transliteration question
Jan. 10th, 2003 12:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioThis is for the Hebrew-speakers out there.
I'm transliterating some Hebrew choral music for people who (mostly) do not speak the language. I'm fairly pedantic about pronunciation, though, so I don't want to overload symbols that can be confusing. Been there; done that.
The question is the shva. I have seen it transliterated as "e" (same as segol, or is it tzere?), which isn't quite the same sound. I've seen it transliterated as an apostrophe, but apostrophes are also used to indicate glottal stops, and I think I probably shouldn't use it for that reason. I am considering using a colon, which isn't overloaded with anything and has the advantage of resembling the Hebrew nikud (for the people in the choir who can take advantage of that knowledge). I am limited to the standard ASCII character set, and I don't want the singers to struggle with the text.
We're doing Sephardi pronunciation. I'm using "ch" for both chet and chaf because near as I can tell there really is no difference between them. I'm using "ei" for whichever of tzere or segol has the long sound (I don't know all the vowel names). I don't distinguish between tet and taf, or sin and samech.
Opinions? Other suggestions?
I'm transliterating some Hebrew choral music for people who (mostly) do not speak the language. I'm fairly pedantic about pronunciation, though, so I don't want to overload symbols that can be confusing. Been there; done that.
The question is the shva. I have seen it transliterated as "e" (same as segol, or is it tzere?), which isn't quite the same sound. I've seen it transliterated as an apostrophe, but apostrophes are also used to indicate glottal stops, and I think I probably shouldn't use it for that reason. I am considering using a colon, which isn't overloaded with anything and has the advantage of resembling the Hebrew nikud (for the people in the choir who can take advantage of that knowledge). I am limited to the standard ASCII character set, and I don't want the singers to struggle with the text.
We're doing Sephardi pronunciation. I'm using "ch" for both chet and chaf because near as I can tell there really is no difference between them. I'm using "ei" for whichever of tzere or segol has the long sound (I don't know all the vowel names). I don't distinguish between tet and taf, or sin and samech.
Opinions? Other suggestions?
(no subject)
Date: 2003-01-11 12:49 am (UTC)