My name in Hebrew, revised

A Jewish friend showed me a Website that listed Richard as being written this way in Hebrew:

רכרד

Hebrew, though, doesn’t have a “ch” sound, as in Richard, so the above would be pronounced “Rikard”. In Hebrew, they transliterate the “ch” sound by adding a short vertical dash after the Tsadi letter, which itself is pronounced “ts”.

Below, I’m told, is how Richard would be completely transliterated into Hebrew:

ריצ׳רד

Hebrew and my friend, Howard

I have a friend named Howard, who lives in Virginia. Like my friends Joel and Robert, Howard is the brother I never had. As self-deprecating as he is, he’s hilarious and someone I consider a spiritual mentor. If you’ve ever read my inspirational columns and think they’re great reads, chances are good I’ve bounced some ideas off of Howard. A few years ago Howard half-jokingly told me to brush up on Hebrew since it would be the official language of heaven. When Howard signed my yearbook in my senior year of college, he wrote: שלום

Shalom, in Hebrew, literally means “peace” and can be used as a greeting to say hello or goodbye. I knew almost nothing about Hebrew at the time and because of Howard’s handwriting (which is slightly better than mine), it took me almost an hour to look up the word in Strong’s Concordance!

As I learn the alphabet, memorize some vocabulary and begin the long, arduous process of learning pronunciation, verb conjugation and tenses and then grammar, I see just how fun my self-study will be (in the meantime I’m trying to brush up on the three languages I’ve studied [Spanish, Chinese and Russian] and even dabble a little into my great-grandfather’s language of German).

To you, Howard, I say:
שלום, אח

I also learned the Hebrew words for our vocations.

Mine: כותב
Or: סופר

As for Howard’s vocation when I knew him at college:
פאוה

These are presented above without the vowel points. I hope someday to be able to read Hebrew without them, since I know they’re considered training wheels. Happy reading, Howard!

Another cool phrase in Hebrew

שלום! שמי רכרד

This means: "Hello! My name is Richard."

Well, it's actually Richard in the sense of the Hebrew equivalent, which would be Rikard. English consonants like J and the consonant dipthong of Ch (as in Richard) don't exist in Hebrew except for odd modifications of Hebrew letters. Haven't figured that out yet.

Hebrew word...does anyone know what this is?

One of the things I like to do in what little spare time I have is try to teach myself Hebrew. Very slow process, indeed. Here's a word I came across recently. Can anyone guess what this means?

ברוז

(Two hints: I've already blogged about it and it's alive).