The Hebrew script consists of an alphabet, points and cantillation marks. Hebrew is written from right to left, just like Arabic, while English and most other languages which are written in the opposite direction. Numbers are written from left to right, and so are imbedded phrases in English and other left-to-right scripts. Hebrew software must therefor support both directions. The technical term for this feature is bidi, short for bidirectional.
Encoding Hebrew for computers has a long history, starting with IBM punched cards in the 1950's. In early times, Hebrew was used in visual order, that is the text was stored in the computer exactly as it was supposed to be printed or displayed. With computers becoming more powerful, in the 1990's progress was made in developing the algorithm necessary for using Hebrew stored in logical order, and this is now the standard. The standard includes bidirectional formatting codes which are used to assist the bidi algorithm in complex cases.
The following tables include the names and encoding of the Hebrew characters according to the following current standards:
"SI" stands for Israeli Standard.
The character names shown are the official English names of the Hebrew characters as adopted by the Standards Institution of Israel (SII), ISO and Unicode. Each cell contains the hexadecimal and decimal code.
Hebrew codes contain 27 letters, the 22 basic letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the 5 final forms.
Hebrew points (in Hebrew, Niqud) indicate vowels and other details affecting pronunciation. Their use is optional. The table also includes traditional Hebrew punctuation.
The points are only included in the newer character codes: ISO 10646, Unicode, and SI 1311-1.
The cantillation marks, also known as accents (in Hebrew, Teamim or Teamey Hamiqra) are used with biblical texts to indicate precise punctuation and the notes for reading the text in public.
The cantillation marks are included in Unicode 2.0, SI 1311-2 and proposed additions to ISO 10646.
Hebrew and Arabic are written from right to left, while numbers and other languages are written from left to right. Normally, the software can figure out the intended meaning of the text, but when it cannot bidirectional formatting codes are used.
© 1996 - 2000 Jonathan Rosenne. All rights reserved. Last modified October 22, 2000.
The latest version of this document resides at http://www.qsm.co.il/Hebrew/ab.htm
Please send your comments to Jonathan (Jony) Rosenne, rosenne@qsm.co.il