AUDREY DICKEY MINISTRIES

Glory International Center

​"A Center for God's Presence"

THE HEBREW ALPHABET

​האלפבית  עברי
(‘i-v’-riy)  (ha-’a-leph-beyt)

Dr. Robert L. Dickey, Los Angeles, CA

For the interested non-Hebrew speaking Believer who would like to transliterate (convert Hebrew characters into English characters one character at a time) Hebrew words like the above title, I have presented the following with the best explanation that I can give to help you understand how to transliterate Hebrew into phonetic pronunciation in English characters.  The information is limited in as much as I do not have a keyboard that will type Hebrew vowel marks.  I have attempted to explain the vowel marks so that you may be able to decipher the marks that you see in and around the Hebrew characters.  Hebrew meanings in English can be found, of course, in a Hebrew/English dictionary.  I use the online dictionary found at www.doitinhebrew.com.

The Hebrew Language is written from right to left.  Each consonant character has, in many cases, a corresponding vowel and forms a syllable separated by a dash.  In today’s Hebrew there are vowel markings that help in recognizing the vowel sounds that help in speaking and differentiating one word from another.  Originally Hebrew had no markings at all to differentiate words and all meanings were or had to be through context.

The Hebrew alphabet (alephbeyt) has 22 basic characters, shown below:

א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ש ת

There are four Hebrew characters that change their sound or character into another English equivalent.  Those four characters are:

ב כ פ ש

When a dot is added to the letter these four characters change in English as follows:

ב goes from Bet to Vet; the sound of “B” which is written with a dot in the middle of the character goes to the sound of “V” when the dot is removed.

כ goes from Ka to Kha; the sound of “K” to the sound of “Kha” as in the ch sound of character when the dot is removed from the middle of the character.

פ goes from Pey to Fey; the sound of “P” to the sound of “Ph” when the dot is removed from the middle of the character.

ש goes from Shin to Sin; the sound of “Sh” to the sound of “S” when the dot is moved from right to left on the top of the character.

Also, there are five characters that change their form when they end a word, but do not change their sounds.  These five characters are as follows:

כ to ך ;מ to ם ;נ to ן ;פ to ף ;צ to ץ

The table below will give the English equivalents of the Hebrew characters so that Hebrew words can be transliterated into English so that words in Hebrew can be phonetically pronounced in English.

 

VOWEL MARKINGS

There are 17 different vowel marks.  There are 4 marks for the “a” vowel; there 5 marks for the “e” vowel; there are 2 marks for the “i” vowel; there are 4 marks for the “o” vowel and there are 2 marks for the “u” vowel.

The “a” vowel uses a – or small T under the consonant character that it will follow.

The “e” vowel uses dots in various configurations under the consonant character it follows.

The “i” vowel uses a single dot under the consonant character it follows, many times the character Yod follows the consonant containing the “i” vowel mark.

The “o” vowel uses most often a dot above the consonant or above the character Vav, however there other combinations also which makes it the most varied vowel marks.

The “u” vowel uses either a Vav consonant with a dot in the middle or less often 3 dots in a diagonal under the consonant it follows.

I hope that the above is of help in transliterating Hebrew into English.  There are certain words, phrases and or sentences which can enrich our walk with God and also show our Jewish Brethren that we are interested in communing with them as the One New Man.

May the grace and peace of the Lord be with you.

שלום (sha-lom = Peace; Wholeness; Well-being; Wellness)

Robert L. Dickey, PhD

 

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