Abstract
This document describes or points to requirements for the layout and presentation of text in languages that use the Hebrew script. The target audience is developers of Web standards and technologies, such as HTML, CSS, Mobile Web, Digital Publications, and Unicode, as well as implementers of web browsers, ebook readers, and other applications that need to render Hebrew text.
Status of This Document
This section describes the status of this
document at the time of its publication. A list of current W3C
publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found
in the W3C technical reports index at
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This document describes the basic requirements for Hebrew script layout and text support on the Web and in eBooks. These requirements provide information for Web technologies such as CSS, HTML and digital publications about how to support users of Hebrew script languages. The information here is developed in conjunction with a document that summarises gaps in support on the Web for Hebrew.
The editor's draft of this document is being developed by the Hebrew Layout Task Force, part of the W3C Internationalization Interest Group. It is published by the Internationalization Working Group. The end target for this document is a Working Group Note.
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Some links on this page point to repositories or pages to which information will be added over time. Initially, the link may produce no results, but as issues, tests, etc. are created they will show up.
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The aim of this document is to describe the basic requirements for Hebrew script layout and text support on the Web and in eBooks. These requirements provide information for Web technologies such as CSS, HTML and digital publications, and for application developers, about how to support users of the Hebrew script. The document currently focuses on texts using the Hebrew language.
This document is pointed to by a separate document, Hebrew Gap Analysis, which describes gaps in support for Hebrew on the Web, and prioritises and describes the impact of those gaps on the user.
Wherever an unsupported feature is indentified through the gap analysis process, the requirements for that feature need to be documented. The gap reports will typically point back to this document for more information.
As gaps in support for Hebrew are captured, the gaps can be brought to the attention of the relevant spec developer or the browser implementator community. The progress of such work is tracked in the Gap Analysis Pipeline.
This document should contain no reference to a particular technology. For example, it should not say "CSS does/doesn't do such and such", and it should not describe how a technology, such as CSS, should implement the requirements. It is technology agnostic, so that it will be evergreen, and it simply describes how the script works. The gap analysis document is the appropriate place for all kinds of technology-specific information.
To complement any content authored specifically for this document, the sections in the document also point to related, external information, tests, GitHub discussions, etc.
The document Language enablement index points to this document and others, and provides a central location for developers and implementers to find information related to various scripts.
The W3C also has a repository with discussion threads related to the Hebrew script, including requests from developers to the user community for information about how scripts/languages work, and a notification system that tracks issues in W3C working groups related to the Hebrew script. See a list of unresolved questions for Hebrew experts. Each section below points to related discussions. See also the repository home page.
The Hebrew script is essentially an abjad. This means that in normal use the script represents consonants but not all vowels. This approach is helped by the strong emphasis on consonant patterns in Semitic languages.
Note that the focus of this page is on everyday use for contemporary Israeli Hebrew, including educational materials, but not including biblical texts, prayer books, and the like. The latter tend to include additional characters, such as cantillation marks.
Hebrew text runs right-to-left in horizontal lines, but numbers and embedded Latin text are read left-to-right.
There is no case distinction. Words are separated by spaces.
The Modern Israeli Hebrew alphabet uses 22 letters, plus 5 word-final letters that have their own code points. Additional sounds can be represented using dagesh, shin/sin dots, or geresh.
Hebrew has 11 vowel diacritics in regular use to express vowel sounds (called niqqud or points), but rarely uses them in normal text. Hebrew readers are usually able to understand the pronunciation from the context and the regular structure of Hebrew words. These and other phonetic diacritics are written, however, where needed to clarify ambiguities or for educational purposes.
Vowel locations can be marked by 4 matres lectionis (consonants indicating vowel locations).
A spelling innovation introduced by modern Hebrew uses matres lectionis to spell certain short vowels that would not have been marked in older texts. Although the hiding of short vowel niqqud would generally qualify Hebrew as an abjad, this 'full spelling' approach makes it partially alphabetic.
In vowelled text, there is a diacritic to indicate the absence of a vowel in consonant clusters.
Modern Hebrew uses both European digits, and ASCII punctuation marks.
