Transliteration question
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Quick question on Transliterating English to Hebrew--
this has been bugging me for a while;
Is there a convention to determine whether you transliterate the English 'S' to Samech or Shin?
How about 'T'; Teth or Tav?
I have generally used Samech for 'S' and Shin for 'Sh'; also Tav for 'T' and Teth for 'Th'. But I have often seen respected Qabalists use the exact opposite. I don't know enough about the actual pronunciation of the Hebrew letters to answer this question on a phonetic basis. I'd appreciate some input.
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@JustitiaEtFortitud said
"Quick question on Transliterating English to Hebrew--
this has been bugging me for a while;
Is there a convention to determine whether you transliterate the English 'S' to Samech or Shin?
How about 'T'; Teth or Tav?
I have generally used Samech for 'S' and Shin for 'Sh'; also Tav for 'T' and Teth for 'Th'. But I have often seen respected Qabalists use the exact opposite. I don't know enough about the actual pronunciation of the Hebrew letters to answer this question on a phonetic basis. I'd appreciate some input."
Are you speaking about use in Gematria, or use for linguistic purposes. (You were quite explicit about transliteration.)
For Gematria, the most common usage is S = Samekh, Sh = Shin, T = Teth, Th = Tav. However, these aren't invariable.
For linguistic purposes (actually "writing the English word in Hebrew characters"), it's definitely not that simple.
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On a phonetic basis, Teth is one of the "Emphatic Consonants". This is an aspect of Semitic languages, where certain consonants, are, generally speaking, pronounced with more emphasis on the muscles in the throat and/or back of the tongue.
However the exact pronunciations very widely, even from one dialect to the next, and the original Hebrew pronunciations have been lost. Modern Hebrew pronounces generally pronounces the Teth as a "T". However, some groups pronounce it closer to the Arabic Teth, which in many dialects is pronounced like a hard T, with the throat constricted, and the back of the tongue lowered, creating a dull/hollow emphatic sound.
In general, the letters Cheth, Teth, Ayin, Tzaddi, Qoph, and Shin probably fell into this general category of letters that have a pronunciation unlike what you generally find in English, and unlike the common, Modern pronunciation of Hebrew.
Tav is one of the Dagesh letters, along with Bet, Gimel, Daleth, Kaph, and Peh. When dotted with the Dagesh, these letters are pronounced similar to B, G, K, P and T in English.
When they do not have the Dagesh, the general idea is that they are no longer 'plosive', and instead become 'fricative' (air flows during the consonant), but the pronunciation really varies from one dialect to the next
Bet becomes V
Gimel can stay the same, in some dialects, it gets really weird, and the Gimel without dagesh is pronounced trilled, in the back of the throat, and with a dagesh like a hard J (judge)
Daleth stays the same or becomes Dh (like the hard "th" in the), or even a "z", depending on the dialect
Kaph becomes Kh (like the 'ch' in Bach),
Peh becomes Ph (photo),
Tav becomes a soft Th (or even a soft "s" in ashkenazy pronunciation)
None of this even touches on the idea of evolution and variations of English pronunciation or spelling, or taking the source language and spelling that the English word is derived from into consideration.
It's enough to make some people crazy. It can also be of really great value if you're exploring the deep meaning of a specific word.
The alternative is to use a consistent, system of English gematria for English words, regardless of how much influence Hebrew Gematria has on the values assigned to each English letter in the system you choose, and regardless of whether the values are based more on pronunciation or the evolution of the letters.
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Yes, I was talking about for the purposes of Gematria. Actually, I was specifically wondering about substituting hebrew characters to obtain a numerical value for an english word. So the Teth/Tav thing is good to know. Appears I had that one backwards. But I suppose what matters most is internal consistency.
Thanks, Av. Ben., for your exhaustive answer. I'll keep that info in mind for when I'm doing something more in-depth than basic gematria.