Gershayim is a punctuation mark used in the Hebrew language. It has three distinct uses:
- In the reading of the Torah, as a note of cantillation printed above the accented letter,
- To denote acronyms; for this purpose it is written between the second-last and last letters of the non-inflected form of the acronym[1], e.g. "report", singular: "דּוּ״חַ" (which stands for "דין וחשבון"); plural: "דּוּ״חוֹת"; or "squad commander", masculine: מ״כ (which stands for "מפקד כיתה"); feminine: "מַ״כִּית".
- (In the same typographical manner as when representing acronyms) to indicate that a sequence of letters represents a number rather than a word when a number is represented by two or more Hebrew numerals (e.g., 18 → ח״י).
In older texts it is sometimes used to denote the transliteration of a foreign word, and is placed between the last and the penultimate letter: this function corresponds to the use of italics.
Computer encoding
Since most keyboards do not have a gershayim key, often people will substitute a quotation mark.
| Appearance | Code Points | Name |
|---|---|---|
| ״ | U+05F4 | HEBREW PUNCTUATION GERSHAYIM |
| ֞ | U+059E | HEBREW ACCENT GERSHAYIM |
See also
References
- ^ "Hebrew Punctuation Academy of the Hebrew Language". http://hebrew-academy.huji.ac.il/decision5.html Hebrew Punctuation.
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