Transcribing Hebrew

[See my new postscripts at the bottom]

Hebrew is written using a "Semitic"-type alphabet closely related to the ancient Phoenician, Aramaic, and modern Arabic scripts. Although visually these are quite different, they all work on very similar principles, their letter inventories are basically similar and, although less immediately obvious, so are the letter shapes in their origins.

In ancient times Hebrew was written in an alphabet that looks very much like that used in Phoenician (and other Semitic language varieties of the region that archaeology has brought to light), but eventually Hebrew writers adopted a different script that was Aramaic in origin (Aramaic was the lingua franca of the whole region for a long time). And that is what we now think of as the "Hebrew script". Aramaic itself later abandoned that script (except for Jewish Aramaic), and adopted instead a more cursive one, which is what we now call Aramaic or Syriac script.

The Semitic writing system which is common to all these scripts is different, in the principles it follows, from the ancient writing systems of both Egypt (hieroglyphic) and Mesopotamia (cuneiform), which were both to an important extent logographic, meaning that a given symbol can stand for a whole word. Semitic writing is not logographic: it is composed of a small inventory of symbols which all stand for sounds. To start with, however, the Semitic letters were only used to represent consonants; the vowels between the consonants were not written. When the Greeks and others developed their own modifications of this system they changed this, using some symbols (letters) for consonants and others for vowels.

So to take an example:

• if Laban (the Patriarchs' relative) had written his name in Egyptian hieroglyphs or (more likely) Assyrian cuneiform, he might have used a symbol which means the colour white, since in Hebrew laban (or lavan) means 'white';
• to write Laban in a Semitic script, you would place side-by-side, in order (right-to-left), three symbols which stand for l, b and n respectively, as in Hebrew לבן;
• to write Laban in Greek or Latin, five symbols are written (going left to right) which represent the consonants and the vowels: Greek ΛΑΒΑΝ, Latin LABAN.

To know how to read Hebrew properly you must either know Hebrew well, so that you can figure out what vowels go where in pronunciation, or else you must use an auxiliary system to indicate the vowels such as the Masoretes (and others) developed. But there are other complications too. Hebrew spelling may have been "phonetic" (as far as the consonants went) in early times, but in the stages of development of the Hebrew language of which we know directly, changes had occurred in its pronunciation which are not reflected in the old consonantal spelling: not only had the vowels themselves changed (a lot), but so had some of the consonants. As a result, for any given Hebrew word, just as in English, we could give two different representations at least: one for how the word is written and another for how it is said. So, for example, if we are thinking about the Hebrew spelling we might transcribe לבן as laban, but if we have in mind the pronunciation we might consider writing it as lavan.

And in practice things get even (much) more complicated than this. We are used to seeing the word spelt (in English) as Laban, because that is the way it is spelt in English translations of the Bible ever since the King James Version. That spelling is influenced by the way the name is spelt in Greek and Latin (and the Latin was influenced by the Greek). The Greek may have represented a stage of Hebrew before b in some cases began to be pronounced v, or again it may have used B because at that time there was no v sound in Greek and so no letter to represent that sound. There was also no v sound in Classical Latin. Thus, the traditional English spelling is Laban, and the ancient (Biblical period) Hebrew pronunciation is reconstructed as *laban, but by the time of the Masoretes at least it was mostly pronounced lavan, as it is in Modern Israeli Hebrew. When we transcribe such a name into English, we have to make decisions about which way we want to go, and it gets complicated.

Moreover, the most convenient way to transcribe words may depend on the context. For some purposes we might as well call Eve by her traditional English name of Eve and be done with it, although this is a far cry from the Hebrew form, and really reflects the Greek transcription EYA and the Latin transliteration Eva (which was originally read as "ewa" in both). A modern "Jewish" version of that name is Hava or Chava (pronounced [xava]), which comes closer to the modern Hebrew pronunciation though not, it so happens, to the way it must have sounded in Biblical times, which would have been closer to [Hawwá]. The way we might decide to transcribe this name might well depend on who we are talking to and what the point is. To some readers and for some purposes, Eve might be considered too inexact, whereas for other readers and other purposes xawa might be close to useless. Thus it is not practical to apply a single set of criteria on transcriptions to all cases. At some points in my discussions in the blog I will use spellings which you might or might not think are the right ones but I am aiming to reach my readers and make myself understood.

For certain contexts, though, I feel the need for a slightly more rigorous transcription of Hebrew for people who do not know how to read the Hebrew script but would like to know what is happening on the linguistic level. I have tried to make that form of transcription as self-explanatory as possible, keep it fairly simple, and at the same time do justice to the linguistic facts and other circumstances (all of which is easier said than done, to be honest), and so this is how I have decided to do it, for those interested in knowing:

• The Hebrew letters ג ד ז ח ט ל מ נ ס ע צ ק ר ש ת (read from right to left) are transcribed as g, d, z, x, T, l, m, n, s, ‛, tz, q, r, sh or s, t. 
• Note that x stands for the ch sound in loch. T and q may be thought of as emphatic t and k respetively, and historically tz should be an emphatic s as well but just about everyone pronounces it today as an affricate ([ts]). Many speakers today fail to "emphasize" the emphatic consonants, so don't feel intimidated. ‛ is ayin, the voiced pharyngeal fricative, which you are free to pronounce as such or to substitute a glottal stop (or zero) like some other people do.
• א is omitted (ignored) in my transcriptions, although in some contexts it represents a glottal stop: e.g. אב is transcribed as av, ראש as rosh.
• Depending on how they are actually pronounced, ה is transcribed as h or omitted, ו as w, u or o, and י as y, i or e. Regarding w, nearly everyone pronounces this as [v], but it is historically [w] and I have decided not to transcribe it as v since I will use v to transcribe one of the sounds of ב (also [v]).
• Depending on how it is pronounced, I will transcribe ב (with dagesh) as b or (without dagesh) as v. Similarly, I will transcribe כ as either k or kh, and פ as either p or f. The sound of kh in my Hebrew pronunciation is the same as that of x (like the ch in loch) although some people differentiate them (using a voiceless pharyngeal fricative for x).
• I will not systematically indicate all historically geminate consonants, but will often do so. In any case, it may be noted that in reality these are rarely actually pronounced geminate today.
• I will transcribe vowels by whichever of a, e, i, o or u comes closest to their sound in Masoretic pronunciation without bothering with length distinctions. 
• For the sh'wa I will either write an apostrophe (e.g. tol'dot) or omit (e.g. (toldot) without even attempting to be perfectly consistent, as this gets terribly complicated and is not really so important here. When reading, the apostrophe may be pronounced as a short central vowel (schwa). (Note that this departs from Modern Israeli Hebrew, where if sh'wa is pronounced at all it is pronounced as [e], but that seems less valid historically and besides it is not the tradition I was taught; if anyone prefers to pronounce the apostrophes as [e] they are of course welcome to.)
• I will usually either not indicate stress, or use an acute accent (´) to show its placement if I think it is pertinent. By default, words are stressed on the last syllable, so sometimes I only mark penultimate stress.

You will see, then, that my transcription system is a loose compromise between two conflicting aims, indicating how to pronounce words and registering crucial aspects of their spelling, and doing this not by overloading the transcription with confusing diacritics, but by only giving as much information as I feel needs to be given. There are several reasons for not wanting to overlook the spelling completely. Although some old contrasts (e.g. emphatic consonants or geminate consonants) have been lost in current pronunciation and new contrasts (e.g. the mutations b/v, k/kh, p/f) have been introduced, thus partly "scrambling" the old pronunciations, those old contrasts are often pertinent to important lexical distinctions and to the input of morphological and deep phonological rules. The situation is a bit like modern French, which is not pronounced as it is written but where some things in the language make most sense once we know the spelling. Only probably more so in Hebrew!

I will now present the above information in the form of a table for quick reference. Here the order of the Hebrew alphabet is followed. For the benefit of casual yet motivated readers as well as anyone interested in learning Hebrew, the letter shapes are shown in two font styles, the traditional printed forms and the more streamlined modern sans-serif shapes (Arial font), which you will often see on my blog as they are the default.

Hebrew letter		My transcription	Hebrew letter name in transcription
א	א	-	álef
ב	ב	b or v	bet
ג	ג	g	gímel
ד	ד	d	dálet
ה	ה	h or -	he(y)
ו	ו	w (i.e. [v]), u or o	waw (i.e. [vav])
ז	ז	z	záyin
ח	ח	x (see above)	xet
ט	ט	T	Tet
י	י	y, i or e	yod
כ or ך	כ, ך	k or kh (i.e. [x])	kaf
ל	ל	l	lámed
מ or ם	מ, ם	m	mem
נ or ן	נ, ן	n	nun
ס	ס	s	sámekh
ע	ע	‛	‛áyin
פ or ף	פ, ף	p or f	pe
צ or ץ	צ, ץ	tz	tzádi
ק	ק	q	qof
ר	ר	r	resh
ש	ש	sh or s	shin, sin
ת	ת	t	taw (i.e. [tav])

Alef-bet in normal size (the default on the blog): 

א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ך ל מ ם נ ן ס ע פ ף צ ץ ק ר ש ת

A sample transcription (Gen. 1:1-5): English rendering and Hebrew text (with vowels).

WHEN God began building the sky and the land	בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ
the land was not yet arranged darkness over depths wind of God fluttering on the face of the water	וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל-פְּנֵי תְהוֹם וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל-פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם
then said God there should be light and there came to be light	וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי אוֹר וַיְהִי-אוֹר
God liked the light God separated light and darkness	וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאוֹר כִּי-טוֹב וַיַּבְדֵּל אֱלֹהִים בֵּין הָאוֹר וּבֵין הַחֹשֶׁךְ
the light he called Day and the darkness he called Night night fell, morning dawned, one day	וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים לָאוֹר יוֹם וְלַחֹשֶׁךְ קָרָא לָיְלָה וַיְהִי-עֶרֶב וַיְהִי-בֹקֶר יוֹם אֶחָד

Transcription:

b'reshit bara elohim 

et hasshamáyim w'et haáretz

w'haáretz hayta tóhu wavóhu

w'xóshekh ‛al p'ney t'hom

w'rúax elohim m'raxéfet 

‛al p'ney hammáyim

wayyómer elohim y'hi or 

way'hi or

wayyar elohim et haor ki Tov

wayyavdel elohim beyn haor uveyn haxóshekh

wayyiqra elohim laor yom 

w'laxóshekh qara láy'la

way'hi ‛érev way'hi vóqer yom exad

A postscript about the transcription of pausal forms (added 17 Dec. 2014)

Quite a lot of words and inflected forms in Biblical Hebrew have two alternative forms, one that occurs before a pause, i.e. at the end of a breath group, and one that occurs elsewhere, i.e. when followed by something other than a pause. We may wish to think of this as being analogous to the issue of the final forms of some letters in the Hebrew alphabet (the álef-be(y)t), which occur at the end of a word, whereas the non-final forms occur when not at the end of a word.

We could take that analogy even further, in that while we generally tend to think of a consonant's non-final form as it's "regular form", e.g. we think of the letter pe as פ, and the final form as a "variant" (such as ף, the final form of pe), historically it is the other way round: the more basic form of this letter is really ף and the medial form, פ, is the way it is written when followed by something else (notice how a leftward horizontal movement is added to bring the pen towards the next letter). Now historically the same sort of thing happens with some words' pausal forms: they may look like they are the variant but they actually come closer to the word's older pronunciation, which has been altered under different accentual conditions; probably the original features were preserved better under strong stress at the end of the breath group. In any case, the non-pausal form is not necessarily the primary form in a historical perspective; the word just has two forms, e.g. 'your (masc. sing.) house' is either beyt'khá (non-pausal) or beytékha (pausal). Unfortunately it seems to me that insufficient attention is almost always paid to the pausal forms in Hebrew grammars, though they are very common in Biblical texts as well as linguistically extremely interesting!

Sometimes the two forms differ only in stress placement and/or the length of the stressed vowel and would not affect our transcriptions, but other times it involves vowel quality (e.g. a versus e) or even the word's syllable structure (as in the beyt'khá versus beytékha example above), in which case it would make a difference if we were to transcribe these words in a full Hebrew context. Where this really poses a bit of a conundrum in places like Bible translations is when it comes to proper names, since these, like other words, often have pausal and non-pausal forms.

Take Adam and Eve's first two sons. The first son's name is qáyin; the a is actually short (the vowel pátax) if non-pausal and long (qámetz) if pausal, but that won't worry us as I am ignoring vowel length in transcriptions anyway. Their second son's name is hével (non-pausal) or hável (pausal); this is the name traditionally translated as Abel in English.

Why Abel and not Ebel? The short answer is that this is because the name was rendered with an a vowel in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (the Septuagint) which has influenced most subsequent translations. That is a reason, though it might not be the best one. On reflection, though, it does seem that the Septuagint often represents the pausal forms of names in its choice of vowels, and perhaps that makes sense, for one or another of several possible reasons I can think of: (1) perhaps it's because that was the way those words were pronounced in Hebrew at that time and non-pausal forms only arose later; (2) or perhaps it's because pausal forms would be the obvious citation forms for speakers of Biblical Hebrew, given that when you cite a word it is not in a syntactic context and is followed by a pause; (3) or maybe in Biblical Hebrew speakers' linguistic competence the pausal forms are the underlying forms. All these things sound plausible and could be reasons for us to decide to use pausal forms as citation forms of Hebrew words and in transcriptions of names, with or without the precedent set by the Septuagint.

However, in subsequent Hebrew grammatical tradition it is the non-pausal forms that are generally treated as the cardinal forms of words; non-pausal forms are the ones always listed as primary in Hebrew dictionaries; and in Modern Hebrew pausal forms have disappeared so that to present-day speakers words only have one form and it is that which corresponds historically to the non-pausal one. So for example, Everett Fox, who is adamant about staying close to the sound and feel of the original Biblical Hebrew text, spells Cain's brother's name Hevel - as if this were somehow "more Hebrew" than the other option, which would have been Havel - but actually it isn't! And since, like it or not, many of the old Greek transcriptions of Hebrew names have made their way into the usage of most languages today, perhaps it would be more practical, where two forms of a name are both authentically Hebrew (one pausal, one non-pausal), to base our transcription on the pausal form which is also going to be the closest to the classical (European) form of the name (like Havel, which is closer to Abel).

But there are issues. People today are often not very familiar with the whole idea of pausal forms, and may not know what all the pausal forms are, and indeed some do not occur in the Bible and we can't be sure what they would be. (And vice-versa; some names are only mentioned one or twice and always in pausal position, and it tends to get assumed that is the form of the name always, though it probably wasn't.) In my Nawat translation I have been torn sometimes between tempting alternatives, not wishing to diverge too much for no good reason from very familiar names but also considering that, in principle, the pausal forms of names are pretty "cool". Here are a few names in Genesis that are affected by this problem; generally they are names of the form class known as seg(h)olates which have penultimate stress, such as Havel/Hevel.

In this list, which only represents a sample, of problematic segolate names occurring in Genesis (problematic because of an a/e alternation), I will show first the name in Hebrew spelling, then rigorously transcribed in two ways representing first the pausal form, then the non-pausal form (both in italics), then the classical European form of the name, and finally the form I choose to use in my Nawat Genesis (in bold).

באר שׁבע beer-shába‛ / beer-shéba‛, Beersheba, Beer-Sheba

בית לחם beyt-láxem / beyt-léxem, Bethlehem, Bet-Lejem
דמשׂק damásheq / damésheq, Damascus, Damashek

הבל hável / hével, Abel, Habel

למך lámekh / lémekh, Lamech, Lamek

מתושׁלח m'tushálax / m'tushélax, Methuselah, Metushala

פלג páleg / péleg, Peleg, Paleg

תרח tárax / térax, Terah, Tara (cf. Spanish Tara)

יפת yáfet / yéfet, Japheth, Yapet

A postscript about apostrophes (added 26 Jan. 2015)

The system of transcription adopted uses two signs which look similar and are both forms of apostrophe in shape, though their real functions are quite different. The sign for ‛áyin is shaped roughly like a miniature letter C; this is a consonant phoneme, although to be honest many people don't pronounce it as ‛áyin, either omitting it altogether or using a glottal stop, which in some contexts could also represent the letter 'álef (which this transcription treats as phonemically zero). 

That is to say, there may be no distinction made between, for example, im 'if' and ‛im 'with', pronouncing both [im] with or without a phonetic glottal stop at the beginning, or between w'im 'and if' and w'‛im 'and with', where on account of the schwa vowel (represented by the other apostrophe), the first is pronounced [vә'ʔim] and the second "should" be [vә'ʕim] but many people also pronounce, in fact, [vә'ʔim].

The real apostrophe, on the contrary, is used to transcribe the presence of a schwa, which in Hebrew phonology may be realized phonetically as either [ә] or simply the absence of a vowel (cf. modern French). Note that when this schwa is adjacent to a vowel phoneme, it is implied that a glottal stop is realized to separate the two (whether or not the [ә] is pronounced!), and hence one may get the impression that the apostrophe represents the glottal stop, since for example b'er is pronounced [b(ә)'ʔer], though strictly speaking it doesn't.

The bottom line is, when you know Hebrew all this seems simple and obvious, and on seeing either of the "apostrophe" signs it is easy to recognise what word is intended; the explanations only sound complicated in the absence of familiarity with the basics of Hebrew phonology. In practice, then, the apostrophes work fine for most readers who will fall into one of two classes: (1) readers who know some Hebrew, or (2) readers who know no Hebrew and are going to ignore the transcriptions or not worry about them too much.

Unfortunately, neither the software used to write this blog, nor the way the blog's default font renders on-screen, are cooperating much with my efforts to differentiate between the two "apostrophe" symbols; both factors are conspiring to make them both look either the same or very similar! Therefore I am on the point of giving up on trying to make them distinct, because when working on the rather copious notes I am now preparing it is becoming too time-consuming and in any case not giving good results. And as it happens, the same considerations can be repeated: people who know Hebrew will have little trouble guessing whether in context a non-descript apostrophe stands for ‛áyin or for schwa. So if I write 'áyin they know it's an ‛áyin and if I say b'er they know it's a schwa (with an álef after it). Finally, if I write w''im they can figure out that the first apostrophe must be for schwa and the second one for ‛áyin for it to make sense! Context will help. This is not meant to be a Hebrew beginners' course, so I've decided to stop worrying about it.