NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION, ICONS AND HEBREW
Key to Transliteration All consonants have approximately the same sounds that they have in English except for ‘ch’as in Scottish ‘Loch Ness’or German, ‘Bach’. Vowel sounds: ‘o’as in ‘top’ ‘a’as in ‘shalom’ ‘ai’as in ‘aisle’, ‘Thailand’ ‘e’as in ‘bed’ ‘ei’as in ‘neighbour’, ‘weigh’ ‘i’as in ‘machine’ ‘u’as in Ruth The combination ‘ay’represents ‘a’followed by a consonantal ‘y’. The apostrophe is used for two purposes: It separates two successive vowel sounds when they occur within a single word, as in ‘ Yisra’el ’. It represents the pause when two consonants follow one another and might otherwise be a single sound, so need to be separated, as in ‘ sh’ma ’. The transliteration is an approximation of the Hebrew to aid non–Hebrew readers to feel comfortable in following, or participation in, the service. It is not intended as a substitute for, or as a means for, learning Hebrew. Special Hebrew Signs The Hebrew vowel ‘ kamats ’( ¨ ) is usually pronounced ‘a’. However the ‘ kamats katan ’ ( Ç’ ) and ‘ chataf kamats ’ ( Ç¢ ) are pronounced ‘o’, as indicated by the small circle above. In Hebrew the stress is usually on the last syllable. Exceptions are shown by marking the stressed vowel with a ‘ meteg ’( « ) e.g. i ¦z §r «©c¨i ‘ yadati ’, Ep«¨l ‘ lanu ’. When the consonantal name of God i¨Src£` appears, followed by the tetragrammaton, dedi , the latter is pronounced ‘Elohim’ mi ¦Grl¡` , and is given the same vowels, d ¦Hrd §i .
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