A Note on the Transcription of Hebrew and Other Semitic Languages

Two broad audiences are anticipated for this work. One is a gen- eral audience, for whom technical aspects of transcribing Hebrew and other Semitic languages are of limited importance. The other is an audience with a great interest in information about Hebrew and other foreign words that are adduced for purposes of explanation and justification. I have therefore chosen a middle path: sufficient information is provided to the specialist, while keeping the tran- scription on a nontechnical level amenable to the general reader. Such a reader may be interested in transcriptions in order to see how similar one word is to another, for example, in puns and asso- nance, or in assessing the plausibility of an emendation (a reading of a different word from the one in the received text, assumed to have been corrupted by scribal error or illegibility in the course of its transmission). The specialist will want to examine all suggestions of readings that differ from the traditional Hebrew text; evaluate proposed cognates from other Semitic languages; and compare terms and phrases in related passages. A minimally accurate transcription, one that does not distinguish similar-sounding consonants, such as tet and taw; one that does not routinely indicate vowel length; and

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one that does not differentiate the stop consonants (b g d k p t) from their spirantized correlates (v gh dh kh ph th) should be sufficient for the interested Hebraist. For the sake of relative accuracy, the guttural ḥ is distinguished from h, and ’aleph (’) and ‘ayin (‘) are differentiated. The consonant waw is transcribed w, not v, in accordance with its ancient pronun- ciation. The cluster ts is used for Hebrew tsade and sh for shin. Cer- tain fi e distinctions in Arabic, such as ḍ in contrast to d and ṣ in contrast to s, are not made here. Specialists will fi d the requisite word.

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