[net.religion.jewish] Transliteration

martillo@mit-athena.UUCP (Joaquim Martillo) (04/03/85)

I actually try to use a transliteration of modern Hebrew suggested by
the linguistic scholar Haim Rosen (I believe at Hebrew university).

Doubling and allophones (eg kaf vs khaf) are not indicated because if
one knows the grammar no indication is needed.  Anyway different
expressions of the same phoneme are not normally give separate letters
in a living language (t in put versus t in to).

Kof is represented as q.

Heth should be h with a dot underneath.
teth should be t with a dot underneath.
tsade should be s with a dot underneath.

w is vav.
` is `ayin.
' is 'alef.

shin should be s with accent aigu.
sin should be s with accent grave.

Proper representation of vowels requires five or six accent marks and is
too complicated for me to remember now so that I normally use the
usual representation of Israeli vowels.

Obviously one-for-one letter correspondence cannot be achieved because
English and Hebrew do not have phonemic structure.  

To understand:
	Hakam is really h (with subscripted dot) therefore heth.
	kaph in adjective between two tone-long vowels cannot be doubled
	therefore must be the soft allophone kh -- this should be
	automatic no thinking.

When I hear Hebrew, I have a problem because of my training I do not
hear initial kh.  I automatically correct to k.  Thus if someone refers
to khalah (for Shabat), I hear kalah.

Likewise in English I automatically correct unaspirated initial t to an
aspirated initial t which is the proper allophone in that position.