ISO 259-2:1994

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.