Hermetic Hebrew

Cheiromancer

Is there a transliteration scheme for Hebrew that would be suited for use in this forum? I am never quite sure how to spell the names of letters (Alef or Aleph? Vaw or Vav?) and it would be nice to have a short and unambiguous way of writing them out.

Most of the letters would be obvious (B for Beth, G for Gimel), but I am not sure what to do for letters like Aleph. If you used 'A', what would you use for Aayin? Stuff like that. Would an apostrophe be good to stand for Yod?

I have seen Kabbalah written as QBLH, so I think such a scheme must already exist. But my google-fu is weak, and I can't find a complete description.
 

Zephyros

There is no set transliteration scheme, as far as I know. The Golden Dawn got things really, really muddled as far as diction and pronunciation went. I myself use the GD conventions for the sake of convenience (Vau and Tau) although I know they are wrong, and sound horrid. My advice is ignore "Hermetic Hebrew," there's no such thing, and use the correct words. In time others, including myself, may follow suit. :)

When it comes to vowels and consonants, things get even worse, as Hebrew has no vowels. For Ain I use an "a" with apostrophe, thus A', as it is gutteral. Aleph is A, although it can sometimes be an O sound, so there is no end of trouble. Y is more appropriate for Yod when it is a consonant, and I when it is a vowel. I guess everybody here who is interested will know what you're talking about by usage, so I think you're safe. If you have any Hebrew-related questions, I'll be happy to help.
 

Cheiromancer

Fair enough, but I am not really sure what the correct spelling is of Hebrew letters. I have sort of been using GD conventions, but a lot of the time I forget whether it is zain or zayin, aayin or ayin. Is it heh, hei or something else? Should I capitalize, or leave them lower-case?

It doesn't really bother me what sound Aleph has, I just want to write it in a consistent and unambiguous way. Given that we have 26 letters (52 if you let upper and lower case stand for different letters) there ought to be a way we could manage to transliterate 22.

The folks that write QBLH - how do they write the other 18 letters?

edit: Here's a good example. Tarot and the Hebrew Alphabet. (Huh. Th is Tav? I thought it would be Teth, since that letter corresponds to Theta...)

edit2: An alternate list by the inimitable kwaw in this thread, discussing the theory linked to in the previous edit.
 

Richard

I wouldn't worry about it as long as people know what you mean. Of course, there is always the option of using the exact Hebrew letters, but it can be a PITA since the keyboard goes into reverse when in Hebrew mode.

I had an office mate in Berkeley who was on leave from Hebrew University in Jerusalem. (This was before the invention of personal computers.) He said that typing technical articles was a nightmare because the carriage had to go in one direction when typing the Hebrew text and the opposite direction when typing mathematical equations.
 

Zephyros

Tet and Tav originally did not have the same sound; Tet was a gutteral T while Tav was the softer variety (although very much not "Th"). Personally I think many sounds in Hebrew cannot be reproduced in English phonetics, but that's just my opinion. For that matter, I also think QBLH looks horrible. Hebrew is a living, breathing language, far older than English.
 

Satyatarot

There is no "proper" English spelling of Hebrew letters. The transliterations must be based on phonetics, which has its own problems. Cheth is a good example of this. There is no "Ch" sound (Like the "cha, cha") in hebrew. It is instead a more guttural sound which is not used in English (Though it is used in German. I'm not familiar enough with the language to tell you when or with what...). Thav has a similar problem. If you ever hear a native Hebrew speaker, the difference between teth and thav is actually fairly distinct (Maybe not to most, but it IS different...) The English sound for "th" does not truly exist in Hebrew, and is instead pronounced like a harder version of the english "th", or a softer version of the "t" sound. Additionally, there tends to be many ways to express the same sound from Hebrew within English ("f" or "ph" for instance). There also tends to be a lot of confusion revolving around the double letters. For instance, in Hebrew, the word which is typically spelled "Geburah" in hermetic literature is normally pronounced "Gevurah". Really, this is also an issue in Hebrew itself. Many of the sounds of the double letters are not well known/used (For instance, the "Soft" Gimmel is suspected to sound like "Dj", but it's not really known for sure and is seldomly used, and the "Reish" is said to be a double letter and nobody really has any clue at all as to how it was pronounced differently). The problems abound, but as long as one can recognize the word, you're probably okay. Learning Hebrew from somebody who speaks the language definitely helps significantly in being able to differentiate between the transliterations. For now, I'd say do your best and start learning the language if you have an interest in it. Shalom Aleichem :)
 

Satyatarot

The folks that write QBLH - how do they write the other 18 letters?

Here is how I transliterate the letters generally if I'm using that system(AND IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT ALL OF THESE ARE CONSONANTS!!! VOWELS are NOT LETTERS IN HEBREW AND SO WOULD NOT BE USED IN THIS! Therefore, all "Vowels" in english, will be consonants instead.)

א=A ב=B ג=G ד=D ה=H ו=V ז=Z ח=Ch ט=T י=Y כ=K ל=L מ=M נ=N ס=S ע=O פ=P or F צ=Tz ק=Q ר=R ש=Sh ת=Th
 

Richard

.......א=A ב=B ג=G ד=D ה=H ו=V ז=Z ח=Ch ט=T י=Y כ=K ל=L מ=M נ=N ס=S ע=O פ=P or F צ=Tz ק=Q ר=R ש=Sh ת=Th.......
As I see it, the main reason for not using the actual Hebrew letters is the mechanical inconvenience of typing them in, so a transliteration of the Hebrew is a concession to convenience. It cannot suggest a phonetic equivalence because unpointed Hebrew itself has no true vowels, the closest approximation thereto being the matres lectionis. Therefore, I think a strict system of transliteration such as Satyatarot's is the best way to go. This way, when I see a sequence of letters, such as QBLH, no matter how nonsensical it looks, I can immediately reconstruct the corresponding Hebrew, קבלה,if I so desire.
 

Zephyros

Well, they are just names, after all, pronunciation notwithstanding. There is nothing of the H sound in "aitch," but the implication of what H is and what it sounds like are still clear. I don't think it matters either way, especially as modern Hebrew isn't a factor of hermeticism, especially the brand that goes with the GD, but some sort of symbolic hybrid.
 

Nemia

Here is how I transliterate the letters generally if I'm using that system(AND IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT ALL OF THESE ARE CONSONANTS!!! VOWELS are NOT LETTERS IN HEBREW AND SO WOULD NOT BE USED IN THIS! Therefore, all "Vowels" in english, will be consonants instead.)

א=A ב=B ג=G ד=D ה=H ו=V ז=Z ח=Ch ט=T י=Y כ=K ל=L מ=M נ=N ס=S ע=O פ=P or F צ=Tz ק=Q ר=R ש=Sh ת=Th

I know that modern Hebrew and esoteric Hebrew are not the same thing.

However, English vowels are not consonants in Hebrew, they are simply not written. א is not A and ע is not O. Matres lectionis (emot kriah) are not vowels, either.

א and ע are pronounced according to the (unwritten) vowelization, matres lectionis only give a hint to which vowel would be appropriate. Once you add vowels via punctuation, you leave away the matres lectionis anyway.

That's why I think the transliteration some Hebrew grammar books for א and ע are a good solution: superscripted > and <

I don't know how to do them in superscript on Internet boards, though. I use Gesenius' solution of ' (single apostroph) for both letters, a straight ' for א and slanted ’ for ע.

This has the advantage that you still "see" the consonant although you don't "hear" it because its sound is determined by the vowel.

' א
examples:
'adam 'or 'urim
אורים אורי אדם

’ ע
examples:
’ayin ’or ’uga
עוגה עור עין

(It's a bit confusing for non-native Hebrew speakers to hear native speaking parents say: "we picked names for our children that start with the same letter," and the children are called Ori, Adam and Itamar (all aleph) or Adi, Uzi and Eden (all ayin) :-D but it makes you understand that the vowels only "color" the consonants.)