Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Hebrew)/Archive 1

message: Please note that the document linked above describes a set of guidelines intended specifically to enable electronic correspondence in Hebrew in cases where it is technically impossible to use the Hebrew script. As the document itself clearly states (in bold type): 
:אין הכללים שלהלן באים להחליף את כללי התעתיק מכתב עברי לאותיות לטיניות שקבעה האקדמיה ללשון העברית ושנועדו בעיקר לכתיבת שמות פרטיים (של אנשים, של מקומות, של פרסומים וכד').‏
:The instructions below do not replace the Rules for Transliteration from Hebrew script to Latin Letters, which tha Academy of the Hebrew Language had set, and which are intended mainly for writing proper names (of people, places, publications, etc.).
Wikipedia's needs clearly do not fall under the intended scope of these guidelines. Rather, Wikipedia's use of Hebrew transliteration is mainly for proper names. Therefore, Wikipedia should use the Academy's official rules (which, e.g. do not permit using "k" for qoph), rather than the guidelines in the linked page. -- uriber 18:36, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Regarding the guidelines linked above

message: :Please read article romanization of Hebrew. It's my start at documenting the issues and options in Hebrew transliteration within the article space. The Academy rules (1957) are not the first or last word on the subject. And when our hapless contributors ask what in the world is "dagesh hazak" and why should I care, the answer ought to be available in articles, perhaps gemination. --Hoziron 12:27, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks a lot for an interesting article! You are obviously quite knowledgeable about the subject, so I hope you can contribute to the formation of a naming convention. I know there's a long history of romanization and transliteration, which creates a wide variety of different possible spellings. I believe standardization may be beneficial for consistency, do you share this view? By the way, the Academy rules I referred to are based on the 1957 rules and are intended for electronic communication (which possibly means they were reviewed recently?). Do you have any reservations with regards to these rules?--Doron 19:34, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Agreed.  There are also times when the Ashkenazi spelling must be respected, especially in people's names (my name is YONASSAN, not YONATAN!) If there were a page on me (which there isn't) it had better say "Yonassan Gershom" and not "Yonatan Gershom" or "Jonathan Gershom" -- otherwise nobody could find it!  Ditto for a lot of other Diasporan people and subjects.  The current wiki usage is to cross-reference and disambiguate alternate spellings.  I prefer this to "standardizing" because, frankly, I resent the anti-Yiddish attitudes of some Israelis trying to impose their views on the whole Jewish world.  Plus the academic transliterations are unintelligible to the average Jew reading them and can, in some cases, lead to garbled Hebrew.  (Keep in mind that the spelling and mis-pronunciation "Jehovah" originally came from an academic transliteration source!)  Rooster613 13:26, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In Wikipedia, People's names are always given in their English form (if it exists) and not transliterated. By the way, if you don't mind me asking, why do you spell your name with a double 'S'?--Doron 22:48, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: romanization of Hebrew

message: Does this proposal have a consensus such that it can become a naming convention proper? Hiding  talk 20:13, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually I started this some time ago but there's still a lot of work and I haven't had the time. I'll try to complete it soon and see if it gets support.--Doron 20:53, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't read the entire discussion, but I think we should go by the most widely accepted spelling. There's practically nothing in Hebrew that hasn't been transliterated to English before. However, if it's something really obscure, I don't see anything wrong with the current info on the main page. Don't think we should go into elaborate linguistic rules, and not any rules that require the user to know nikkud, because the Hebrew Wiki usually doesn't list nikkud for anything, and most people will have trouble finding it out. So, for those obscure subjects, let's just use a purely phonetical modern translitaeration. -- Ynhockey || Talk 18:33, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consensus? 

message: *No consensus yet, many Users' input still required! I will contact some of them. See also Users at Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism and Wikipedia:WikiProject Hebrew languages, maybe some others too. IZAK 17:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't read the entire discussion, but I think we should go by the most widely accepted spelling. There's practically nothing in Hebrew that hasn't been transliterated to English before. However, if it's something really obscure, I don't see anything wrong with the current info on the main page. Don't think we should go into elaborate linguistic rules, and not any rules that require the user to know nikkud, because the Hebrew Wiki usually doesn't list nikkud for anything, and most people will have trouble finding it out. So, for those obscure subjects, let's just use a purely phonetical modern translitaeration. -- Ynhockey || Talk 18:33, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: No consensus, yet...

message: I'm not keen on the proposal to use "U" for these vowels, primarily because it is likely to be mispronounced when read by an English speaker.  Typically and English speaker will pronounce this as in "cup", when it is really pronounced more like "oo", as in "coop". For example, it should be "nikood", rather than "nikkud", which will end up being pronounced "nih - cud". I'm also about concerned about "ei" for tzereh - I've seen that mangled (pronounced as in Seinfeld, or as in Goldstein, or as in deify). "ay" might be clearer. Jayjg (talk) 19:29, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we're talking about a naming convention, like a convention for page titles, in which it would be disastrous to use a pronounciation that would be understandable to an English speaker (e.g. nikood). Please correct me if I'm wrong. Having said that, I fully support including a pronounciation for English speakers in the article itself. -- Ynhockey || Talk 19:41, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Shuruq and Qubbutz should be transliterated u, or as ū and u, respectively, and the ignorant be damned... and Tzerei as e, or possibly as ē.  To me at least "ay" is [ai], as in buy high thigh, and "oo" is 2nd grade.  Also, it's nīqūð.    Tomer TALK 21:50, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: nīqqūð or nīq:ūð, excuse me! Where has your dāɣēʃ gone? And I agree, no oo or ay business. It seems to be popular among american transliterations, but there are many uses of 'u' for [u] or similar in English. But I also don't think we need to show long vowels with bars. Also, I think there are some instances where ei should be used as alternatives (with redirects), due to common use, eg Eloheinu. jnothman talk 12:39, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't use a dāɣēš because I get sloppy sometimes.  I don't use ʃ because, despite what IZAK likes to insist to the contrary, I don't write things like shabath, maqom and ethrogh [or eþroɣ] because I fancy myself a linguist, but because that's how I say them.  As for showing vowel length, I agree, it's a bit superfluous except for doing more exact transliterations, but that's not what this proposal is all about.  Tomer TALK 01:18, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

text:  אֻ and אוּ can both be written simply as u. Oo is unnecessarily anglisised. אֵ and אֵי should not be written ei if it can be avoided — both in Israeli and Sephardi Hebrew, this vowel is most commonly NOT a dipthong, but rather a mid-front tense vowel which may or may not be long. Ay will not work, since it is even further removed from the Israeli and Sephardi pronunciation, and additionally to be confused with ay as in vaday. I propose that é be used (tébá, bené Yisraél) ; this is a letter which is already much used in French loanwords in English (e.g., résumé, blasé). -- Olve 05:02, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Olve: While é may be known for résumé and blasé in English, it is NOT commonly used in Hebrew transliterations. Why would you want Wikipedia to be out of sync with the "real world" in favor of silly academic shows of arrogance? IZAK 02:17, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: IZAK: é is actually commonly used in transliterations of Hebrew in an English setting in the Spanish and Portuguese tradition — and possibly in some other traditions as well. I don’t see any reason why you have to respond in such an unfriendly way, throwing words like “out of sync with the ‘real world’” and “silly academic shows of arrogance”. Better watch out, or I might start doing the same... ;-P Olve 18:09, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Olve: The "Spanish and Portuguese tradition" are not the central points here. This is not the Spanish or Portuguese Wikipedia. This is the English Wikipedia, and in the commonly used English language, when Hebrew words are quoted, I repeat what I stated above: "While é may be known for résumé and blasé in English, it is NOT commonly used in Hebrew transliterations." And yes, I stress, one must always be on guard to avoid the pitfalls of living in an ivory tower as all I am doing is attempting to alert everyone to this problem, sorry if you think that's being "unfriendly". Nothing personal bud. IZAK 03:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: IZAK, we discussed this before.  You do not insult nor belittle your fellow editors.  Treat them, their interests and their expertise with as much respect as you regard your own.  You have a place here, and so does everyone else.  As I suggested before, if you cannot comment in a respectful manner, it may be a good idea for you to log out and return when you are prepared to be polite.  This is a discussion that balances world use, scientific usefulness and disseminating the dry facts to our audience.  This is not a holy war. - Gilgamesh 19:28, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Stop lecturing me Gilgamesh, it's silly. IZAK 03:45, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Honestly, IZAK, the way you reply to Gilgamesh’s concerns strongly suggests you need some lecturing, and I commend Gilgamesh for providing it. As far as your belittling the Spanish and Portuguese tradition, you have totally misrepresented what I wrote: The Spanish and Portuguese tradition has plenty of English language literature — e.g., from London and New York. It is this English-language literature I referred to. I recommend that you take a look in ‘Hochmat Shelomoh = Wisdom of Solomon : Torah cantillation according to the Spanish and Portuguese custom by M.M. Rodrigues Pereira (published (in English) by Tara Publications in 1994, ) as one example. I suggest that you “permit” those of us who have a different background from yours to state our views without being ridiculed and belittled. I also suggest that you try to learn a bit about the Spanish and Portuguese tradition — e.g., the completely basic fact that it is a tradition with as legitimate English-language traditions as is the case with the Ashkenazi tradition/s. Might be easier to respect you and listen to your arguments too if you do that. -- Olve 17:50, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  shuruk, kubbutz, tzereh 

message: The KISS principle is the only reasonable solution for this quagmire. Use Modern Hebrew transliteration with normal consonants. Most Israelis and Diaspora Jews cannot vocalise the difference between Asher with an Alef and Asher with an Ayin. The transliteration, contrary to Gilgamesh' point, is of minimal importance - who cares how Jews 2000 years ago may have proncounced a certain term. This is only relevant if there are practical differences, and there are not. The use of Unicode should be banned - it serves no purpose. Really. The only exceptions would be where the non-Modern Hebrew form is actually standard (Agudas Yisroel comes to mind, because that's mainly run by Ashkenaz Haredim) and where an English alternative is more commonly used in English texts (e.g. Moses vs Moshe). JFW | T@lk 20:20, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree entirely - KISS should over-ride all other considerations... Fintor 08:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Agree as well. Jayjg (talk) 17:56, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Strongly disagree.  Linguists care.  Researchers may care.  This is not a Jewish-only nor Israeli-only resource.  Names in titles and familiar text can use simple transliterations as you say, but finer academic detail deserves a place inside parentheses or presented in a similar fashion which scales up to the higher studies, which lay people can skip over if they so choose.  Besides, Tiberian Hebrew is not 2000 years old—it's more like 1200 years old. - Gilgamesh 22:57, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with KISS: "Keep It Simple...Stupid" IZAK 03:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree with KISS only if it can be (a) consistent; (b) not POV in its choice of accent; (c) either pointed Tiberian Hebrew or close transliterations are given for main topics. I do think that, if we want to hold some standard as an encyclopedia, we have to give as much academic information as possible. A close transcription may be alienating for non-academics, but use of the pointed Hebrew may be moreso, as it alienates some in the academic world too. jnothman talk 04:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Agree with KISS. Some of the transliterations I've seen here on Wikipedia have left me baffled and bewildered, and discouraged me from editing Hebrew language articles.  --Woggly 06:59, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Then learn niqqud.  If you edit, be prepared with your data.  If you do not know all the data, add what you do know, and move on. - Gilgamesh 09:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That was an extremely rude and unhelpful response. I am a native speaker of Hebrew, who, in fact, makes her living editing and working with words. I am also a native speaker of English. If I'm not good enough to edit articles on Hebrew on Wikipedia without investing in extra study, let me tell you, very few people are. Unless of course, you actually want to discourage people from contributing. --Woggly 11:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem here is that Israeli Hebrew is not the only Hebrew standard.  I studied a greal deal of Hebrew without even getting to Israeli until much later.  You are a useful scholar of Israeli Hebrew, but there are other valid concerns and some of them only partially overlap.  I make no apology for using my training to its fullest potential to help disseminate the scientific nature of data to free access. - Gilgamesh 19:41, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm with Gilgamesh here, but for a completely different reason...  Without wanting to sound hysterical like some others here, this appalling proposal smacks of linguistic imperialism.  TShilo12 07:11, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: "The use of Unicode should be banned - it serves no purpose"?! I most strongly disagree! Has it escaped your mind that this is an encyclopedia? An encyclopedia, not a tourist guide, not a high-school textbook, not any kind of resource for beginners, for people who need just the basics. This is a scholarly resource and should be treated as such. University students learn the art of transliteration and transcription as an obligatory course in their first year. The encyclopedias those students look up all have serious, academic transliterations in them. It's a matter of professionalism, as a foreign-language text without a proper transliteration is of little use to the researcher. What good is a transcription like hat'ama when you don't know if it stands for התאמה or הטעמה? With a transliteration like haṯʾāmā or haṭʿāmā you know which one is meant, and you can give it the reconstructed historical pronunciation, as well as garner its pronunciation in various traditions (Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Yemenite), instead of being confined to the modern Hebrew rendering. Unicode is a boon and should be used where appropriate. --Shlomital 11:08, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely beautiful.  Emphatically agreed.  I as an online linguist would be absolutely lost without Unicode, and I fully intend to use it.  There can be no such thing as too much academic detail in articles.  To dumb down the content only serves to defeat the purpose of an encyclopedia that aims for academic excellence. - Gilgamesh 19:41, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I think your system is pretty close to what I perceive as KISS, except that you're using too many words to describe it. Minimise regulations, maximise common sense. Use the simplest, most common and most user friendly spellings whenever those are clearly identifiable; in case of uncertainty, or any unusual circumstances, use your head and think of other people. Remember that the people who read and use Wikipedia are mostly non academics, remember that many of them are not Hebrew speakers, and that barely any of them are historical linguists. --Woggly 16:16, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Titles are a front-end issue: we must accommodate various user agents, some of which cannot handle extended characters. Anything outside ASCII is already problematic (if you've ever tried to access Hebrew filenames on WinXP in recovery mode, you've got a taste of that). Outside Microsoft Windows Codepage 1252 is more problematic. Outside WGL4 is even more problematic. Redirection, far from solving the problem, might make things worse: suppose you type to Holon and are redirected to Ḥolon - if the user agent can't handle that special character (U+1E24, outside even WGL4), then the results can be unexpected, possibly even a system crash. --Shlomital 14:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In my case, I see a little square at the beginning of Ḥolon where I'd expect the H to be. --Woggly 16:21, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You must be using Internet Explorer, or if not, then have no font containing the character. A modern browser can find a font for each Unicode character, even if the main (specified) font doesn't have it. That way, with Firefox you often see polytonic Greek in two different fonts (one for basic Greek and one for the extended Greek characters), looking ugly but legible. Internet Explorer is still behind on this one. I hope with version 7.0, along with PNG transparency support, we'll get the font handling fixed as well. --Shlomital 20:58, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vote proposal

message: It seems that some sort of "polarization" is taking place here! Those who favor KISS (i.e. keeping things "simple" -- in the sense of avoiding "academese" -- because we are not, so to speak, "medical doctors in training" who need to be inducted into high-falutin specialists' jargon.) While some of us may have specialised interests and training, we are nevertheless trying to follow one of Wikipedia's basic rules of style, such as outlined in Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Which style to use? that actually says we should use News style or in Wikipedia:Summary style. See also Wikipedia:Explain jargon.
So here is a place to vote on the question of: Do you think Hebrew transliteration/romanization on Wikipedia should (mostly) follow the KISS/"common usage" style, or should there be a Hebrew style that tries to adhere to a (mostly) highly academic methodology? IZAK 03:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think your system is pretty close to what I perceive as KISS, except that you're using too many words to describe it. Minimise regulations, maximise common sense. Use the simplest, most common and most user friendly spellings whenever those are clearly identifiable; in case of uncertainty, or any unusual circumstances, use your head and think of other people. Remember that the people who read and use Wikipedia are mostly non academics, remember that many of them are not Hebrew speakers, and that barely any of them are historical linguists. --Woggly 16:16, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Titles are a front-end issue: we must accommodate various user agents, some of which cannot handle extended characters. Anything outside ASCII is already problematic (if you've ever tried to access Hebrew filenames on WinXP in recovery mode, you've got a taste of that). Outside Microsoft Windows Codepage 1252 is more problematic. Outside WGL4 is even more problematic. Redirection, far from solving the problem, might make things worse: suppose you type to Holon and are redirected to Ḥolon - if the user agent can't handle that special character (U+1E24, outside even WGL4), then the results can be unexpected, possibly even a system crash. --Shlomital 14:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In my case, I see a little square at the beginning of Ḥolon where I'd expect the H to be. --Woggly 16:21, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You must be using Internet Explorer, or if not, then have no font containing the character. A modern browser can find a font for each Unicode character, even if the main (specified) font doesn't have it. That way, with Firefox you often see polytonic Greek in two different fonts (one for basic Greek and one for the extended Greek characters), looking ugly but legible. Internet Explorer is still behind on this one. I hope with version 7.0, along with PNG transparency support, we'll get the font handling fixed as well. --Shlomital 20:58, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: KISS=Common usage

message: *Yes, for above reasons. IZAK 03:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Follow KISS/Common usage

message: * Always follow KISS in title. In body text, use either KISS or academic style depending on the esotericity of the term in question. Always include an academic transliteration in brackets following the opening of the body. See Aladdin and Badroulbadour for examples of how I have done this for Arabic names. --Shlomital 07:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Undecided

message: *As I've said elsewhere previously, this is not the SIMPLE ENGLISH WP!!! TShilo12 07:09, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Adamantly Opposed

message: *Does this "KISS" recommendation differ from the procedure that I suggested? Specifically: use the requested or attested spelling for individuals/organizations; use the conventional form of geographical names (i.e. Tel Aviv not Tel 'Abhibh); use the English-language dictionary for other terms. If other options are not available, only then do we apply systematic romanization.What is KISS? Is it different from Academy of the Hebrew Language "muqal" (lightweight) romanization? Is it Artscroll transliteration, and if so, why?Are we banning non-Latin-1 characters in titles? But that would mean no SBL academic romanization (which is explained clearly on e-page 38, printed page 26, of ). Then how do we handle terms that are neither common in English, nor primarily attached to modern Hebrew, and yet are important concepts and are pronounced differently in dozens of religious communities? Titles of Talmud tractates might be an example. Do we just go with the earliest author's preference?--Hoziron 14:11, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think your system is pretty close to what I perceive as KISS, except that you're using too many words to describe it. Minimise regulations, maximise common sense. Use the simplest, most common and most user friendly spellings whenever those are clearly identifiable; in case of uncertainty, or any unusual circumstances, use your head and think of other people. Remember that the people who read and use Wikipedia are mostly non academics, remember that many of them are not Hebrew speakers, and that barely any of them are historical linguists. --Woggly 16:16, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Titles are a front-end issue: we must accommodate various user agents, some of which cannot handle extended characters. Anything outside ASCII is already problematic (if you've ever tried to access Hebrew filenames on WinXP in recovery mode, you've got a taste of that). Outside Microsoft Windows Codepage 1252 is more problematic. Outside WGL4 is even more problematic. Redirection, far from solving the problem, might make things worse: suppose you type to Holon and are redirected to Ḥolon - if the user agent can't handle that special character (U+1E24, outside even WGL4), then the results can be unexpected, possibly even a system crash. --Shlomital 14:40, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In my case, I see a little square at the beginning of Ḥolon where I'd expect the H to be. --Woggly 16:21, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You must be using Internet Explorer, or if not, then have no font containing the character. A modern browser can find a font for each Unicode character, even if the main (specified) font doesn't have it. That way, with Firefox you often see polytonic Greek in two different fonts (one for basic Greek and one for the extended Greek characters), looking ugly but legible. Internet Explorer is still behind on this one. I hope with version 7.0, along with PNG transparency support, we'll get the font handling fixed as well. --Shlomital 20:58, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Both?

message: Wow, this is getting really crazy. Our first objective should be that non-Wikipedians using Wikipedia, or Wikipedians who are not expert in the intricacies of Hebrew grammar, be able to find articles easily. If they want to look up קרית ארבע, they should not have to go to Qiryaþ 'Arba‘, or anything like that. Rule of thumb, keep it simple and use lots of redirects. Danny 16:22, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah this is pretty much what I meant in my previous posts. It's pretty well-summarized in Horizon's proposal though (although, CBS is Bureau of Statistics, not of Census ;)) -- Ynhockey || Talk 18:06, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Agreed with Danny 100%, see above vote about this. IZAK 03:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Redirects would solve this problem 100 %, as you know. -- Olve 18:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Olve old chap what you are saying is condescending in the extreme. What some of us here are saying is get rid of "Qiryaþ 'Arba‘" because it's a confusing eye-sore, and certainly not redirect to it. IZAK 04:11, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Sounds good, Danny. —msh210 22:29, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

text: This, too, sounds good: the name of an organization or person should follow its/his/her preferred spelling; but anything else should follow the context. But with redirects from other reasonable spellings, per Danny, above. —msh210
Hi again. I agree with this kinda ... but .... When I was growing up, I learned Toysfes in school and Tosfos when I reviewed them with my Dad. Later, when I moved to Israel, I studied Tosafot, or was it Tosaphot. Based on the above, should we transliterate them by their medieval Franco-German pronunciation, unless of course it is the Ran or the Ramban, since they lived in Spain? My point being that we should have a single, common means of transliterating for names of articles (with alternatives in parentheses and redirects). Personally, I would go for the modern Israeli version, since that is probably most common, though I am open to a good case for Ashkenazit (Ashkenaziss). Danny 21:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Danny's rule of thumb

message: I'm with Danny here.
#Lots of redirects. All reasonable spellings, in Roman alphabet (and possibly in Hebrew alphabet as well), should redirect to the page. The Roman alphabet part of that should be uncontroversial. I can go either way on whether redirects from Hebrew spellings are useful).
#Avoid titles that contain characters that aren't in most common fonts. An example of another language where we have compromised on this is Romanian. Properly written, Romans uses "s with comma" and "t with comma" (Ș ș Ț ț). Relatively few fonts support this, so our titles use "s with cedilla" and "t with cedilla" (Ş ş Ţ ţ); see also Romanian alphabet. And this is a case where the language in question is normally written in an extended Latin alphabet! Why transcribe Hebrew into something almost as obscure to English-readers as the original?
Jmabel | Talk 18:24, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good, Danny. —msh210 22:29, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

text: This, too, sounds good: the name of an organization or person should follow its/his/her preferred spelling; but anything else should follow the context. But with redirects from other reasonable spellings, per Danny, above. —msh210
Hi again. I agree with this kinda ... but .... When I was growing up, I learned Toysfes in school and Tosfos when I reviewed them with my Dad. Later, when I moved to Israel, I studied Tosafot, or was it Tosaphot. Based on the above, should we transliterate them by their medieval Franco-German pronunciation, unless of course it is the Ran or the Ramban, since they lived in Spain? My point being that we should have a single, common means of transliterating for names of articles (with alternatives in parentheses and redirects). Personally, I would go for the modern Israeli version, since that is probably most common, though I am open to a good case for Ashkenazit (Ashkenaziss). Danny 21:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Discoverability and legibility

message: Reading through here, there seems to be several issues and they all boil down to what is appropriate in which context.  In the case of Hebrew, spanning over 3000 years of literature in some form or the other, there are various ways to romanise the script:  reconstructed ancient Hebrew, early Biblical Hebrew, late Biblical Hebrew, Talmudic Hebrew, Northern Sefardic Hebrew, Western Ashkenazic Hebrew, Eastern Ashkenazic Hebrew, Yemenite Hebrew, Israeli Hebrew.  Each may be correct in the romanisation scheme, but not always appropriate when applied to other.  If we are to agree on a romanisation, we should first agree upon in which situation the agree romanisation should be used.  If an article is discussing about linguistic features of ancient Hebrew, Israeli Hebrew romanisation would be highly inappropriate.  If the article at hand happens to be about the various Rabbis and their schools in Poland and Lithuania, again, Israeli Hebrew would not be appropriate.  Possibly a table of how one would transcribe Hebrew in each general context may be appropriate. 64.61.214.126 22:00, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This, too, sounds good: the name of an organization or person should follow its/his/her preferred spelling; but anything else should follow the context. But with redirects from other reasonable spellings, per Danny, above. —msh210
Hi again. I agree with this kinda ... but .... When I was growing up, I learned Toysfes in school and Tosfos when I reviewed them with my Dad. Later, when I moved to Israel, I studied Tosafot, or was it Tosaphot. Based on the above, should we transliterate them by their medieval Franco-German pronunciation, unless of course it is the Ran or the Ramban, since they lived in Spain? My point being that we should have a single, common means of transliterating for names of articles (with alternatives in parentheses and redirects). Personally, I would go for the modern Israeli version, since that is probably most common, though I am open to a good case for Ashkenazit (Ashkenaziss). Danny 21:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Romanisation Issue

message: Because of its importance and relation to what is being discussed, particularaly the issue of "romanization" it is suggested that we all take a look at and read Wikipedia's official policy at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). See also : Romanization of Hebrew and Hebrew transliteration. Thank you. IZAK 03:47, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Of all the options thus far put forth, I have to say I consider that one the worst.  TShilo12 07:07, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: AAAAAARRRRRGHH!!!! ;-P Olve 18:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Artscroll transliteration is terrible. Their books are actually very high quality except the transliteration, which is ridiculously galusi (גלותי - how would you translate that word, diasporic?).--Amir E. Aharoni 18:51, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Amir, very insulting! What you refer to as "גלותי" is actually Artscroll's position as a high-class Haredi publishing house (presently the top one in fact -- they have translated many classic works, such as the entire Babylonian Talmud into English [as well as into an edition with a Hebrew-only basic commentary].) There are lots of fine Haredim in Israel itself who would dispute your claims. Certainly the English-speaking Haredim would go with Artscroll's transliterations, and they do not fear being called "גלותי" (whatever that means in any case)...which is a lot better than what many Israelis become when they leave the confines and protection of Israel's borders. IZAK 04:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) 

message: Has anyone thought of this option: Artscroll transliteration? IZAK 03:57, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Of all the options thus far put forth, I have to say I consider that one the worst.  TShilo12 07:07, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: AAAAAARRRRRGHH!!!! ;-P Olve 18:22, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Artscroll transliteration is terrible. Their books are actually very high quality except the transliteration, which is ridiculously galusi (גלותי - how would you translate that word, diasporic?).--Amir E. Aharoni 18:51, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Amir, very insulting! What you refer to as "גלותי" is actually Artscroll's position as a high-class Haredi publishing house (presently the top one in fact -- they have translated many classic works, such as the entire Babylonian Talmud into English [as well as into an edition with a Hebrew-only basic commentary].) There are lots of fine Haredim in Israel itself who would dispute your claims. Certainly the English-speaking Haredim would go with Artscroll's transliterations, and they do not fear being called "גלותי" (whatever that means in any case)...which is a lot better than what many Israelis become when they leave the confines and protection of Israel's borders. IZAK 04:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Artscroll transliteration

message: How about the transliterations being based on how the words are actually pronounced? According to Hebrew language#Sounds, Hebrew has five vowels and the schwa. They could be transcribed in such a way as the average English speaker, with no prior knowledge of Hebrew, could pronounce. Specifically:
* would be transcribed a
* would be transcribed e
**There is also the special sound , which would also be transcribed e (or left out altogether)
* would be transcribed i
* would be transcribed o
* would be transcribed u
Hebrew also has 23 consonant phonemes, which could (like the vowels) be transliterated in such a way that every English speaker would be able to pronounce them correctly.
* which could be transcribed p
* which could be transcribed b
* which could be transcribed t
* which could be transcribed d
* which could be transcribed k
* which could be transcribed g
* which could be transcribed  '  (apostrophe)
* which could be transcribed f
* which could be transcribed v
* which could be transcribed s
* which could be transcribed z
* which could be transcribed sh
* which could be transcribed zh
* which could be transcribed kh (that's how Arabic and Russian transliterate that sound)
* which could be transcribed r
* which could be transcribed h
* which could be transcribed tz
* which could be transcribed ch
* which could be transcribed j
* which could be transcribed m
* which could be transcribed n
* which could be transcribed l
* which could be transcribed y
I think that by transliterating this way, every English speaker would instantly know how to pronounce the word(s). It also is in line with the usual way of transliterating Hebrew, it does not require special characters and it is simple (easy to remember). Izehar 19:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's fine to say "write it like it's said" but it's said in many different ways. You leave no allowance for the fact that many Israelis clearly distinguish between  and ; between  and ; between  and  and , while others don't - and have therefore simply not listed them above? That seems both biased towards a particular accent and even incorrect to me. jnothman  talk 02:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly.  Mizrahi Jewish writer Loolwa Khazzoom (heavily involved in the Jewish Multicultural Project and in the organization Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa) wrote quite a few essays about the continued divergent tradition of Hebrew pronunciation, and how she had so much pressure and disdain from the Ashkenazi cultural establishment in both America and Israel to abandon pronunciations Ashkenazim don't use because they are "confusing" or even offensive to them, yet she still insisted on teaching pharyngeal  and  to the next generation.  The fact of the matter is, even if Israel's cultural elite are mostly Ashkenazi, Israel's population is slightly more than half Sephardi, Mizrahi and Temani.  As I've heard said, most people speak Hebrew the same way their grandfather did.  The great variety of Hebrew linguistic tradition—not just in speech but also in poetry, music, etc. both in Israel and abroad—should be respected as equally valid traditions.  For what is standard in Israel, Standard Hebrew works well.  For all the divergent living cultural and religious traditions inside and outside of Israel, Tiberian vocalization is the most neutral standard to represent Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi and Temani alike equally. - Gilgamesh 11:25, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Transliteration is not solely a pronounciation guide. Most English speakers can barely pronounce ח the hegemonic modern Hebrew way, let alone try to distinguish between variations of the pronounciation. Your argument makes about as much sense as ruling that in order to fairly represent all speakers of English, whatever their regional dialect, pronounciation rules must always be given as for middle-English (now NOBODY can pronounce it!) A word can sound very different when spoken by a British aristocrat, an African American, or a native English speaker from Malta - but the spelling doesn't change. Transliteration does not have to bring into account every possible regional or cultural variation of pronounciation, just the general phonemes. --Woggly 12:07, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I suppose your name is נהום?--Doron 00:20, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Lol! Clearly he is emotionally scarred by his parents' choice of transliteration scheme. Don't taunt him so! =P jnothman  talk 02:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Have no fear Gniw, Hebrew transliterations will always be confusing to the non-Hebrew reader/s. The question/s being debated here is how obscure or obscurantist the transliterated Hebrew letters will finally become. The extreme academics don't need egging on, they have already muddied the waters plenty...what needs doing is giving clarity and ease of use the light of day on Wikipedia and push aside the creeping marginalization of Wikipedia when only the "experts" have their say. By the way, some of us who advocate the so-called "simple way" of doing things (meaning those who subscribe to "KISS") are also Hebrew experts, just we do not appreciate exhibitionism masquerading as scholarship. IZAK 04:35, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation 

message: 1. No consensus yet, but it's great that we're all talking. 2. The Hebrew Wikipedia has spent quite a few words on how to go from other scripts to Hebrew script. 3. The Library of Congress lists 29 ways to spell Micha Josef Berdyczewski. Every single one is cited from an authoritative source, and most of those are by Berdyczewski. 4. This page is more than 100 kilobytes long now. --Hoziron 05:24, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been thinking the same. A few people have tried to summarise things, but one really needs to archive the page elsewhere to clear it out. There is too much duplication and mess. jnothman talk 07:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smile