Bridging Scripts: A Comparison of Tools and Methods for Automated Transliteration of Hebrew characters to Latin characters
This piece is a continuation of my previous piece on automated transliteration of Greek to Latin characters, here: "Jastrow's Greek Gems: Or, How I Extracted and Processed All 1000+ Greek loanwords Defined in Jastrow's Dictionary - Pt.1".
Transliteration is the act of converting letters or words from one script into another. This is especially useful when dealing with languages that use a different script than one's native language. In this blog post, we'll examine the transliteration of Hebrew and Aramaic, focusing on the accuracy and nuances of different tools.
Background
Talmudic text is a blend of Hebrew and Aramaic.
The Transliteration Table
One method of transliteration is using a simple mapping table, which I successfully did for Greek (see my previous post, cited above). The problem with using a simple mapping table for transliterating Hebew is that Hebrew is missing many vowels, unlike in Greek and its descendant alphabets (such as Latin and English).
For further elaboration, see Abjad - Wikipedia:
“An abjad is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels [...]
The name abjad is based on the Arabic alphabet's first (in its original order) four letters—corresponding to a, b, j, and d [...] Similar to other Semitic languages such as Phoenician, Hebrew and Semitic proto-alphabets: specifically, aleph, bet, gimel, dalet [...]
In the 9th century BC the Greeks adapted the Phoenician script for use in their own language. [...] The major innovation of Greek was to dedicate these symbols exclusively and unambiguously to vowel sounds that could be combined arbitrarily with consonants [...]
The abjad form of writing is well-adapted to the morphological structure of the Semitic languages it was developed to write. This is because words in Semitic languages are formed from a root consisting of (usually) three consonants, the vowels being used to indicate inflectional or derived forms. [...]
In most cases, the absence of full glyphs for vowels makes the common root clearer, allowing readers to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from familiar roots (especially in conjunction with context clues) and improving word recognition while reading for practiced readers.”
Of course, later Hebrew is not a true abjad (see Mater lectionis - Wikipedia). But it still has far fewer vowels than Greek, Latin, and their descendant alphabets, including the English alphabet.
In addition, the following consonants are ambiguous; they can be one of two sounds:
ו, כ, פ, ב
An online tool for automated transliteration is the A Little Hebrew tool. You input Hebrew text with nikud into it. If you have Hebrew text without nikud, accurate nikud can be obtained using Dicta's tool.
Another option is asking ChatGPT4 for nikud.
A Comparison: ChatGPT4 vs 'A Little Hebrew'
Let's compare the transliterations produced by ChatGPT4 and 'A Little Hebrew'
I tested using the following passage, from a recent daf yomi page:
https://www.sefaria.org/Kiddushin.42a.3 > with nikud and punctuation:
אֶלָּא מֵהָכָא: ״וְיִקְחוּ לָהֶם אִישׁ שֶׂה לְבֵית אָבֹת שֶׂה לַבָּיִת״. וְדִילְמָא הָתָם נָמֵי, דְּאִית לֵיהּ שׁוּתָּפוּת בְּגַוַּיְיהוּ? אִם כֵּן תְּרֵי קְרָאֵי לְמָה לִי? אִם אֵינוֹ עִנְיָן לְהֵיכָא דְּשָׁיֵיךְ תְּנֵיהוּ עִנְיָן לְהֵיכָא דְּלָא שָׁיֵיךְ.
Transliteration by 'A Little Hebrew':
Ella mehacha: vyikchu lahem ish seh leveit avot seh labbayit. Vedilma hatam namei, de'it leih shuttafut begavvayhu? Im ken terei kera'ei lemah li? Im eino inyan leheicha deshayeich teneihu inyan leheicha dela shayeich.
Transliteration by ChatGPT4:
Ella mehakha: "Ve'yikchu lahem ish seh le'veit avot, seh labayit". Ve'dilma hatam namei, de'it leh shutafut begavayehu? Im ken, trei qera'ei lemah li? Im eino inyan leheikha de'shayeikh, tnehu inyan leheikha de'la shayeikh.
Observations about ChatGPT4's transliteration:
- It retains quotation marks.
- It helpfully adds commas.
- Occasionally, it adds apostrophes after initial prefixes with shva na at the beginning of a word, like ו-, ד-, which helps differentiate from segol.
- It transliterates the Hebrew letter כ as 'kh', not 'ch'. Both styles have their merits. Using 'kh' is less ambiguous, as 'ch' might be misread as in the English word 'chocolate'. However, 'kh' is slightly more academic.
- It transliterates the Hebrew letter ק as 'q', not 'k'. Like the previous point, either style is acceptable, but 'q' leans more academic.