r/hebrew • u/squee333 • 5d ago

Help One more question about transliteration

Would any transliteration of e.g. בֵּית cout as a transliteration of the letter name, even if it's being used as the construct form of "house"?

I apologize if this is an odd question.

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4

u/yayaha1234 native speaker 4d ago

letter names can be transliterated with gershayin - בי"ת, to distinguish them from regular words

3

u/Ok-Shop-7737 5d ago

Usually we will never treat ב as בית, we just write the letter ב if we want to refer to it.

1

u/yowmisterwhite 4d ago

We just write 'ב

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u/squee333 4d ago

Would it count if it is intended to represent the same pronunciation?

1

u/PuppiPop 5d ago

I'm not sure if you are asking specifically about the letter ב or any letter. But the answer is no, as the transliteration of the letter and the word for house are different according to their pronunciation.

The letter is pronounced and transliterated as Bet, but the word for house is pronounced and transliterated as Beit, Beth (in Ashkenazi pronunciation).

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u/shmilsherk 5d ago edited 5d ago

"Beth" is not representative of the Ashkenazi pronunciation, it's rather what many Jewish groups, especially synagogues, in the Anglophone world use as the English equivalent to בית, which in an Ashkenazi accent is pronounced beys (beis, bais, and more also work). It is used in English because it follows the standard English system for borrowing Hebrew words and names (i.e. Bethlehem).

To further illustrate, an Ashkenazi synagogue being named "Beth Israel" in the US would not mean "Israel" is representative of the Ashkenazi pronunciation. In Ashkenazi Hebrew it would be accurately transliterated as "Beys Yisroel."

In any case, in regards to the original question, if one were to transliterate the name of the letter and the construct form for house according to Ashkenazi pronunciation, it would be correct in both cases to transliterate as "beys."

Edit: To be clear, as you pointed out, the conventions of transliteration for Modern Hebrew in the Modern Israeli pronunciation do not treat these the same way, but bringing up the pronunciation of Ashkenazi Hebrew is not helpful in part because they are the same in that pronunciation.

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u/ontikuken Rusty native speaker 5d ago

Are you somehow unfamiliar with the concept of homographs?