As you can imagine, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek utilize sounds that are not quite present in English and vice-versa. The table below will give you an idea of how the provided transliterations should work.

For Aramaic and Hebrew:

• ‘ = Represents a pause between vowels or a shwa (like the U in “up”) between letters.
• a = A as in “hat” (or A as in “father” in Galilean)
• â = A as in “father”
• b = B as in “boy”
• b or v = V as in “vet”
• g = G as in “go”
• g = A “gh” sound, like a G voiced in the back of the throat.
• d = D as in “dog”
• d = TH as in “this” or “that”
• h = H as in “home”
• w = W as in “win”
• o = O as in “oval”
• u = OO as in “too”
• z = Z as in “zed”
• h = CH as in the German “Bach” or Scottish “Loch”
• t = A hard T or a cross between t and h.
• y = Y as in “yes”
• i = EE as in “three”
• e = AY as in “hay”
• k = K as in “king”
• k = Like h but softer.
• l = L as in “lip”
• m = M as in “mom”
• n = N as in “now”
• s = S as in “so”
• ` = Represents a stronger shwa in the back of the throat.
• p = P as in “pot”
• p or f = F as in “fish”
• ç = TS as in “pots”
• q = A hard “K” in the back of the throat.
• r = R as in “rip”
• sh = SH as in “sheet”
• t = T as in “too”
• th = TH as in “three”

Examples:

• Malkutha d-Elaha = “mal-koo-tha de-eh-la-ha”
• Shlam lak = “shlahm lakh”