Romanization of Hebrew

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The Hebrew language uses the Hebrew alphabet with optional vowel diacritics. The romanization of Hebrew is the use of the Latin alphabet to transliterate Hebrew words.

For example, the Hebrew name spelled יִשְׂרָאֵל‎ ("Israel") in the Hebrew alphabet can be romanized as Yisrael or Yiśrāʼēl in the Latin alphabet.

Romanization includes any use of the Latin alphabet to transliterate Hebrew words. Usually, it is to identify a Hebrew word in a non-Hebrew language that uses the Latin alphabet, such as German, Spanish, Turkish, and so on. Transliteration uses an alphabet to represent the letters and sounds of a word spelled in another alphabet, whereas transcription uses an alphabet to represent the sounds only. Romanization can refer to either.

To go the other way, that is from English to Hebrew, see Hebraization of English. Both Hebraization of English and Romanization of Hebrew are forms of transliteration. Where these are formalized these are known as "transliteration systems", and, where only some words, not all, are transliterated, this is known as "transliteration policy".