This document discusses recovering the original Hebrew script from transcribed metadata by addressing sources of ambiguity from vowels, spelling variations, and lack of documentation standards. It proposes building a phonological cache to store matches between transcribed text and correct Hebrew to disambiguate words like "Abba" and "Ava" by reducing them to their sound patterns and looking them up in the cache. Future work could include opening an API, tools for catalogers, and applying these techniques to Yiddish texts.

1. Back to the Source: Recovering Original
(Hebrew) Script from Transcribed Metadata
a.christianson@ub.uni-frankfurt.de

2. Definitions:
●
Transcription: aims to represent the sounds of
source language in the target script.
●
Transliteration: aims to reproduce the details of
the source writing system in the target script.

3. BT YM XWLWN R)$WN L/CYWN
Hebrew Betacode:
1982 DIN:
Ba Yām ḤḤôlôn Rîšôn lĕ-ṢḤiyyônṯ
ALA / LC:
Bat Yam ḤḤolon Rishon le-Tsiyon

4. Sources of Ambiguity
vowels
Latin Letter Possible Hebrew
a -, ‫ה‬ ‫א‬,
e -, ‫י‬ ‫ה‬ ‫א‬, ,
i ‫י‬ - ‫א‬, ,
o ‫ו‬ ‫א‬ ‫ה‬, , , -
u ‫,ו‬ -

5. Sources of Ambiguity
Lack of adherence to modern
spelling norms in the source
1982 DIN hāyĕṯā
ALA / LC hayetah
Hebrew ‫הייתה‬ OR ‫היתה‬

6. Sources of Ambiguity
The documentation of the standards

7. Sources of Ambiguity
The applications of standards in the catalog

8. Shalom!
sh a l o m
‫ש‬ - ‫ל‬ ‫ו‬ ‫ם‬
‫א‬ -
‫א‬

9. Shalom!
‫שלום‬
‫שלם‬
‫שאלום‬
‫שאלם‬
‫שלאם‬
‫שאלאם‬

10. Shalom!
‫שלום‬
‫שלם‬
‫שאלום‬
‫שאלם‬
‫שלאם‬
‫שאלאם‬
Both real words
Fake news

11. Abbā
Data from the catalog:
‫אבא‬
Obvious meaning to a
human:
Translation: “Dad”

12. Abbā
Data from the catalog:
‫אבא‬
Obvious meaning to a
human:
‫אבה‬
Obvious meaning to a
cyborg:
Translation: “Dad”
Translation: “he wanted”
Sounds like: ava
(rare archaic word)

13. Abbā
Data from the catalog:
‫אבא‬
Obvious meaning to a
human:
‫אבה‬
Obvious meaning to a
cyborg:
Translation: “Dad”
Translation: “he wanted”
Sounds like: ava
(rare archaic word)
â
Should have
been:

14. Abbā
Data from the catalog:
‫אבא‬
Obvious meaning to a
human:
‫אבה‬
Obvious meaning to a
cyborg:
Translation: “Dad”
Translation: “he wanted”
Sounds like: ava
(rare archaic word)
‫טוב‬ ‫לא‬!!

15. How to make it work?

16. How to make it work?
Better question:
How does a human know the
difference between abba and ava?

17. Phonological caching!
Store:
1. match: abbâ = ‫אבא‬
2. reduce: abbâ → aba
Retrieve:
1. reduce: abbā → aba
2. lookup: aba = ‫אבא‬
Eurika!

18. How we build the cache:
●
Matching to correct Hebrew in other catalogs
●
Manual auditing
●
Generating data from vocalized Hebrew texts
(tenative – probably don’t need it.)

19. Future stuff
●
Open API
●
Cataloger tools?
●
Application of same tools and approach to
Yiddish
●
Context-aware ranking with maching learning?

20. a.christianson@ub.uni-frankfurt.de
(thunderous applause)