[b-hebrew] RE: transliteration
Pastor Mark Eddy
markeddy at adams.net
Tue Jan 21 12:35:47 EST 2003
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matthew Anstey" >
> Regarding transliteration, I am curious if anyone has found the
> transliterated Hebrew database in Bibleworks 5.0 to be useful. I am the
> copyright holder of it (parts thereof to be exact). It took a lot of
> work. I am in the process of producing a different transliteration based
> on a better phonological analysis of BH.
I think it's better than the transliteration scheme currently being used on this list. At least you can
sound out the words in your scheme. But you have to learn what your extra symbols mean. And it wouldn't be
easy to compose in that font (we'd have to memorize a new keyboard). I have only looked at your font out
of curiosity, with the Hebrew text open at the same time. I've never tried to read it alone.
Perhaps my situation is rare, but I started learning Hebrew and Greek at the same time, my junior year in
college. I was glad that I learned both alphabets and not transliterated words. Sometimes It was hard
enough to keep the vocabulary of the two languages straight, especially when I was memorizing words by
sound and not looking at the words. When I would review words in my mind by sound, I sometimes mixed up
Greek sounds with Hebrew sounds. It would help to picture the word in my mind, to remember which alphabet
I was using. For example, whether the word was Greek with a chi or a Hebrew word with the cheth. (I wish I
could have just written those two letters in their original script.)
When one professor asked us to use Lambdin's Introduction to Biblical Hebrew, I was lost at first, because
he starts out with transliterating sounds before introducing the Hebrew alphabet. For me it meant learning
basically 3 new languages at the same time: Greek, Hebrew, and transliterated Hebrew.
While my computer runs Windows ME, and may not be able to handle Unicode, if I remember correctly, I would
rather guess at a few letters that don't display correctly on my screen than try to translated
transliterated Hebrew back into Hebrew, so I can figure out the root and look it up in a lexicon, if
necessary.
Just a few thoughts from somebody who uses Hebrew almost daily, but is really more fluent in Greek.
Mark Eddy
Holy Cross & St. Paul's Lutheran Churches
Golden & Bowen, IL
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