizon's proposal though (although, CBS is Bureau of Statistics, not of Census ;)) -- Ynhockey || Talk 18:06, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed with Danny 100%, see above vote about this. IZAK 03:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Redirects would solve this problem 100 %, as you know. -- Olve 18:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Olve old chap what you are saying is condescending in the extreme. What some of us here are saying is get rid of "Qiryaþ 'Arba‘" because it's a confusing eye-sore, and certainly not redirect to it. IZAK 04:11, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Discoverability and legibility

I'm with Danny here.

1. Lots of redirects. All reasonable spellings, in Roman alphabet (and possibly in Hebrew alphabet as well), should redirect to the page. The Roman alphabet part of that should be uncontroversial. I can go either way on whether redirects from Hebrew spellings are useful).
2. Avoid titles that contain characters that aren't in most common fonts. An example of another language where we have compromised on this is Romanian. Properly written, Romans uses "s with comma" and "t with comma" (Ș ș Ț ț). Relatively few fonts support this, so our titles use "s with cedilla" and "t with cedilla" (Ş ş Ţ ţ); see also Romanian alphabet. And this is a case where the language in question is normally written in an extended Latin alphabet! Why transcribe Hebrew into something almost as obscure to English-readers as the original?

Jmabel | Talk 18:24, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good, Danny. —msh210 22:29, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Romanisation Issue

Reading through here, there seems to be several issues and they all boil down to what is appropriate in which context. In the case of Hebrew, spanning over 3000 years of literature in some form or the other, there are various ways to romanise the script: reconstructed ancient Hebrew, early Biblical Hebrew, late Biblical Hebrew, Talmudic Hebrew, Northern Sefardic Hebrew, Western Ashkenazic Hebrew, Eastern Ashkenazic Hebrew, Yemenite Hebrew, Israeli Hebrew. Each may be correct in the romanisation scheme, but not always appropriate when applied to other. If we are to agree on a romanisation, we should first agree upon in which situation the agree romanisation should be used. If an article is discussing about linguistic features of ancient Hebrew, Israeli Hebrew romanisation would be highly inappropriate. If the article at hand happens to be about the various Rabbis and their schools in Poland and Lithuania, again, Israeli Hebrew would not be appropriate. Possibly a table of how one would transcribe Hebrew in each general context may be appropriate. 64.61.214.126 22:00, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

This, too, sounds good: the name of an organization or person should follow its/his/her preferred spelling; but anything else should follow the context. But with redirects from other reasonable spellings, per Danny, above. —msh210

Hi again. I agree with this kinda ... but .... When I was growing up, I learned Toysfes in school and Tosfos when I reviewed them with my Dad. Later, when I moved to Israel, I studied Tosafot, or was it Tosaphot. Based on the above, should we transliterate them by their medieval Franco-German pronunciation, unless of course it is the Ran or the Ramban, since they lived in Spain? My point being that we should have a single, common means of transliterating for names of articles (with alternatives in parentheses and redirects). Personally, I would go for the modern Israeli version, since that is probably most common, though I am open to a good case for Ashkenazit (Ashkenaziss). Danny 21:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

• I am in agreement with Danny. IZAK 06:19, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)

Because of its importance and relation to what is being discussed, particularaly the issue of "romanization" it is suggested that we all take a look at and read Wikipedia's official policy at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). See also : Romanization of Hebrew and Hebrew transliteration. Thank you. IZAK 03:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Artscroll transliteration

Has anyone thought of this option: Artscroll transliteration? IZAK 03:57, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Of all the options thus far put forth, I have to say I consider that one the worst. TShilo12 07:07, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

AAAAAARRRRRGHH!!!! ;-P Olve 18:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Tshilo and Olve two birds of a feather. What is making them convulse so much...I wonder? IZAK 04:15, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Every community has their own. Some others are at [10] under "Sample transliteration schemes". The main advantage of SBL is that it displays the spelling of a Hebrew word, and you're free to pronounce that according to your own usual pronunciation rules. The spelling is based on what most of us have in common, the Masoretic Text. However, when the pronunciation in one community or another is a notable fact, then I'd say, feel free to present it using IPA, Ogg Vorbis, etc. --Hoziron 13:46, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Artscroll transliteration is terrible. Their books are actually very high quality except the transliteration, which is ridiculously galusi (גלותי - how would you translate that word, diasporic?).--Amir E. Aharoni 18:51, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Amir, very insulting! What you refer to as "גלותי" is actually Artscroll's position as a high-class Haredi publishing house (presently the top one in fact -- they have translated many classic works, such as the entire Babylonian Talmud into English [as well as into an edition with a Hebrew-only basic commentary].) There are lots of fine Haredim in Israel itself who would dispute your claims. Certainly the English-speaking Haredim would go with Artscroll's transliterations, and they do not fear being called "גלותי" (whatever that means in any case)...which is a lot better than what many Israelis become when they leave the confines and protection of Israel's borders. IZAK 04:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation

How about the transliterations being based on how the words are actually pronounced? According to Hebrew language#Sounds, Hebrew has five vowels and the schwa. They could be transcribed in such a way as the average English speaker, with no prior knowledge of Hebrew, could pronounce. Specifically:

• a would be transcribed a
• ɛ would be transcribed e
  • There is also the special sound ə, which would also be transcribed e (or left out altogether)
• i would be transcribed i
• ɔ would be transcribed o
• u would be transcribed u

Hebrew also has 23 consonant phonemes, which could (like the vowels) be transliterated in such a way that every English speaker would be able to pronounce them correctly.

• p which could be transcribed p
• b which could be transcribed b
• t which could be transcribed t
• d which could be transcribed d
• k which could be transcribed k
• g which could be transcribed g
• ʔ which could be transcribed ' (apostrophe)
• f which could be transcribed f
• v which could be transcribed v
• s which could be transcribed s
• z which could be transcribed z
• ʃ which could be transcribed sh
• ʒ which could be transcribed zh
• x which could be transcribed kh (that's how Arabic and Russian transliterate that sound)
• ʁ which could be transcribed r
• h which could be transcribed h
• ʦ which could be transcribed tz
• ʧ which could be transcribed ch
• ʤ which could be transcribed j
• m which could be transcribed m
• n which could be transcribed n
• l which could be transcribed l
• j which could be transcribed y

I think that by transliterating this way, every English speaker would instantly know how to pronounce the word(s). It also is in line with the usual way of transliterating Hebrew, it does not require special characters and it is simple (easy to remember). Izehar 19:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

It's fine to say "write it like it's said" but it's said in many different ways. You leave no allowance for the fact that many Israelis clearly distinguish between h and ħ; between ʔ and ʕ; between t and s and θ, while others don't - and have therefore simply not listed them above? That seems both biased towards a particular accent and even incorrect to me. jnothman ^talk 02:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. Mizrahi Jewish writer Loolwa Khazzoom (heavily involved in the Jewish Multicultural Project and in the organization Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa) wrote quite a few essays about the continued divergent tradition of Hebrew pronunciation, and how she had so much pressure and disdain from the Ashkenazi cultural establishment in both America and Israel to abandon pronunciations Ashkenazim don't use because they are "confusing" or even offensive to them, yet she still insisted on teaching pharyngeal /ħeːθ/ and /ˈʕaːjin/ to the next generation. The fact of the matter is, even if Israel's cultural elite are mostly Ashkenazi, Israel's population is slightly more than half Sephardi, Mizrahi and Temani. As I've heard said, most people speak Hebrew the same way their grandfather did. The great variety of Hebrew linguistic tradition—not just in speech but also in poetry, music, etc. both in Israel and abroad—should be respected as equally valid traditions. For what is standard in Israel, Standard Hebrew works well. For all the divergent living cultural and religious traditions inside and outside of Israel, Tiberian vocalization is the most neutral standard to represent Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi and Temani alike equally. - Gilgamesh 11:25, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I still don't think that Tiberian Hebrew is the way to go. No one will be able to read it; all they will get are those rectangles, and no one will be able to pronounce or even recognise it. Using fancy symbols like that will just look pretentious. Which other encyclopaedia do you know that transliterates Hebrew in that manner? As far as I know, they all transliterate it as it would be pronounced in Standard Hebrew. They don't use showy diacritics just to show how sophisticated the Hebrew language is. I mean, in the Oxford English Dictionary, the IPA transcriptions are how the words would be pronounced in Standard British English. They don't worry about every dialect. Izehar 12:18, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Transliteration is not solely a pronounciation guide. Most English speakers can barely pronounce ח the hegemonic modern Hebrew way, let alone try to distinguish between variations of the pronounciation. Your argument makes about as much sense as ruling that in order to fairly represent all speakers of English, whatever their regional dialect, pronounciation rules must always be given as for middle-English (now NOBODY can pronounce it!) A word can sound very different when spoken by a British aristocrat, an African American, or a native English speaker from Malta - but the spelling doesn't change. Transliteration does not have to bring into account every possible regional or cultural variation of pronounciation, just the general phonemes. --Woggly 12:07, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Works for me. Danny 21:23, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand all of the technical terms used here, but using h for chet as suggested in the main page is simply wrong. Whatever we decide, let's make the chet different than the hei. -- Nahum | [[User talk:Nahum|Talk]] 23:21, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I suppose your name is נהום?--Doron 00:20, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Lol! Clearly he is emotionally scarred by his parents' choice of transliteration scheme. Don't taunt him so! =P jnothman ^talk 02:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

IMHO, I don't think it is necessary to try to make the transliteration so that "every English speaker would instantly know how to pronounce the word(s)". Many other transliteration schemes in use here already cannot be correctly pronounced by the usual English speaker (including the above proposed scheme—though reasonable, I seriously doubt the average English speaker would correctly pronounce the transliterations).—Gniw (Wing) 03:49, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Have no fear Gniw, Hebrew transliterations will always be confusing to the non-Hebrew reader/s. The question/s being debated here is how obscure or obscurantist the transliterated Hebrew letters will finally become. The extreme academics don't need egging on, they have already muddied the waters plenty...what needs doing is giving clarity and ease of use the light of day on Wikipedia and push aside the creeping marginalization of Wikipedia when only the "experts" have their say. By the way, some of us who advocate the so-called "simple way" of doing things (meaning those who subscribe to "KISS") are also Hebrew experts, just we do not appreciate exhibitionism masquerading as scholarship. IZAK 04:35, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Smile

1. No consensus yet, but it's great that we're all talking. 2. The Hebrew Wikipedia has spent quite a few words on how to go from other scripts to Hebrew script. 3. The Library of Congress lists 29 ways to spell Micha Josef Berdyczewski. Every single one is cited from an authoritative source, and most of those are by Berdyczewski. 4. This page is more than 100 kilobytes long now. --Hoziron 05:24, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• Does this page now need a (modest) bris or a (drastic) upsherin ? How will we track what's been said thus far and ongoing? IZAK 06:16, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I've been thinking the same. A few people have tried to summarise things, but one really needs to archive the page elsewhere to clear it out. There is too much duplication and mess. jnothman ^talk 07:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Please make all comments at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Hebrew). This is an archive of that page.