Talmud Discussions
Basic Information

Hebrew Transliteration Standards
For Mishnah Notes

My transliterations are inside "Double Quotes". Words inside 
'Single Quotes' are the work of the translators/commentators.  
Consonants are capitalized and vowels are lowercase. 

Example: - Olam: "~oLaM" ~=Ayin, o=vowel, L=Lamed, a=vowel, M=Mem

I guess at all vowels because they are not used in the Mishnah footnotes. The Mishnah was written in a combination of Hebrew and Aramaic. Because of my lack of experience/knowledge of Aramaic pronunciations, the vowels may not be correct. The consonants are correct except for occasional typos.


Consonants 

Please note the change in the following Hebrew transliterations:
  Alef = % and Ayin = ~
This was done to aid in pronunciation. Since 
both of these consonants are silent I am using 
symbols instead of letters to represent them.

Letter

Hebrew

 Name: sounds like Letter

Hebrew

 Name: sounds like

 Alef: Silent. Sounds like the attached vowel.  Kh/K 

 Chaf: "ch" in Bach / Kaf: "K"
B/V 

 Bet: "B" / Vet: "V"

 Lamed: "L"

 Gimmel: "G"  Mem: "M"

 Dalet: "D"  Nun: "N"

 Hey: "H"  Samech: "C" in Cent

 Vav: "V"  Ayin: Silent. Sounds like the attached vowel.

 Vav with Holam: "O" P/F   Pey: "P" / Fey: "F"

 Vav with Dagesh: "U" Tz   Tzadee: "Ts" in cats

 Zayin: "Z"  Kuf: "K"
Ch 

 Chet: "ch" in Bach  Resh: "R"
Tt 

 Tet:  "T" Sh/S   Shin: "sh" in she / Sin "S"

 Yod: "Y"  Tav: "T"

Vowels

Since the Mishnah does not include vowel pointing in the footnotes, I may 
occasionally guess incorrectly which vowels are used when transliterating. 
The vowels are lower case and the consonants are capitalized. 
Even when I am very confident in the pronunciation of Mishnah 
words, there could be irregularities which I am unaware. 
This is why I use the following standards for vowels.

Example:

Hebrew Word How I "transliterate" the word and other explanations
Olam: I use "~oLaM" for; Ayin,Lamed,Mem and guess at the vowels 
"o" and "a".
Yomim Tovim: I use "YOMiYM - TtoViYM" for, Yod,Vav/Holam,Mem,Yod,Mem - Tet,Vet,Yod,Mem and guess at the vowels "o, i, o, i" 

Vowel Pronunciation  

In this table, the little box represents any Hebrew Consonant.

The vowels are pronounced after the consonant with very few exceptions. I will type the exceptions as they are pronounced so you do not need to worry about it.

Letter

Hebrew

Vowel Name: sound Letter

Hebrew

Vowel Name: sound
a Petach / Qametz:  "a" in father e Segol / Tzere: "e" in shelf
i Hiriq: "ee" in feet o Holam: "o" in open
u Qibbutz: "u" in glue ' or e Sheva: short "e" in shelf. I only use this when the Sheva is sounded.
eY Tzere with Yod:  "ay" in day aY Petach or Qametz with Yod: sounds like "eye"

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