Hebrew diacritics
Encyclopedia
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
includes several types of diacritic
Diacritic
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
s:
- (Mainly) a set of mostly optional ancillary glyphs known as niqqud in Hebrew, which are used either to represent vowels or to distinguish between alternate pronunciations of several letters of the Hebrew alphabetHebrew alphabetThe Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, or more historically, the Assyrian script, is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two...
(the rafe sign is sometimes also listed as part of the niqqud system);
- gereshGereshGeresh is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings.#An apostrophe-like sign placed after a letter :...
and gershayimGershayimGershayim , also occasionally grashayim , names two distinct typographical marks in the Hebrew language. The name literally means "double geresh".-Punctuation mark:...
, two diacritics that are not considered a part of niqqud, each of which has several functions (e.g. to denote Hebrew numeralsHebrew numeralsThe system of Hebrew numerals is a quasi-decimal alphabetic numeral system using the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.In this system, there is no notation for zero, and the numeric values for individual letters are added together...
); - and cantillationCantillationCantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to complement the letters and vowel points...
, "accents" which show how Biblical passages should be chanted and which sometimes possess a punctuating function.
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
Masoretes
The Masoretes were groups of mostly Karaite scribes and scholars working between the 7th and 11th centuries, based primarily in present-day Israel in the cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem, as well as in Iraq...
of Tiberias in the second half of the first millennium in the Land of Israel
Land of Israel
The Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...
(see Masoretic Text
Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible and is regarded as Judaism's official version of the Tanakh. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and...
, Tiberian Hebrew
Tiberian Hebrew
Tiberian Hebrew is the extinct canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh and related documents in the Roman Empire. This traditional medieval pronunciation was committed to writing by Masoretic scholars based in the Jewish community of Tiberias , in the form of the Tiberian vocalization...
).
The Niqqud signs and cantillation marks developed by the Masoretes are small compared to consonants, so they could be added to the consonantal texts without retranscribing them.
Pointing (niqqud)
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/Close front unrounded vowel
The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ....
, /e/
Close-mid front unrounded vowel
The close-mid front unrounded vowel, or high-mid front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ....
, /a/, /o/, and /u/
Close back rounded vowel
The close back rounded vowel, or high back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is 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 Unicode Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems... |
|Israeli Hebrew | | Keyboard input | | Hebrew | | Alternate Names |
||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | IPA | | Transliteration Transliteration Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another... |
| English Example |
| Letter | | Key | ||||||||||||
| Hiriq | U+05B4 | [i] | i | seek | 4 | ‒ | ||||||||||
| Tzeire | U+05B5 | [ɛ] and [ɛi] | e and ei | men | 5 | ‒ | ||||||||||
| Segol | U+05B6 | [ɛ], ([ɛi] with succeeding yod Yodh Yodh is the tenth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Yud , Syriac and Arabic... ) |
e, (ei with succeeding yod) |
men | 6 | ‒ | ||||||||||
| Patakh | U+05B7 | [a] | a | far | 7 |  |
‒ | |||||||||
| Kamatz | U+05B8 | [a], (or [ɔ]) | a, (or o) | far | 8 |  |
‒ | |||||||||
| Sin dot (left) | U+05C2 | [s] | s | sour | 9 |  |
‒ | |||||||||
| Shin dot (right) |  |
U+05C1 | [ʃ] | sh | shop | 0 | ‒ | |||||||||
| Holam Haser | U+05B9 | [ɔ] | o | bore | - |  |
‒ | |||||||||
| Holam Male or Vav Haluma | וֹ | U+05B9 | [ɔ] | o | bore | - | |
‒ | ||||||||
| Dagesh or Mappiq; Shuruk or Vav Shruqa |
U+05BC | N/A | N/A | N/A | = | or | ‒ | |||||||||
| U+05BC | [u] | u | cool | ‒ | ||||||||||||
| Kubutz | U+05BB | [u] | u | cool | \ | ‒ | ||||||||||
| |Below: Two vertical dots underneath the letter (called sh'va) make the vowel very short. | ||||||||||||||||
| Sh'va | U+05B0 | [ɛ] or [-] | apostrophe, e, or nothing |
silent | ~ |  |
‒ | |||||||||
| Reduced Segol | U+05B1 | [ɛ] | e | men | 1 | Hataf Segol | ||||||||||
| Reduced Patakh | U+05B2 | [a] | a | far | 2 | Hataf Patakh | ||||||||||
| Reduced Kamatz | U+05B3 | [ɔ] | o | bore | 3 | Hataf Kamatz | ||||||||||
Note 1: The symbol "O" 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
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
character.
Note 4: The letter "ו" is used since it can only be represented by that letter.
Vowel comparison table
| Vowel Comparison Table | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vowel length Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in... [1] |
IPA | Transliteration Transliteration Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another... |
English example |
|||||
| Long | Short | Very short | ||||||
| [3] | [2] | [a] | a | far | ||||
| [4] | [3][4] | [2] | [ɔ] | o | dog | |||
| [5] | [5] | n/a | [u] | u | you | |||
| n/a | [i] | i | ski | |||||
| [2] | [ɛ] | e | let | |||||
Notes:
- [1] : These vowels lengths are not manifested in Modern Hebrew.
- [2] : Adding two vertical dots (sh'va) to the "short-vowel" diacritic produces the diacritic for "very short vowel" (Heb. חטף "hatáf").
- [3] : The short /o/ and long /a/ are represented by the same diacritic.
- [4] : The short o is usually promoted to a long o (holam male, vav with dot above) in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation.
- [5] : The short u is usually promoted to a long u (shuruk, vav with middle dot) in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation.
Meteg
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
Geresh is a mark, that may be used as a diacriticDiacritic
A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...
, as a punctuation mark for initialisms, or as a marker of Hebrew numerals
Hebrew numerals
The system of Hebrew numerals is a quasi-decimal alphabetic numeral system using the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.In this system, there is no notation for zero, and the numeric values for individual letters are added together...
. It is also used in cantillation.
As a diacritic, the geresh is combined with the following consonants:
| letter | value | with geresh | value | usage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [ɡ] | [dʒ] | slang Slang Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo... and loanwords (phonologically native sounds) |
||
| [z] | [ʒ] | |||
| [ts] | [tʃ] | |||
| > | >(non standard) | |||
| [v] | [w] | |||
| [d] | [ð] | For transliteration of sounds in foreign languages (non-native sounds, i.e. sounds foreign to Hebrew phonology Hebrew phonology This article is about the phonology of the Hebrew language based on the Israeli dialect. It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof, including geographical variants.... ). |
||
| [ħ] | [χ] | |||
| [s] | [sˤ] | |||
| [ʕ] | [ɣ] | |||
| [r] | ||||
| [t] | [θ] | |||
Cantillation
Cantillation has a more limited use than vowel pointing, as it is only used for reciting the Torah, and is not found in children's books or dictionaries.Gershayim
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.Disputes among Protestant Christians
ProtestantProtestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
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
Louis Cappel
Louis Cappel was a French Protestant churchman and scholar.-Life:Cappel, a Huguenot, was born at St Elier, near Sedan. He studied theology at the Academy of Sedan and the Academy of Saumur, and Arabic at the University of Oxford, where he spent two years...
, a French Huguenot
Huguenot
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
scholar at Saumur
Saumur
Saumur is a commune in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France.The historic town is located between the Loire and Thouet rivers, and is surrounded by the vineyards of Saumur itself, Chinon, Bourgueil, Coteaux du Layon, etc...
, 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
Johannes Buxtorf
Johannes Buxtorf was a celebrated Hebraist, member of a family of Orientalists; professor of Hebrew for thirty-nine years at Basel and was known by the title, "Master of the Rabbis". His massive tome, De Synagoga Judaica Johannes Buxtorf (December 25, 1564 – September 13, 1629) was a...
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
Helvetic Consensus
The Helvetic Consensus is a Swiss Reformed symbol drawn up in 1675 to guard against doctrines taught at the French Academy of Saumur, especially Amyraldism.-Origin:...
of the Swiss Reformed Church
Swiss Reformed Church
The Reformed branch of Protestantism in Switzerland was started in Zürich by Huldrych Zwingli and spread within a few years to Basel , Bern , St...
confirmed Buxtorf's view as orthodox and affirmed that the vowel points were inspired.
See also
- Arabic diacritics
- Q're perpetuum
- Hebrew alphabetHebrew alphabetThe Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, or more historically, the Assyrian script, is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two...
- Hebrew spellingHebrew spellingThere are several systems of Hebrew spelling that are used. 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 consonant, not vowels, nor syllables...
External links
- A free online course to learn the Hebrew Vowel System
- Rules for Spelling without Niqqud - a simplified version of the Rules, published on the Academy of the Hebrew LanguageAcademy of the Hebrew LanguageThe Academy of the Hebrew Language was established by the Israeli government in 1953 as the "supreme institution for scholarship on the Hebrew language."-History:...
website. for usage of Geresh in abbreviations; , , , for vowel signs; , , for Dagesh, Mappiq and Rafe; , for the cantillation signs and Maqqeph.