Yet Another Hebrew English Alphabet יעט אְנאדְּר היברו יכגליש עֵלפְּבְט

The Hebrew script has a blocky and angular aesthetic that makes it easy to recognise, being the only other widely used right-to-left script in the world besides Arabic. In fact, this relationship is not just co-incidental, as both the Hebrew and Arabic scripts share the same origins: both were once variants of the Aramaic script, which was once widely used across the Middle East a few thousand years ago. Since then, Hebrew has been adapted for writing the wide variety of languages spoken by the Jewish diaspora – but what would it take to write English with it in the most optimal manner? Let’s find out.

Since many others have also had a go at using Hebrew to write English, I’m going to call this ‘Yet Another Hebrew English Alphabet’, or YAHEA for short.

Adaptation process

Most of the Hebrew consonant letters have clear English equivalents: /s/ ס, /m/ מ/ם, /ɹ/ ר, etc.

However, some of these letters can have 2 pronunciations depending on whether a vowel sound occurs before them: a ‘hard’ plosive sound or a ‘soft’ fricative sound.

/p/~/f/: פ/ף
/b/~/v/: ב
/t/~/θ/: ת
/d/~/ð/: ד
/k/~/x/: כ/ך
/g/~/ɣ/: ג

In English, the plosive sounds are statistically more frequent on the whole than their fricative counterparts, so the letters פ – ב – ד – ג shall get the 1st pronunciations:

/p/ = פ/ף (as in ‘port’)
/b/ = ב (as in ‘born’)
/d/ = ד (as in ‘done’)
/g/ = ג (as in ‘get’)

For /t/ and /k/, the letters ט and ק can be used instead of ת and כ since they represent the same sound in Modern Hebrew orthography:

/t/ = ט (as in ‘test’)
/k/ = ק (as in ‘call’)

The real question now: How to mark the fricative counterparts?
Hebrew has a rafe overbar diacritic ֿ which marks the ‘soft’ fricative sound, eg. /f/ = פֿ. There is also the dagesh dot diacritic ּ which lies inside the letter and is traditionally used to mark the corresponding plosive sound, eg. /p/ = פּ.
I had found that many Hebrew fonts do not support the rafe diacritic at all but easily support the dagesh, which is why I shall use the dagesh for marking the fricatives instead. (Since /ɣ/ is not a distinctive sound in English, I’ll use /d͡ʒ/ as the ‘soft’ fricative sound for ג, which correlates nicely with the ‘soft’ pronunciation of the letter ‘G’ in English.)

/f/ = פּ/ףּ (as in ‘free’)
/v/ = בּ (as in ‘van’)
/ð/ = דּ (as in ‘the’)
/d͡ʒ/ = גּ (as in ‘just’)
/ʒ/ = זּ (as in ‘closure’)

The ת letter can then be re-purposed to solely write the /θ/ sound while כ /k/~/x/ is re-assigned to write the /ŋ/ sound, which is a velar sound like /x/, since /x/ is not a distinct sound in English.

/θ/ = ת (as in ‘thank’)
/ŋ/ = כ/ך (as in ‘sing’)

Also, the /t͡s/ letter צ shall be re-purposed for writing /t͡ʃ/ since /t͡s/ is not a distinctive phoneme in English.

/t͡ʃ/ = צ/ץ (as in ‘change’)

How to represent the vowels

Vowels were also an interesting challenge, given Hebrew’s original consonant-only nature.

By default, Hebrew has a rudimentary vowel-indicating system using the consonants for /ʔ/ א, /j/ י and /w/ ו to represent the long vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/ respectively: short vowels were generally left unwritten. Let’s re-use them as the basis of this orthography:

/a/ = א (as in ‘fun’ and ‘but’)
/ɪ/~/j/ = י (as in ‘bid’, ‘yet’)
/ʊ/~/w/ = ו (as in ‘look’, ‘wood’)

As in Hebrew, the letters י and ו are used for both vowel and consonant sounds – this is not a problem since they do not overlap with each other.

Of course, 3 vowel symbols will never be able to faithfully represent a vowel-heavy language such as English.
Thankfully, there is a Jewish diaspora language which happens to be distantly related to English and which had faced exactly the same problems with vowels: Yiddish. The Yiddish orthography repurposes the letter ע, which originally represented the sound /ʕ/, to represent the /ɛ/ vowel instead – let’s go with that.
The Hebrew vowel diacritics (niqqud) can then be used to further expand the vowel repetoire. The letter for /æ/ shall be ע with the tsere diacritic for /e/ below, and the schwa /ə/ is represented with the shva diacritic ְ just as in Hebrew. Also, the holam diacritic is commonly placed on top of the letter ו to spell an /ɔ/ sound, so let’s use that too.

/ɛ/ = ע (as in ‘bed’)
/æ/ = עֵ (as in ‘fan’)
/ə/~/ɜ/ = אְ (as in ‘-tion’ and the last vowel of ‘comma’)
/ɔ/ = וֹ (as in ‘lot’)

With that settled, the diphthongs come along easily as plain and intuitive digraphs of these vowel letters, e.g. /aɪ/ = אי (/a/ + /ɪ/), /eɪ/ עי (/ɛ/ + /ɪ/) and so on.

So far I’ve been representing most of the vowels with their own letters, but it would be a bit of a shame not to use the Hebrew vowel diacritics at all entirely, so let’s do what traditional Hebrew does and use them for our long vowels instead! The diacritic is added to the consonant prior to the vowel to be lengthened as follows:

/aː/ = אַא (as in ‘father’, with leading patah)
/iː/ = אִי (as in ‘need’, with leading hiriq)
/ɔː/ אָוֹ (as in ‘bought’, with leading qamats)
/uː/ אֻו (as in ‘fruit’, with leading qubuts)

Letters

Consonants

/p/ פ (a), ף (b) (port)	/b/ ב (born)	/f/ פּ (a), ףּ (b) (free)	/v/ בּ (van)	/m/ מ (a), ם (b) (muse)
/t/ ט (tree)	/d/ ד (drive)	/θ/ ת (thank)	/ð/ דּ (the)	/n/ נ (a), ן (b) (new)
/k/ ק (call)	/g/ ג (get)	.	.	/ŋ/ כ (a), ך (b) (sing)
/s/ ס (soon)	/z/ ז (zoo)	/ʃ/ ש (share)	/ʒ/ זּ (azure)	.
/tʃ/ צ (a), ץ (b) (change)	/dʒ/ גּ (joke)	.	.	.
/ɹ/ ר (run)	/l/ ל (laugh)	/h/ ה (house)	/w/ ו (way)	/j/ י (yell)

Note that the letters for /p/, /f/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/ and /tʃ/ come in 2 forms. The (b) form is only to be used when at the end of a word – the (a) form is used elsewhere.

Hence, /apʊ/ = אפו, but /ap/ = אף.

Vowels

There are 3 kinds of vowels in Hebrew script for English: standalone vowels, which stand on their own; diacritic vowels, which need to be written below the preceding consonant; and mixed vowels, which has a standalone form and a diacritic form.

Standalone vowels

/a/~/ʌ/ א (sun)	/ɪ/ י (bid)
/æ/ עֵ (can)	/ɔ/ וֹ (pot)
/ɛ/ ע (head)	/ʊ/ ו (pull)

Diacritic vowels

The letter א is the default placeholder. To write the vowel after a consonant, replace א with the consonant letter: /kə/ = קְ.

/ə/~/ɜ/ אְ (comma)

Long vowels

To write the vowel after a consonant, replace א with the consonant letter: /kɔː/ = קָוֹ.

/aː/ אַא (palm)

/iː/ אִי (bead)

/ɔː/ אָוֹ (bought)

/uː/ אֻו (cool)

Diphthongs

/aɪ/ אי (high)	/aʊ/ או (now)
/eɪ/ עי (day)	/ɪə/ יְ (ear)
/ɔɪ/ וֹי (toy)	/oʊ/ וֹו (dough)
/ʊə/, /wə/ וְ (tour)	/juː/ יו (news)

Letter ordering

There are 2 ways to order the letters of the YAHEA alphabet: the traditional Hebrew ABG order and my custom linguistically-based PBF order.

Traditional ABG-based order

Letters are arranged according to the Hebrew orderings with the derived letters placed after the original. All vowel diacritics are represented by putting א as a placeholder and grouping it after א.

Hence the order shall be: ‭א אְ אַ אִ אָ אֻ ב בּ ג גּ ד דּ ה ו וֹ ז זּ ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע עֵ פ פּ צ ק ר ש ת.
Transliterated into RDIO: A I AA İE OO OU B V G J D Ð H W/U O Z Ż Ķ T Y/İ Ŋ L M N S E À P F C K R Ș Ț.

Custom PBF order

I also devised a letter ordering inspired by those in South and Southeast Asian scripts such as Devanagari and Khmer that groups letters based on the linguistic features of their sounds: (1) bilabial consonants, (2) alveolar consonants, (3) velar consonants, (4) sibilants, (5) affricates, (6) approximants + glottal consonants, and (7) vowels.

The PBF order, including groups, shall be: ‭פ ב פּ בּ מ, ט ד ת דּ נ, ק ג ח כ, ס ז ש זּ, צ גּ, ו ר ל י ה, א עֵ ע י, אְ וֹ ו, אַ אִ אָ אֻ.

Syllable structure

Unlike most writing systems that run from left to right, Hebrew script runs from right to left. Letters follow a straightforward linear structure that is identical to alphabets such as Latin and Greek, except inverted.

E.g.

/stɹakt/ = סטראקט (literally ‘t k a r t s’)
/stɹɛŋθs/ = סטרעכתס (literally ‘s th ng e r t s’)

Sample texts

Note: the following text may have incorrect punctuation placement due to inadequate RTL formatting: the full stop is meant to go on the left, instead of the right.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

יוניבְּרסְל דעקלְרעישְן וֹףּ היומְן ראיטס

וֹל היומְן בִיכס אר בוֹרן פּרִי עֵנד יקוְל ין דיגניטי עֵנד ראיטס. דּעי אר ענדאוד וית רִיזְן עֵנד קוֹנשְנס עֵנד שוד עֵקט טוֹוְרדס ואן אְנאדְּר ין אְ ספיריט וֹףּ בראדְּרהוד.

(ארטיקְל 1 וֹףּ דּי יוניבְּרסְל דעקלְרעישְן וֹףּ היומְן ראיטס)

Excerpt from a short story I wrote a while ago

For comparison, you can view the original one here.

אי העֵד אְ סטרעינגּ דרִים דּעֵט נאיט.

ין דּעֵט דרִים, אי פּאונד מאיסעלףּ אְועיקְניך, לאייך וֹן סוֹפּט גרִין גראס, ין אְ פּעֵנטְסי 8-ביט וְרלד סְראונדְד באי קוֹמפיוטְרס. דְּ לומינְנס וֹףּ בליכקיך מוֹודעמס עֵנד ווֹרם, ציְרפּול ציפטיון מיוזיק פּילד דּי ער. וֹלדּוֹו עבּריתיך לוקד בלוֹקי עֵנד סקוער, יט ברָוֹט מי בעֵק טו דּוֹוז דעיס. וֹףּ וֹל דְּ קוֹמפיוטְרס אי סָוֹ, 1 וֹףּ דּעם וְס פלעייך מאי פּעיבּרְט סוֹך! אי גּאמף עֵנד לִיף ין גּוֹי וֹובְּר דְּ סאיט. אי דּען סָוֹ מאי האוס, עֵנד אי סעד “האי” טו מאי בעסט מעיטס, הו וְר ועיטיך אוטסאיד. וי וָוֹקד טוגעדְּר, העֵבּיך אְ ציְרי צעֵט אְבאוט דְּ קוֹמפיוטְר געים אי וְס וְרקיך וֹן אְרליְר.

“סוֹו ואטס דּעֵט קול געים גוֹנא בי אְבאוט, עי?” ואן וֹףּ דּעם אסקד.

“יףּ יו לְבּד מאריוֹו, יול לְבּ דּיס!” אי סעד.

“אָוֹסְם!!! קעֵנט ועיט טו סי יט!” ינסאיד מי דְּ פּאיאְר טו קִיף מי גוֹויך ביקעים סטרוֹכגְר.

וי וָוֹקד ינטו אְ בּיבּיד סאנסעט. אי רעמיניסד דְּ מעמְריס וֹףּ פאסט סאמְרס, פלעייך רעטרוֹו בּידיוֹו געימס ין דְּ קול שעיד, יבְּן דּוֹו דְּ סאן אוטסאיד פִיקד עֵט 42 דיגרִיס עֵנד מעלטְד עבּריתיך עלס.

YAHEA Keyboard Layout

To type YAHEA efficiently, I created a QWERTY-based keyboard layout containing all the letters needed.

The letters highlighted in green above are all accessed by pressing the Right Alt key on the keyboard.

Download links

Want to try YAHEA on your computer? Download the Windows, Linux, Android (Multiling O) and MacOS keyboard layouts here:

You can find more information on how to install keyboard layouts here.

Yet Another Hebrew English Alphabet יעט אְנאדְּר היברו יכגליש עֵלפְּבְט