Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Glenn,
     I invite anyone on the list to supplement (or correct) what I can give
you, but the format that I have for transliteration comes, I think, from
CORPUS PAULINUM. It follows guidelines used by the B-Greek Mailing List.

TRANSLITERATING HEBREW

the Michigan-Claremont-Westminster scheme (MCW):

Consonants
 Aleph     ) or '
 Beth      B
 Gimel     G
 Daleth    D
 Heh       H
 Waw       W
 Zayin     Z
 Cheth     X
 Teth      +
 Yod       Y
 Kaph      K
 Lamedh    L
 Mem       M
 Nun       N
 Samek     S
 Pe        P
 Ayin      ( or `
 Tsade     C
 Qoph      Q
 Resh      R
 Sin       &
 Shin      $
 Tav       T

 Vowels
 Patah     A
 Qamets    F
 Segol     E
 Tsere     "
 Hireq     I
 Holem     O
 Qamets Chatuf    F
 Qibbuts   U
 Shureq    W
 Shewa     :
 Hatef Patah     :A
 Hatef Segol     :E
 Hatef Qamets    :F

 Miscellaneous

 Ketiv        *
 Qere         **
 Dagesh       .
 Meqqeph      -


TRANSLITERATING GREEK

(1) CAPITALS are used when transliterating Greek letters, on a one-to-one
basis, reserving lower-case {i} to represent iota subscript and lower-case
{h} to represent rough breathing. No accents, no smooth breathings. And no
distinction between medial and final Sigma.

(2) If accents are really necessary, to distinguish otherwise identical
words, acute is represented by {/}, grave by {\}, and circumflex either by
tilde {~ [preferable]} or {=} -- always AFTER the vowel over which it
would
be written.

(3) A few characters without Roman single-character form are usually done
with almost-look-alike Roman characters otherwise unused:

Theta = Q
Eta = H
Psi = Y (upsilon is always U)
Omega = W

(4) Digraphs (in the usual Roman transliteration) are handled in three
different ways to avoid two-letter transliterations, all involving
otherwise-unused Roman letters:

THeta uses Q ("look-alike", as above).
PSi uses Y ("look-alike", as above).
PHi uses F (sound equivalence).
CHi uses C (first letter of traditional digraph).

(5) Xi and Chi: There being no single Roman letter for "Xi" other than X,
the "look-alike" use of X for "Chi" is confusing, though some use it. And
some seem to like to use C for "Sigma."  Since S is otherwise unused, and
poses no confusion whatever, using C for "Sigma" makes for problems in
decoding back to Greek, especially since it is the only letter available
for "Chi" (unless X is used, thus posing a problem for "Xi"). And
occasionally someone uses P for "Rho", making problems for how to
represent
"Pi".

                                        Yours,
                                        Harold Holmyard