Hebrew pronunciation
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The Hebrew words that we find in magick books often don’t look very much like their Hebrew pronunciations. And, when these typical “book” spellings do help you pronounce it right, they often don’t make it clear what the Hebrew spelling is. (As Qabalistic magicians, we want to know the Hebrew letters!)
Several years ago, I set out to find a way to transliterate Hebrew words into English characters with the following goals:
- Simple characters: You could do it on a typewriter!
- After transliteration, a native English speaker would intuitively know how to pronounce the Hebrew word.
- After transliteration, the Hebrew spelling (letters, but not necessarily pointings) would still be obvious at a glance.
I succeeded in finding a method that met these goals about 99% of the time.
Next year, Temple of Thelema is formally adopting this new transliteration - the ongoing rewrite of everything will use this method. But there is nothing secret about it, and either the transliteration method (or some of the discussion leading to it) may be useful to others.
Besides, my spellings on this forum may start to look funny
Attached is a slightly edited PowerPoint presentation, saved as a PDF. As a technicality, let me mention that it is Copyright 2012 James A. Eshelman, all rights reserved. (One of my board members wants me to expand this eventually into a book. I resist, but I hereby preserve content rights against that eventuality <g>.)
Enjoy!
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Thank you.
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93,
Thank you Jim, Do you mind if I print some of the slides out? (For myself of course, I won't sell it on.) I'll learn better if it's in front of me.
93's.
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@mark0987 said
"Do you mind if I print some of the slides out? (For myself of course, I won't sell it on.) I'll learn better if it's in front of me. "
Of course not. Go for it.
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I don't know what is wrong, but when I open this up on my iPad, most of the pages are blank, and only a few yellow/orange bullets and words are displayed?
I saved it on my PDF viewers, and I still can not view most all of it.
Any ideas? Are the main words in color or something? -
I don't know, this sounds like it must be a problem with the iPad viewer. (Is anyone else seeing this problem?)
The underlying color scheme is a medim-dark mossy green. Most of the words are in white, with some in pale yellow and a few in orange. Contrast is very good throughout except some orange bulletpoints aren't as contrasty as ideal.
How does it look on a computer?
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Looks great
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I don't have a computer to view it.
If most of the words are white, then that must be my iPad issue, because my background is white as well. Knowing that, I will try to switch colors about to see if I can see it. I don't see any mossy green
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@Veronica said
"I don't have a computer to view it.
If most of the words are white, then that must be my iPad issue, because my background is white as well. Knowing that, I will try to switch colors about to see if I can see it. I don't see any mossy green"Let me know. I kept the original layout, but could redo it in black-on-white. (Maybe I'll do that anyway.)
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Veronica, I deleted the old version of the file and reposted it in black and white. How does it look now?
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It's viewable on Android, fyi...
Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Veronica, I deleted the old version of the file and reposted it in black and white. How does it look now?"
It looks great! Thank you very much.
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How important is correct pronunciation ? I hear many pronounce the Greek in various rituals over the years very wrong, especially in performances of liber xv. There is no B in Greek beta is not pronounced with a b but with a V ie Veta. delta is another, it's thelta when pronounced as in ka ko them on
For kakodaimon.
If anyone interested I can work out somehow to record the Greek and post audio files somewhere if wanted.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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@Thelemic oz said
"How important is correct pronunciation ?"
It depends. Sometimes, not very; sometimes a lot. I think for Hebrew it matters a lot. The Greek barbarous names may matter a lot because they may well have been contrived for exact sounds that are set to be recreated.
In general, it seems a good idea to get it right if you can. It may not be worth fretting or obsessing over getting right what we can't.
It matters more in group work - the work of an on-going group - in the sense that the group mind is strengthened by commonalities, and having a shared mode of pronunciation can be a significant factor.
"I hear many pronounce the Greek in various rituals over the years very wrong, especially in performances of liber xv. There is no B in Greek beta is not pronounced with a b but with a V ie Veta. delta is another, it's thelta when pronounced as in ka ko them on"
You're speaking of modern Greek. For these magical rituals, ancient Greek is intended, and Beta is indeed like the English B, etc. (It evolved over the millennia like other languages.) Your offer to record is generous and, if you do so, please label it as Modern Greek to avoid other confusions: I would argue that Modern Greek is not what we want here.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"
"I hear many pronounce the Greek in various rituals over the years very wrong, especially in performances of liber xv. There is no B in Greek beta is not pronounced with a b but with a V ie Veta. delta is another, it's thelta when pronounced as in ka ko them on"You're speaking of modern Greek. For these magical rituals, ancient Greek is intended, and Beta is indeed like the English B, etc. (It evolved over the millennia like other languages.) Your offer to record is generous and, if you do so, please label it as Modern Greek to avoid other confusions: I would argue that Modern Greek is not what we want here."
All i go by is the greek spoken in my home and in the greek orthodox church. There was differences in meaning of most words (although the etymology ended up they where of same origins) but i used to get whipped by the father when i pronounced my greek like the american way. (By the way greek is my first language) It was really hard trying to switch how one thought(and spoke) from english school to greek school and then again in the ecclisia school. (I got whipped alot in each of them.....mostly because I was a ratbag really) Anyway I will try work out a way to record because I do think at least Thelema and agape should be pronounced correctly and no way is it that I have heard (except by graham bond on his holy magick record........yes record for you youung ones look it up
). Folk can take it on if they wish, if they dont thats their choice. I have heard grady is supposed to have taught the correct pronunciation of Nuit, Hadit and rahoorkuit as the prophet was supposed to have heard it (????), i doubt Aiwass pronounced the greek of the words Thelema and Agape wrong?
anyway we are getting closer to the 3 days..............I have those full three days totally alone so I am looking forward to it.93
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@Thelemic oz said
"All i go by is the greek spoken in my home and in the greek orthodox church... (By the way greek is my first language)"
I know. But modern Greek is significantly different in pronunciation from ancient Greek, and it is the ancient Greek that is intended for these rituals.
"I do think at least Thelema and agape should be pronounced correctly"
I agree. But they should not be pronounced as in modern Greek but, rather, as in ancient Greek. (Agape, in particular, is routinely mispronounced because people treat the accent on the second syllable as accents are treated in English. As you may know, ancient Greek accents were not a matter of stress but, rather, of tonality, calling for an increase in pitch. The closer equivalent to the English accented syllable is in the long vowels which, anciently, were pronounced exactly as the short vowels except twice as long. Accordingly, late BCE Greek phonics books said that sheep go βή and dogs go βαύ.
"i doubt Aiwass pronounced the greek of the words Thelema and Agape wrong?"
I imagine they sounded exactly as Crowley would have expected them from his grammar school training. In those days (really, anytime before the late 1960s) it was wrongly held that Greek long vowels were pronounced like English long vowels (a convention more than a conviction). Crowley (wrongly) pronounced it the-LEE-ma.