![]() ![]() Several years ago, Israel's Mapping Authority had already requested that the Academy simplify its transcription system. Over time, according to Rom, the Roads Authority (formally established as an independent statutory body in 1993) and its predecessors have received numerous appeals from the public concerning misunderstandings, misspellings and inconsistencies in the transcription of Hebrew place names. "The prior system of transcribing Hebrew place names involved the Interior Ministry, the Tourism Ministry, the Ministry of the Environment and local committees and municipalities, and this has created heterogeneous solutions to the transcription problem," he said. "Israel is the only country in the world that has such large road signs, because of the legal requirement that they be in three languages - Hebrew, English and Arabic," said Beni Rom, the spokesperson for the National Roads Authority. Even this simplified version, however, was not simple enough for the authorities and the general public, and has triggered continual resistance and a range of unscientific solutions applied ad-hoc throughout the country. ![]() The Academy had already established a transcription system back in the 1950s, which included a simplified version for practical purposes such as transcribing place names on road signs. After the law was passed, the Israel National Roads Company and the Knesset Names Committee turned to the Academy of the Hebrew Language and requested it to come up with a new set of transcription rules for place names, which will oblige both the National Roads Company and the Mapping Authority. Even native Israelis speeding down the country's highways often slow down enough to raise an eyebrow or two at the seemingly idiosyncratic spelling of a given town's name.Ī new method for transcribing Hebrew, however, is soon to hit the road.Ī new law, passed in the Knesset in December of last year, authorized the Minister of Transportation to determine new rules for transcribing Hebrew place names, and decreed that these rules must be submitted for approval to the Knesset's Finance Committee by September 2006. Newcomers to Israel - especially English-speaking tourists and immigrants - are often struck both by what appears to many as a nonsensical way of spelling local place names in Latin characters and by the wide range of variations in the transcription of Hebrew names. How about just getting into your car and trying to figure out whether you are driving to Petah Tiqwa, Petah Tikva or Petach Tikva? Yet unlike many other truisms about Israel, this is one that does not require you to make aliya in order to smile knowingly while reading the previous sentence. Israel, as anyone will tell you, is a country where the only certainty is that uncertainty reigns supreme. NOTE! Consider delaying until first div on page If (slot) slot.addService(googletag.pubads()) (function (a, d, o, r, i, c, u, p, w, m) ![]()
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