ISO 259 is a series of international standards for the

romanization In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...

of Hebrew characters into Latin characters, dating to 1984, with updated ISO 259-2 (a simplification, disregarding several vowel signs, 1994) and ISO 259-3 (

Phonemic A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...

Conversion, 1999).

ISO 259

ISO The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Me ...

259, dating to the year 1984, is a

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...

of the

Hebrew script The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicase, unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably ...

, including the

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

al signs (''

niqqud In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in the Ea ...

'') used for

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...

. The '' dagesh'' (dot inside the letter) is always transcribed with an overdot: ''ḃ'', ''ġ'', ''ż'', etc. The apostrophe (‎) in the table above is the Hebrew sign '' geresh'' used after some letters to write down non-Hebrew sounds: , , , etc..

ISO 259-2

ISO 259-2 simplifies the diacritical signs for vowels of ISO 259, and is designed for

Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew (, or ), also known as Israeli Hebrew or simply Hebrew, is the Standard language, standard form of the Hebrew language spoken today. It is the only surviving Canaanite language, as well as one of the List of languages by first w ...

. The '' dagesh'' is not transcribed excepted in the indicated cases. The apostrophe (‎) in the table above is the Hebrew sign '' geresh'' used after some letters to write down non-Hebrew sounds.

ISO 259-3

ISO 259-3 is Uzzi Ornan's romanization, which reached the stage of an

Final Draft ( FDIS) but not of a published International Standard (IS). It is designed to deliver the common structure of the Hebrew word throughout the different dialects or pronunciation styles of Hebrew, in a way that it can be reconstructed into the original Hebrew characters by both man and machine. It is neither a character-by-character

nor a

phonetic transcription Phonetic transcription (also known as Phonetic script or Phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or ''phonetics'') by means of symbols. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the ...

of one pronunciation style of Hebrew, but is instead

phonemic A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...

from the view point that all the different dialects and pronunciations of Hebrew through the generations can be regarded as different realizations of the same structure, and by predefined reading rules every pronunciation style can be directly derived from it. Each consonant character in the Hebrew script is converted into its unique Latin character. ISO 259-3 has five

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

characters, corresponding to the five vowel phonemes of

: a, e, i, o, u. In addition there is a sixth sign for denoting the vowel or that is written followed by ⟨⟩ in common Hebrew spelling: . The dagesh ''forte'' (

gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

in Biblical Hebrew) is transcribed with a double consonant. Non-

vowels are ignored, such as: * schwa , which is however transcribed with an underscore (_) between two identical consonants in order to distinguish it from a geminate consonant: "boys" = ''yladim'', " Hallelujah" = ''hal_luyah'', * " segolate" vowel (on the second to last consonant an unaccented vowel , which can also be the vowel on some laryngeal consonants, or , etc.) : "

golem A golem ( ; ) is an animated Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is created entirely from inanimate matter, usually clay or mud. The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century ...

" = ''golm'', "opening, window" = ''cohr'', * "furtive" '' pataḥ'' (an unaccented sound before some final laryngeal consonants): "breeze, spirit" = ''ruḥ'', but ISO 259-3 also allows (in section 5, "SIMPLIFIED VERSION") the transcription with ''a'' for non-linguistic purposes: ''ruaḥ''. Though the official proposal for ISO-259-3 gives only ''C/c'' as the Latin character corresponding to Hebrew /, Ornan also provided for its alternate romanization as ''Ç/ç'', even writing in a 2008 paper on the topic that it was his preference, and in an earlier 2003 paper especially recommending the use of ''Ç/ç'' for use in the romanization of Hebrew placenames—for example, on Israeli road signs.

References

{{ISO standards Hebrew alphabet #00259 #00259 ceb:Sulat Inebreo#Romanisasyon

ISO 259

ISO 259-2

ISO 259-3

See also

References