[Heb-NACO] Romanization of non-Hebrew proper nouns

Aaron Kuperman akup at loc.gov
Mon Nov 28 18:06:11 EST 2011 

Yossi,
	We are near retirement. However it would be nice if not only did our
institutions replace us when we retire (that may be too much to ask),
but that the professional of catalogers continues to exist. We are in the
business of producting metadata (to use 21st century slang), and if our
complex rules for romanization produce result that are from an end-users'
perspective inferior to what they can get from a search engine, there is
really no reason for libraries to have catalogers since we will be neither
faster nor better than the competition. When discussing cataloging rules,
I often feel I'm in the situation of someone 100 years ago discussing how
to make better horse-drawn carriages and not realizing that they should be
discussing how to make better vehicles even if they have horsepower rather
than actual horses. We need to make our metadata better (if not
cheaper) than the competition's, or we will be unemployed, sooner rather
than later.
	If an author does not include a romanized form of his/her/its name
in the item being cataloged, I believe we should change the rules to
require the cataloger to search the web for any indication of the author's
preferences (e.g. faculty lists, personal webpages including and
especially Facebook) and if that fails to check references sources (more
than we do now, including other author's romanized footnotes, publishers'
lists). All this probably can be done by a simple search engine
(e.g. Google) search on the authors names with perhaps additional words if
that search gets too much noise (a few keywords for the subject of the
book in hand should do). We need to base author Romanizations on the name
the author is likely to be known under, and which users will be looking
for. Only Judaica librarians know to look under LC-style romanizations.
	Any systematic Romanization is a problem. It is questionable if
any Israelis speak in the manner we romanize (how many Ashkenazim
distinguish Aleph and Ayin, for example). Our Yiddish Romanization is
worse (its based a YIVO's prescriptive rules that never reflected an
individual real world dialect, and doesn't reflects the demographic
changes in native Yiddish speakers due to World War II and the fact that
the southeast dialect produced a disproportionate number of
survivors). 
	We should be arguing against Romanization in general, and where it
is required (probably for author headings and the first few words of a
title to help people find material on the shelf) we should change the
rules to follow author preferences or reference sources (which reflect the
real world usage) whereever possible. 

Aaron

This IS NOT an official statement from LC. As far as I know, it is
considered either heresey or high treason, but what the heck, I'm near
retirement so I can speak freely.

On Mon, 28 Nov
2011, Galron, Joseph wrote:


> I don’t think that the Yod in îàøéå is a Hirik but a consonant. The Vav is the vowel (Holam) and it should be Maryo.
> 
> 
> PS – the whole discussion is only an “academic discussion” – We are not going to change now the Romanization rules. Are we?
> 
> If someone wants to change the rules – please till wait till I am 75, paid my mortgage and retire :)
> 
> Yossi
> 
> 
> From: heb-naco-bounces+galron.1=osu.edu at lists.service.ohio-state.edu [mailto:heb-naco-bounces+galron.1=osu.edu at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] On Behalf Of Jay Rovner
> Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 12:09 PM
> To: Hebrew Name Authority Funnel
> Subject: Re: [Heb-NACO] Romanization of non-Hebrew proper nouns
> 
> 
> >From the following Maher's Hebrew cataloging, p. 13), and from a more detailed source that I cannot locate, the vocalization should follow the vernacular pronunciation.
> 
> Non-Hebrew names
> 
> Supplying the vowels for non-Hebrew proper names appearing in Hebrew works can be quite problematic. Frequently there is some indication from either the author’s or the publisher’s romanization appearing in the item being cataloged. Occasionally however, there is no clue whatsoever. In those cases, an attempt is made to find the name or surname in English telephone books published in Israel or in other reference sources. Even though a "pure" AACR2 heading cannot be taken from the form found in a telephone book, the latter can be a useful aid in attempting to determine the correct vocalization. References may be made from the variants found. When it is impossible to determine the exact vocalization, it is up to the cataloger to make a judgment as to the likely vocalization and to refer from other reasonable possibilities. As above, if evidence is inconclusive, then such a heading is coded as provisional.
> 
> This would help with regard to names where a yod representing a romance language “e” would be Romanize as “e” instead of “i,”  as opposed to a straight romanization of hirik=“i.” However, the yod of îàøéå would need to be represented in the Romanization. Nonetheless, I think that the implied hirik with the resh would dictate a Romanization of that element as “ri” according to the above paragraph, i.e., a simple Romanization of “Maryo” would not be correct).
> 
> JR
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Jay Rovner, PhD
> 
> Manuscript Bibliographer
> 
> Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary
> 
> 5501 Library
> 
> 3080 Broadway
> 
> New York City, New York  10027
> 
> (212) 678-8045
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: heb-naco-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu<mailto:heb-naco-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu> [mailto:heb-naco-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu]<mailto:[mailto:heb-naco-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu]> On Behalf Of Aaron Kuperman
> Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 11:30 AM
> To: Hebrew Name Authority Funnel
> Subject: Re: [Heb-NACO] Romanization of non-Hebrew proper nouns
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps there is since the Hebraicized Yiddish name is a
> 
> "naturalized" Hebrew word, but the Hebraicized Italian name isn't. One
> 
> should ask how Israelis pronounce the name. There is some evidence that
> 
> Hebrew speakers with the name "Mario" pronounce it the way it is
> 
> pronounced in Italian and English
> 
> 
> 
> Which gets to historical question, should the purpose of romanization be
> 
> to facilitate access to the catalog by users, even if this requires
> 
> catalogers to do more research to find a form that users prefer. Our
> 
> competition (the "google" approach, which some argue should replace
> 
> our's) aims to enter authors under the names that the authors and users
> 
> prefer rather than an artificial construct devised by catalogers and
> 
> linguists.
> 
> 
> 
> Aaron
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, 28 Nov 2011, Biella, Joan wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > Is there a difference between saying that the Italian name "Mario" should be "romanized" as "Mario" rather than "Mariyo" and saying that the German name "Goldstein" should be "romanized" as "Goldstein" rather than "Goldshtain"?
> 
> >
> 
> > Joan
> 
> >
> 
> >
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> 
> > From: heb-naco-bounces+jbie=loc.gov at lists.service.ohio-state.edu<mailto:heb-naco-bounces+jbie=loc.gov at lists.service.ohio-state.edu> [mailto:heb-naco-bounces+jbie=loc.gov at lists.service.ohio-state.edu]<mailto:[mailto:heb-naco-bounces+jbie=loc.gov at lists.service.ohio-state.edu]> On Behalf Of Aaron Kuperman
> 
> > Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2011 7:31 PM
> 
> > To: Heb-naco at lists.service.ohio-state.edu<mailto:Heb-naco at lists.service.ohio-state.edu>
> 
> > Subject: [Heb-NACO] Romanization of non-Hebrew proper nouns
> 
> >
> 
> > A similar question to the issue for Breslev/Braslav is raised whenever we encounter a proper noun that is written in Hebrew without nekudot. I recall a recent argument over the Italian/English forename "Mario" which based on the internet is uniformly romanized, and I believe pronounced, by users of that forename the same way it is written in Italian and English
> 
> > -- yet according to current policy is romanized in catalog records as if it was a Hebrew word, leading to a romanization that it unrecognizable.
> 
> >
> 
> >
> 
> > Perhaps there should be a rule that non-Hebrew proper nouns should be romanized based on how users routinely romanize them, rather than trying to base a rule that applies Hebrew grammatical principles to non-Hebrew words.
> 
> >
> 
> > And yes, I am primarily a subject cataloger who believes access points should reflect user needs rather than cataloger convenience (though in some ways RDA is moving more in that direction, at least in theory, at least according to Barbara Tillet).
> 
> >
> 
> > Aaron Wolfe Kuperman
> 
> > Library of Congress, ABA USPL, Law Cataloging Section
> 
> >
> 
> >
> 
> >
> 
> > This is DEFINITELY NOT an official communication from the Library of Congress.
> 
> >
> 
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> 
> 
> Aaron Wolfe Kuperman
> 
> Library of Congress, ABA USPL, Law Cataloging Section
> 
> 
> 
> This is NOT an official communication from the Library of Congress.
> 
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Aaron Wolfe Kuperman
Library of Congress, ABA USPL, Law Cataloging Section

This is NOT an official communication from the Library of Congress.

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