History
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Transliteration of Hebrew Letters in the Bible
Advanced Information
For those less familiar with the use of Hebrew in transcription, a little attention to the above tables will make the visualization of the equivalent Hebrew letters easy. For those less familiar with the Hebrew characters, the use of transcription will make the word studies fully usable.
It may here be added that the transliteration is the same for Aramaic and similar for Arabic, Ugaritic, and Akkadian. In Ugaritic and Arabic there are a few extra consonants: Ha, h for another kind of palatal "h" already mentioned; Ghain, g or g for another kind of Ayin; d and d for other kinds of "d"; z for another emphatic sibilant; and s often used for "sh." The system found in L.H. Gray, Introduction to Semitic Comparative Linguistics (Columbia Univ., 1934) is followed.
The asterisk preceding a verbal root indicates that although this root is quoted in the Qal form, it only appears in the derived stems, Piel, Hiphil, etc.
The dagger before a word indicates that this word is specifically treated in the discussions of meaning below.
In Hebrew there is considerable freedom in writing the Holem with Waw (full writing) or without Waw (defective writing). The same applies to the Hiriq with or without the Yodh. In most cases, both forms are given and are alphabetized accordingly in two different places. Sometimes, however, if the variant spelling is quite minor it may have been overlooked. So if, for instance, ___ hor is not found under Heth, Waw and Yodh, it would be advisable to look under ___ hor where it does appear. Remember always that to find a word in the Hebrew alphabetization that has been transcribed into English, it is necessary to consider only the consonants, but this includes the vowel letters which are indicated by the circumflex. Thus, megora, mentioned above, would be alphabetized under Mem "m", Gimel "g", Waw "w", Resh "r", and He "h."
In cases where there is a difference in the Hebrew text between the written consonants (the Kethib) and the vowels attached (the Qere), both forms are not always noted, but an effort has been made to list one or the other reading.
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Article by Believe Project
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