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Hebrew orthography includes three types of diacritics:
Several diacritical systems were developed in the Early Middle Ages. The most widespread system, and the only one still used to a significant degree today, was created by the Masoretes of Tiberias in the second half of the first millennium in the Land of Israel (see Masoretic Text, Tiberian Hebrew). The Niqqud signs and cantillation marks developed by the Masoretes are small in size compared to consonants, so they could be added to the consonantal texts without retranscribing them.
In modern Israeli orthography, vowel and consonant pointing is seldom used, except in specialised texts such as dictionaries, poetry, or texts for children or for new immigrants. Israeli Hebrew has five vowel phonemes—/i/, /e/, /a/, /o/ and /u/—but many more written symbols for them. Niqqud distinguish the following vowels and consonants; for more detail, see the main article.
Name | Symbol | Unicode | Israeli Hebrew | Keyboard input | Hebrew | Alternate Names | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
IPA | Transliteration | English Example | Letter | Key | |||||
Hiriq | ![]() | U+05B4 | [ i ] | i | seek | 4 | חִירִיק | ‒ | |
Tzere | ![]() | U+05B5 | [ e̞ ] and [ei̯] | e and ei | men | 5 | צֵירֵי or צֵירֶה | ||
Segol | ![]() | U+05B6 | [ e̞ ], ([ei̯] with succeeding yod) | e, (ei with succeeding yod) | men | 6 | סֶגוֹל | ||
Patach | ![]() | U+05B7 | [ ä ] | a | far | 7 | פַּתָּח | ||
Kamatz | ![]() | U+05B8 | [ ä ], (or [ o̞ ]) | a, (or o) | far | 8 | קָמָץ | ||
Sin dot (left) | ![]() | U+05C2 | [ s ] | s | sour | 9 | שִׂי״ן | ||
Shin dot (right) | ![]() | U+05C1 | [ ʃ ] | sh | shop | 0 | שִׁי״ן | ||
Holam Haser | ![]() | U+05B9 | [ o̞ ] | o | bore | - | | חוֹלָם חָסֵר | |
Holam Male or Vav Haluma | וֹ | U+05B9 | חוֹלָם מָלֵא | ||||||
Dagesh or Mappiq ; Shuruk or Vav Shruqa | ![]() | U+05BC | N/A | N/A | N/A | = | דָּגֵשׁ or מַפִּיק | ||
![]() | U+05BC | [ u ] | u | cool | שׁוּרוּק | ||||
Kubutz | ![]() | U+05BB | \ | קֻבּוּץ | |||||
Below: Two vertical dots underneath the letter (called sh'va ) make the vowel very short. | |||||||||
Shva | ![]() | U+05B0 | [ e̞ ] or [-] | apostrophe, e, or nothing | silent | ~ | | שְׁוָא | ‒ |
Reduced Segol | ![]() | U+05B1 | [ e̞ ] | e | men | 1 | חֲטַף סֶגוֹל | Hataf Segol | |
Reduced Patach | ![]() | U+05B2 | [ ä ] | a | far | 2 | חֲטַף פַּתָּח | Hataf Patakh | |
Reduced Kamatz | ![]() | U+05B3 | [ o̞ ] | o | bore | 3 | חֲטַף קָמָץ | Hataf Kamatz | |
Note 1: The symbol "ס" represents whatever Hebrew letter is used.
Note 2: The letter " ש " is used since it can only be represented by that letter.
Note 3: The dagesh , mappiq , and shuruk are different, however, they look the same and are inputted in the same manner. Also, they are represented by the same Unicode character.
Note 4: The letter " ו " is used since it can only be represented by that letter.
Vowel Comparison Table | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vowel length [1] | IPA | Transliteration | English example | |||||
Long | Short | Very short | ||||||
[3] | [2] | [ ä ] | a | far | ||||
[4] | [3][4] | [2] | [ o̞ ] | o | cold | |||
[5] | [5] | N/A | [ u ] | u | you | |||
N/A | [ i ] | i | ski | |||||
[2] | [ e̞ ] | e | let |
Notes:
Meteg is a vertical bar placed below a character next to the niqqud for various purposes, including marking vowel length and secondary stress. Its shape is identical to the cantillation mark sof pasuq.
Geresh is a mark, ⟨׳⟩ that may be used as a diacritic, as a punctuation mark for initialisms, or as a marker of Hebrew numerals. It is also used in cantillation.
As a diacritic, the geresh is combined with the following consonants:
letter | value | with geresh | value | English example | usage |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
ג | [ɡ] | ג׳ | [dʒ] | age | slang and loanwords (phonologically native sounds) |
ז | [z] | ז׳ | [ʒ] | vision | |
צ | [ts] | צ׳ | [tʃ] | change | |
(non standard [2] ) | |||||
ו | [v] | ו׳ [2] | [w] | quiet | |
ד | [d] | ד׳ | [ð] | there | For transliteration of sounds in foreign languages (non-native sounds, i.e. sounds foreign to Hebrew phonology). [3] |
ח | [ħ] | ח׳ | [χ] [3] | loch | |
ס | [s] | ס׳ | [sˤ] | ||
ע | [ʕ] | ע׳ | [ɣ] | ||
ר | [r] | ר׳ | |||
ת | [t] | ת׳ | [θ] | think |
Cantillation has a more limited use than vowel pointing, as it is only used for reciting the Tanakh, and is not found in children's books or dictionaries.
Gershayim between the penultimate and last letters ( ״ e.g. פזצט״א) marks acronyms, alphabetic numerals, names of Hebrew letters, linguistic roots and, in older texts, transcriptions of foreign words. Placed above a letter (◌֞ e.g. פְּרִ֞י) it is one of the cantillation marks.
Protestant literalists who believe that the Hebrew text of the Old Testament is the inspired Word of God are divided on the question of whether or not the vowel points should be considered an inspired part of the Old Testament. In 1624, Louis Cappel, a French Huguenot scholar at Saumur, published a work in which he concluded that the vowel points were a later addition to the biblical text and that the vowel points were added not earlier than the fifth century AD. This assertion was hotly contested by Swiss theologian Johannes Buxtorf II in 1648. Brian Walton's 1657 polyglot bible followed Cappel in revising the vowel points. In 1675, the 2nd and 3rd canons of the so-called Helvetic Consensus of the Swiss Reformed Church confirmed Buxtorf's view as orthodox and affirmed that the vowel points were inspired.[ citation needed ]
Torah scrolls in Jewish synagogues do not have any diacritical marks whatsoever, only the letters themselves. It is expected of anyone reading out-loud to know the correct intonations.
The Hebrew alphabet, known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is traditionally an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian. In modern Hebrew, vowels are increasingly introduced. It is also used informally in Israel to write Levantine Arabic, especially among Druze. It is an offshoot of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, which flourished during the Achaemenid Empire and which itself derives from the Phoenician alphabet.
Matres lectionis are consonants that are used to indicate a vowel, primarily in the writing of Semitic languages such as Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac. The letters that do this in Hebrew are alephא, heה, vavו and yodי, and in Arabic, the matres lectionis are ʾalifا, wāwو and yāʾي. The 'yod and waw in particular are more often vowels than they are consonants.
The mappiq is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It is part of the Masoretes' system of niqqud, and was added to Hebrew orthography at the same time. It takes the form of a dot in the middle of a letter. An identical point with a different phonetic function is called a dagesh.
The dagesh is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud. It takes the form of a dot placed inside a Hebrew letter and has the effect of modifying the sound in one of two ways.
In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in the Early Middle Ages. The most widespread system, and the only one still used to a significant degree today, was created by the Masoretes of Tiberias in the second half of the first millennium AD in the Land of Israel. Text written with niqqud is called ktiv menuqad.
The Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian pointing, or Tiberian niqqud is a system of diacritics (niqqud) devised by the Masoretes of Tiberias to add to the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible to produce the Masoretic Text. The system soon became used to vocalize other Hebrew texts, as well.
Waw is the sixth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician wāw 𐤅, Aramaic waw 𐡅, Hebrew vav ו, Syriac waw ܘ and Arabic wāw و.
The Hebrew language uses the Hebrew alphabet with optional vowel diacritics. The romanization of Hebrew is the use of the Latin alphabet to transliterate Hebrew words.
Aleph is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ʾālep 𐤀, Hebrew ʾālef א, Aramaic ʾālap 𐡀, Syriac ʾālap̄ ܐ, Arabic ʾalif ا, and North Arabian 𐪑. It also appears as South Arabian 𐩱 and Ge'ez ʾälef አ.
The Hebrew diacritic U+05BCּHEBREW POINT DAGESH OR MAPIQ can represent:
A Hebrew keyboard comes in two different keyboard layouts. Most Hebrew keyboards are bilingual, with Latin characters, usually in a US Qwerty layout. Trilingual keyboard options also exist, with the third script being Arabic or Russian, due to the sizable Arabic- and Russian-speaking populations in Israel.
Shva or, in Biblical Hebrew, shĕwa is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign written as two vertical dots beneath a letter. It indicates either the phoneme or the complete absence of a vowel (/Ø/).
Geresh is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings.
Pataḥ is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a horizontal line ⟨ אַ ⟩ underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew, it indicates the phoneme which is close to the "[a]" sound in the English word far and is transliterated as an a.
Kamatz or qamatz is a Hebrew niqqud (vowel) sign represented by two perpendicular lines ⟨ ָ ⟩ underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew, it usually indicates the phoneme which is the "a" sound in the word spa and is transliterated as a . In these cases, its sound is identical to the sound of pataḥ in modern Hebrew. In a minority of cases it indicates the phoneme, equal to the sound of ḥolam. In traditional Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation, qamatz is pronounced as the phoneme, which becomes in some contexts in southern Ashkenazi dialects.
In Hebrew orthography the rafe or raphe is a diacritic, a subtle horizontal overbar placed above certain letters to indicate that they are to be pronounced as fricatives.
Kubutz or qubbutz and shuruk are two Hebrew niqqud vowel signs that represent the sound. In an alternative, Ashkenazi naming, the kubutz is called "shuruk" and shuruk is called "melopum".
Hebrew spelling refers to the way words are spelled in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters, all of which are primarily consonants. This is because the Hebrew script is an abjad, that is, its letters indicate consonants, not vowels or syllables. An early system to overcome this, still used today, is matres lectionis, where four of these letters, alef, he, waw and yodh also serve as vowel letters. Later, a system of vowel points to indicate vowels, called niqqud, was developed.
Begadkefat is the name given to a phenomenon of lenition affecting the non-emphatic stop consonants of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic when they are preceded by a vowel and not geminated. The name is also given to similar cases of spirantization of post-vocalic plosives in other languages; for instance, in the Berber language of Djerba. Celtic languages have a similar system.
The Babylonian vocalization, also known as Babylonian supralinear punctuation, or Babylonian pointing or Babylonian niqqud Hebrew: נִקּוּד בָּבְלִי) is a system of diacritics (niqqud) and vowel symbols assigned above the text and devised by the Masoretes of Babylon to add to the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible to indicate the proper pronunciation of words, reflecting the Hebrew of Babylon. The Babylonian notation is no longer in use in any Jewish community, having been supplanted by the sublinear Tiberian vocalization. However, the Babylonian pronunciation as reflected in that notation appears to be the ancestor of that used by Yemenite Jews.