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⇢ PDF File: Academic Transcription
There are many ways to represent Hebrew letters in English. The standard academic transcription system used for transliteration on the Hebrew Café’s website is based on the one in C.L. Seow’s A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew (Abingdon,1995). Below is a description of the principles of the system, a comparison of some examples, a table that includes each of the letters of Hebrew, and some full examples of words and verses in transcription. Notice that the font that is used on these pages to represent transliteration is Gentium Plus.
The purpose of academic transcription is not to indicate pronunciation necessarily. It is to recommend every mark in Hebrew with a single mark in English. The word’s vowels are marked for length, the various letters are distinguished, and the various distinctions among the letters are indicated. It is writing Hebrew marks in English, mark-for-mark. An informal transliteration may be used to indicate how words are spoken. This is a description of a common system of Hebrew transliteration / transcription.
Transliteration will aid in this topic in that it helps to show how יָ֫הוּ Yā́hû and יָהּ Yāh are directly related to יְהוֹ Yəhô. I will use transliteration throughout this presentation.
Begedkéfet Letters
There is a set of letters in Hebrew that at one point had two sounds. These are generally called begedkéfet (בֶּגֶדְכֶּ֫פֶת beḡeḏkép̄eṯ) or begadkefat (בְּגַדְכְּפַת bəḡaḏkəp̄aṯ) letters. These six letters—bet, gimel, dalet, kaf, peh, and tav—may appear as hard or soft forms. In transcription, the hard forms are a regular letter, while the soft forms are underlined. In the case of גּ g and פּ p, which descend below the line, they are overlined rather than underlined (ḡ and p̄ just look better than g̱ and p̱). In modern pronunciation, only bet, kaf, and peh have the two sounds. Observe the following:
בּ represents the sound of the b in boy. It is transliterated as b.
ב represents the sound of the v in visual. It is transliterated as ḇ.
גּ represents the sound of the g in go. It is transliterated as g.
ג represents the sound of the g in go. It is transliterated as ḡ.
The soft form used to represent a separate sound (like Arabic غ).
דּ represents the sound of the d in dump. It is transliterated as d.
ד represents the sound of the d in dump. It is transliterated as ḏ.
The soft used to represent a separate sound (like th in then).
כּ represents the sound of the k in keep. It is transliterated as k.
כ represents the sound of the ch in Bach in German. It is transliterated as ḵ.
The soft form represents a sound not normally used in English. Listen here.
פּ represents the sound of the p in put. It is transliterated as p.
פ represents the sound of the f in foot. It is transliterated as p̄.
תּ represents the sound of the t in take. It is transliterated as t.
ת represents the sound of the t in take. It is transliterated as ṯ.
The soft form used to represent a separate sound (like th in thank).
So, to summarize, the soft forms are marked with an underline (or overline), and the hard forms are unmarked. In Hebrew, the hard forms are marked with dagesh (the dot in the middle of the letter), whereas the soft forms are unmarked (or may appear with raphe [בֿ גֿ דֿ כֿ פֿ תֿ] in biblical manuscripts). Only three of these are currently pronounced with double sounds (these are ב [like b or v], כ [like k or ch], and פ [like p or f]). In the others, whether it has dagesh or not, the letter is pronounced the same (for pronunciation, גּ = ג [like g], דּ = ד [like d], and תּ = ת [like t]).
Vowel Lengths
Vowel lengths are marked such that a short vowel has no indication (a), a long vowel has macron (ā), a reduced vowel is chevron (ă), and an historic long vowel or one that is the result of diphthongization has a carrot (â). Thus, môʿēḏ represents the Hebrew word מוֹעֵד and Bṓʿaz is the name בֹּ֫עַז, the hero of the book of Ruth. In the end, it doesn’t matter if a vowel is long or short in terms of how to pronounce it. All a vowels (whether ā, a, or ă) are pronounced like the a in English father. Vowel lengths are important only for knowing what is going on grammatically. For this reason, most Israelis, who read Hebrew without vowels, cannot distinguish between the various vowel points and recognize only that they represent a (or whatever other vowel) when they see them. They don’t distinguish between vowel lengths. To understand what is happening with the vocalic changes in the Tetragrammaton, however, it is important to understand that the vowels have lengths and that these things undergo shifts based on a syllable’s position within a word. In the following, the letter בּ should be ignored. Only the marking (the vowel or nikkud) attached to it has significance.
Long Vowels: kamats בָּ ā, tseré בֵּ ē, chirik בִּ ī, cholam בֹּ ō, kubuts בֻּ ū
Short Vowels: patach בַּ a, segol בֶּ e, chirik בִּ i, kamats katan בׇּ o, kubuts בֻּ u
Reduced Vowels: chataf patach בֲּ ă, chataf segol בֱּ ĕ, chataf kamats בֳּ ŏ, shva בְּ ə
Historic Long Vowels: kamats heh בָּה â, tseré yod בֵּי ê, chirik yod בִּי î, cholam vav בּוֹ ô, shuruk בּוּ û
Notes on Syllables and Vowel Lengths
You may notice above that the same symbol (בָּ) is used for kamats (ā) and for kamats katan (o). Similarly, both chirik (בִּ) and kubuts (בֻּ) can be either long (ī / ū) or short (i / u). This may cause some confusion. Why would the same symbol be used for long and short vowels, and how can you tell the difference?
Hebrew syllables can be either open or closed. All syllables (with the exception of the prefixed conjunction וּ) must begin with a consonant. An open syllable ends in a vowel (Cv), whereas a closed syllable ends in a consonant (CvC). Here are some examples of how words are divided into the syllables:
דָּבָר dāḇār “word, thing” is two syllables: דָּ|בָר dā-ḇār. The first syllable is open (ending in a vowel), and the second is closed (ending in a consonant). Word stress is unmarked, but it is on the final syllable (דָּ|בָ֫ר dā-ḇā́r) as it is in the large majority of Hebrew words. On this site, I mark word stress with ב֫ (the oleh accent) unless it falls on the final syllable.
שָׁלוֹם šālôm “peace, wellbeing” is two syllables: שָׁ|לוֹם šā-lôm. The first syllable ends in a vowel and is open; the second ends in a consonant and is closed. It is stressed on the final syllable (שָׁ|ל֫וֹם šā-lốm).
מֶ֫לֶךְ méleḵ “king” is two syllables: מֶ֫|לֶךְ mé-leḵ. The first syllable ends in a vowel and is open and stressed; the second ends in a consonant and is closed and unstressed. The shva within the final kaf is silent and not counted as a vowel.
מִשְׁפָּחָה mišpāḥâ “family” is three syllables: מִשְׁ|פָּ|חָה miš-pā-ḥấ. The first syllable ends in a consonant and is closed and unstressed; the second ends in a vowel and is open and unstressed; the third ends in a vowel (the heh here is not a consonant) and is open and stressed.
מִשְׁפַּ֫חַת mišpáḥaṯ “family of” is three syllables: מִשְׁ|פַּ֫|חַת miš-pá-ḥaṯ. The first syllable ends in a consonant and is closed and unstressed; the second ends in a vowel and is open and stressed; the third ends in a consonant and is closed and unstressed.
מַלָּח mallāḥ “sailor” is two syllables: מַלְ|לָח mal-lāḥ. The first syllable ends in a consonant and is closed and unstressed; the second ends in a consonant and is closed and stressed. The dagesh in the lamed indicates doubling of the consonant, so that one lamed closes the first syllable and the second opens the next.
Word Stress
Most words in Hebrew take their stress on the last syllable of the word (called the “ultima”). For example, שֻׁלְחָן šulḥā́n “table,” מְגִלָּה məḡillấ “scroll,” דְּבָרִים dəḇārî́m “words,” הָלַךְ hāláḵ “he went,” etc. When a word’s stress falls on the ultima, it is not marked (šulḥān, məḡillâ, dəḇārîm, hālaḵ).
Most exceptions to this rule constitute a class of nouns, adjectives, and participles that through historical development wound up terminating in a consonant cluster that became uncomfortable for Hebrew speakers. For example, we see both יֹלַדְתְּ yōlaḏt and יֹלֶ֫דֶת yōléḏeṯ in the Hebrew Bible (compare Gen. 16:11 with 17:19). These are the same word, but the latter represents the later tendency in the language to break up consonant clusters by inserting a segol between the consonants. The original vowel is normally adjusted to make the same sound, and we have the pattern of é-e, in which the word stress falls on the pentultimate syllable (the one before the ultima).
Sibilants
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