Transliteration of Semitic alef/hamza and ayin

[Peter Kirk]

On the Hebrew Computing list, 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hebrewcomputing/, there has been some 
discussion of which Unicode characters should be used for 
transliteration of the Hebrew letters alef and ayin. I think we have 
reached a consensus that the most suitable characters are 02BE and 02BF 
respectively, and that 02C0 and 02C1, described in the Unicode character 
charts as "typographical alternates" of 02BE and 02BF, are also 
possible. In what follows, I presume that 02BE and 02BF are preferred.

Currently the code charts include the following notes:

02BE ... transliteration of Arabic hamza (glottal stop)
02BF ... transliteration of Arabic ain (voiced pharyngeal fricative)
This is correct, of course, but incomplete. Several of us on the Hebrew 
Computing list would like to see these notes expanded to include mention 
of Hebrew. Arguably, they should be expanded further to cover other 
Semitic languages. I would like to propose first an expansion as 
follows, with perhaps further expansion to follow:

02BE ... transliteration of Arabic hamza and Hebrew alef (glottal stop)
02BF ... transliteration of Arabic ain and Hebrew ayin (voiced 
pharyngeal fricative)

Pointers should be added to the Hebrew letters to match the current 
pointers to Arabic letters.

--
Peter Kirk
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (work)
http://www.qaya.org/