History
of the Bible
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Transliteration of Hebrew Letters in the Bible
Advanced Information
As is well known, only the consonants were written in early Hebrew and, in general, the consonants are of more importance in carrying the meaning of a Hebrew word while the vowels are more significant in marking the form. There are twenty-two consonants (twenty-three if Sin and Shin are distinguished) and most of these have a parallel in the English alphabet. The Hebrew letters Zayin, Lamed, Mem, Nun, Samekh, Qoph, Resh and Shin are easily represented as the English letters z, l, m, n, s, q, r, and sh. See the transliteration table.
There are six Hebrew consonants whose pronunciation may be "hard" or "soft." These are the so-called Beghadh- Kephath letters, b, g, d, k, p, t: the Hebrew letters Beth, Gimel, Daleth, Kaph, Pe and Taw. When written with a hardening dot in the middle, these letters are pronounced like their English equivalents. If there is a vowel sound before them (and if they are not doubled) they are pronounced differently, but mean exactly the same thing (i.e. they differ phonetically, but not phonemically).
Technically speaking, these six letters are stops, but they receive a fricative pronunciation, i.e. the point of articulation is not entirely closed, if a vowel sound precedes them. This variant pronunciation may be represented approximately as b/v, g/gh, d/th (as th in "that"), k/kh, p/f, and t/th (as th in "thin"). Some systems of transliteration represent this variation of these six stops. But since it makes no difference at all in the meaning of the words, it has been judged better to represent all these letters always by their sound as stops - the "hard" pronunciation. So Beth is always b; Gimel, g; Daleth, d; Kaph, k; Pe, p; and Taw, t. (In some systems of transliteration the soft pronunciation is represented thus, bh, gh, dh, kh, ph, th; in others it is b, g, d, k, p, and t.)
Two consonants are called emphatics. Their ancient pronunciation is difficult to determine accurately, but the Teth is some kind of a "t" and the Tsadhe some kind of an "s." They are represented as t and s respectively. (In some systems of transliteration the Tsadhe is written "ts".)
Three more consonants have no equivalent in English. They are guttural sounds made in the larynx. They are usually represented thus: 'Aleph by an apostrophe ('), and 'Ayin by a reverse apostrophe (`), and Heth by a h. There is another kind of "h" used in Ugaritic, Arabic and Akkadian, not in Hebrew, which is made with the tongue not quite against the roof of the mouth (technically a voiceless palatal fricative). This is represented, when it occurs, by h.
A second "s" apparently was pronounced exactly like Samekh, "s," though it looks like Shin (having a dot over the left upper corner instead of the right). To distinguish this letter Sin from the Samekh we use an acute accent over the Sin, thus: s.
The remaining three consonants, He, Waw, and Yodh are sometimes pronounced and sometimes silent, being used in conjunction with vowels. When they are pronounced, their pronunciation is like that of their English equivalents. He, h; Waw, w; and Yodh, y. In some systems of transliteration the Waw is called Vav and pronounced "v" because of past German influence on Hebrew studies. If, however, these letters are used as vowels, the long vowel resulting is always (and only then) marked with a circumflex accent ^. Examples will be given below.
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Article by Believe Project
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