For the ISO standard for binary representation of Hebrew, check out ISO- 8859-8.
Blue letters are printed (sans-serif), red letters are handwritten. For those letters which have a different form at the end of a word (i.e. kaf, mem, nun, pe, tzadi) the "sofi" (final) form appears leftmost. Note that a final "kaf" is always a "chaf", and a final "pe" always a "fe". If an "imported" word happens to end with a "p" sound (e.g. endoskop) the "non-final" letter is deliberately used at the end of the word.
Note 29.11.98: draft ISO standard column added (based on
article)
in Ha'aretz weekend supplement, 27.11.98). The ISO standard, being drafted
by a team led by Technion Prof. Uzi Ornan, is intended
not for ease of reading but for complete reversibility, including the storage
of Hebrew documents in 7-bit ASCII representation .
Hebrew latter | Name of Hebrew letter | General purpose | More strict | in TeX type: | draft ISO/TC46/SC2 standard | remarks |
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aleph | (nothing) | ' | ' | ` | vowel stop letter |
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bet | b | b | b | b | without dagesh: vet |
vet | v | v | v | b | ||
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gimel | g | g | g | g | g as in goal, grand |
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gimel-tchuptchik | j | dzh | j,dzh | g' | English J as in John, Russian Dzh as in Dzhuk |
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dalet | d | d | d | d | |
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hey | h (*) | h (*) | h (*) | h | (*) or nothing if silent hey (at end of word) |
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vav | v, o, u | w, o, u | v, o, u | w, o, u | o or u if used as vowel |
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zayin | z | z | z | z | |
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zayin-tchuptchik | zh | zh | zh | z' | French j as in jardin or Jabotinsky, Russian zh as in Zhukov or Zhabotinskii |
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chet | ch | h | \d{h} | x | soft ch as in Bach, Dutch g |
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tet | t | t | t | @ | obsolete: tt |
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yud | i,y | i,y | i,y | i,y | dep. on context |
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kaf | k | c | k | k | without dagesh: chaf |
chaf | ch | kh | ch,kh | k | harsher "kh" sound like in Loch Ness, Tutankhamon; Dutch "ch" | |
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lamed | l | l | l | l | |
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mem | m | m | m | m | |
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nun | n | n | n | n | |
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samech | s | s | \d{s} | s | obsolete: ss |
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ayin | ` | ` | & | vowel stop (Ashkenazi), deep throat sound (Oriental) | |
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pe | p | p | p | p | without dagesh: fe |
fe | f | ph | f,ph | p | ||
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tzadik | tz,ts | z | \d{z} | c | German z as in Weizmann, Zimmer; Polish c |
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tzadik-tchuptchik | tch,tsh | ch | tch,ch | c' | Russian Tch as in Tchaikovski |
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kuf | k | q | k,q | q | deeper than k (Oriental pron.) |
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resh | r | r | r | r | rolling r |
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shin | sh | sh | sh | $ | without mappik: sin |
sin | s | s | s | $' | s as in Israel | |
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tav | th | t | t | t | in Yiddish: pronounced as s |
The standard pronunciation of modern Hebrew is a simplified version of the Sephardi pronunciation: in particular, the kaf-kuf, chet-chaf, and tet-tav pairs are pronounced identically and the alef and ayin are both silent vowel stops.
In the speech of Israelis originating from Arabic-speaking countries, one does hear distinctions between kaf vs. kuf and chet vs. chaf, and the ayin is pronounced as a deep sound in the throat. These are residues of distinctions which are fully functional in Arabic. Many philologists regard the Teimani (Yemenite) pronunciation of Hebrew, which has even finer distinctions, as being closest to how Biblical Hebrew probably sounded.
Rules of thumb for the opposite direction (and for spelling words borrowed from Greek or Latin in Hebrew) include t being transliterated as tet (e.g. universita), th as tav (theorema), German "au" (a sounds that does not exist in Hebrew) being transliterated as aleph-vav, and German "ue" (likewise nonexistent in Hebrew) as "i" (like in Yiddish)