Overview
ISO 259-2:1994 - Information and documentation - Transliteration of Hebrew characters into Latin characters - Part 2: Simplified transliteration - specifies a simplified, machine-friendly system for converting Hebrew script into Latin characters. Developed to ease bibliographic processing (catalogues, indices, citations), this Part simplifies the more stringent rules of ISO 259:1984 (Part 1) while retaining unambiguous conversion principles to support automated transmission and reconstitution of Hebrew graphisms.
Key topics and requirements
- Scope: A simplified transliteration (romanization) system for Hebrew to Latin characters intended primarily for bibliographic and indexing workflows.
- Character-by-character approach: Conversion is ideally performed character by character to support reversibility and machine processing.
- Levels of conversion: Distinguishes stringent (fully reversible), simplified (this standard), and popular (national/press) conversions; this Part defines the simplified level.
- Transliteration tables: Provides tables for consonants, vowels, non‑Hebrew phonemes and abbreviation symbols to standardize mapping.
- Use of digraphs/diacritics: When Latin letters are insufficient, digraphs or diacritical marks are used to preserve distinctions; diacritics follow ISO 5426 code-table references (Annex A).
- Abbreviation and punctuation rules: Specifies how Hebrew abbreviation symbols (single or double geresh/gereshayim, period) are rendered in Latin script.
- Retransliteration: Enables reconstitution of original Hebrew characters from the transliteration; simplified rules may accept limited national or machine‑driven variants.
- Limitations: Not designed to represent accurate pronunciation for readers of other languages - the goal is univocal graphism mapping, not phonetic transcription.
Applications and users
Who benefits:
- Librarians, cataloguers and archivists standardizing bibliographic records and authority files.
- Metadata specialists and data managers building searchable library/catalog databases.
- Indexers and publishers preparing citations and bibliographies that must interoperate internationally.
- Software developers implementing romanization modules, search indexing, and data interchange for library systems and digital humanities projects.
Practical uses:
- Consistent romanization for catalogue entries, authority control, and cross‑language indexing
- Machine-readable bibliographic conversion and automated reconstitution of original Hebrew text
- Standardized metadata interchange between institutions and countries
Related standards
- ISO 259:1984 (Part 1) - stringent/full transliteration rules for Hebrew
- ISO 5426 - code table referenced for diacritical signs
- Work of ISO/TC 46 / SC 2 (Conversion of written languages)
Keywords: ISO 259-2, Hebrew transliteration, simplified transliteration, romanization, bibliographic processing, Latin characters, ISO standard, diacritical marks, ISO 5426.
