Hebrew Transliterations
We have adopted a simplified system for the scholarly transliteration of Hebrew words to make it more accessible to non-Hebraists. Our transliteration system for the twenty Hebrew consonantal graphemes and their variants is as follows.
| alef ( |
ø |
| bet ( |
b |
| beth ( |
v |
| gimel ( |
g |
| gimel ( |
g |
| dalet ( |
d |
| dalet ( |
d |
| he ( |
h |
| waw ( |
w |
| zayin ( |
z |
| ḥet ( |
ḥ |
| ṭet ( |
ṭ |
| yod ( |
y |
| kaf ( |
k |
| kaf ( |
kh |
| lamed ( |
l |
| mem ( |
m |
| nun ( |
n |
| samekh ( |
s |
| ʿayin ( |
ʿ |
| pe ( |
p |
| pe ( |
f |
| tsadi ( |
ts |
| qof ( |
q |
| resh ( |
r |
| shin ( |
sh |
| sin ( |
s |
| taw ( |
t |
| taw ( |
t |
As can be seen from this table, we have differentiated between the plosive and fricative articulations of bet, kaf and pe in transliteration: e.g., bat‑ for
In most cases, the dagesh ḥazaq for gemination is transcribed with the doubling of a consonant: e.g., mevaqqesh for
With respect to the vocallic phonemes, the five vowels are transcribed with a, e, i, o and u without differentiation between long (qamats, tsere, ḥolem), short (pataḥ, segol, ḥiriq, qibbuts, shuruq), and reduced (ḥaṭaf segol, ḥaṭaf pataḥ, ḥaṭaf qamats). The mobile shewa is transcribed with an e: e.g., shene-hem for