This page is an effort to create an official policy regarding the translation of Hebrew and Israeli names and Hebrew romanization for Wikipedia articles. The discussion is ongoing at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Hebrew). This page currently reflects a DRAFT policy which has not currently been accepted as official policy.

This policy covers:

• The conventions for naming an article based on a Hebrew word ("article naming").
• The conventions for including a Hebrew word or phrase in an article ("in-line Hebrew").

Both of these are essentially translation/transliteration/romanization conventions, since the ability to read Hebrew is not a prerequisite for use of the English Wikipedia.

Each article must have only a single title. Other plausible titles should redirect to this title.

If there's a standard Englishized name for a topic (Moses, Haifa, Gaza, bris, Torah, rabbi, rebbe, Netanyahu, Jerusalem, etc.), then that name should be the title of the article, no matter how unlike the Hebrew that name is. (Note: in some cases, there may be debate about whether there is a standard Englishized name, and if so, what it is.) The below rules for article naming apply only when this is not the case.

If a topic pertains primarily to modern Israel (e.g., a modern city that did not exist before, say, 1850), the article should be named according to Modern Israeli Hebrew. Specifically, the title should be based on a modification of the Hebrew Academy's romanization scheme found at http://hebrew-academy.huji.ac.il/PDF/Tatik.pdf, with letters should be transcribed as follows:

• א (alef):
  • When containing nikud, will be transliterated accordingly and can be any vowel.
  • When used as a vowel (em kri'a), will be omitted.
  • When following another vowel sound or a shva, will be preceded by an apostrophe (').
• ב (bet/vet):
  • When with dagesh (a dot inside), <b>.
  • When without dagesh, <v>.
• ג (gimel): <g>.
• ד (dalet): <d>.
• ה (he):
  • At the start or in the interior of a word, <h>.
  • At the end of a word, when without mapik (a dot inside) and therefore silent, <> or <h> (no consensus yet).
  • At the end of a word, when with mapik and therefore theoretically pronounced, <> or <h> or <hh> (no consensus yet).
• ו (vav):
  • When used as a consonant, <v>.
  • When used to indicate a vowel, see below.
• ז (zayen): <z>.
• ח (khet): (no consensus yet).
• ט (tet): <t>
• י (yud):
  • When used as a consonant, <y>.
  • When used to indicate a vowel, see below.
• כ, ך (kaf/khaf, kaf/khaf sofit):
  • When with dagesh (a dot inside), <k>.
  • When without dagesh, <kh>.
• ל (lamed): <l>.
• מ, ם (mem, mem sofit): <m>.
• נ, ן (nun, nun sofit): <n>.
• ס (samekh): <s>.
• ע (ayin):
  • At the start or end of a word, <> (that is, it should be omitted).
  • When without a vowel or sh'va, <>.
  • Between two vowels, <`> or <'> (a back-quote or an apostrophe; no consensus yet).
  • In other cases, <> or <`> or <'> (no consensus yet).
• פ, ף (pe/fe, pe/fe sofit):
  • When with dagesh (a dot inside), <p>.
  • When without dagesh, <f>.
• צ, ץ (tsadi, tsadi sofit): <ts> or <tz> (no consensus yet).
• ק (kuf): <k>.
• ר (resh): <r>.
• ש (shin/sin):
  • When shin (dot on the right side): <sh>.
  • When sin (dot on the left side): <s>.
• ת (tav): <t>.

and vowels transcribed as <a> (kamats gadol, patakh, khataf patakh), <e> (segol, khataf segol, tsere, sheva), <ei> (tzere-yud), <i> (khirik, khirik-yud), <o> (kholam khaser, kholam male, kamats katan, khataf kamats), or <u> (shuruk, kubuts). Except as noted, the presence of a dagesh should not affect the transcription of a letter; in particular, it should not cause the letter to be doubled.

When the topic of an article pertains primarily to Eastern European Jewry (e.g., a rebbe from the 1700s), its title should reflect Ashkenazic pronunciation and tradition. Similarly, if its topic pertains primarily to Oriental Jews (e.g., a Bukharan food), its title should reflect Oriental Sephardic pronunciation and tradition. (And so on.)

There is not yet consensus about the details of such romanizations, and they may eventually be determined to be outside the scope of this policy.

When the topic of an article predates the Diaspora, the title should reflect ancient pronunciation by using a form of the general-purpose, diacritic-less transliteration scheme described by the Society of Biblical Literature's SBL Handbook of Style. This scheme is flexible, however, and there is no consensus yet about the exact rules to use here.

When none of the above is the case, either a Modern-Israeli or an Ashkenazic romanization is acceptable, but a Sephardic romanization is not.

There is no consensus yet about the details of a policy on in-line Hebrew, except that it will likely resemble the policy on article naming.

Hebrew words written in the Hebrew writing system should be preceded with {{lang|he| and followed by }}; this will cause them to be presented in a larger and more Hebrew-friendly font.

• Wikipedia:Niqqud