Letters in black, pointing in red, cantillation in blue[1]
Hebrew orthography includes several types of diacritics:
- (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 alphabet;
- geresh, another diacritic that affects pronunciation (but isn't considered a part of niqqud) or indicates initialisms, and gershayim, which indicate acronyms (both geresh and gershayim are also used to denote Hebrew numerals);
- and cantillation, "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 of Tiberias in the second half of the first millennium in the Land of Israel (see Masoretic Text, Tiberian Hebrew).
Niqqud signs and cantillation marks are small compared to consonants, so they can be added without retranscribing texts whose writers did not anticipate them. Among those who do not speak Hebrew, vowel pointing is the sometimes unnamed focus of controversy regarding the interpretation of those written with the Tetragrammaton—written as יְהֹוָה in Hebrew. The interpretation affects discussion of the authentic ancient pronunciation of the name whose conventional English forms are "Jehovah" and "Yahweh".
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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/, /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 | ‒ |
| Tzeire |  |
U+05B5 | [ɛ] and [ɛi] | e and ei | men | 5 |  |
צֵירֵי or צֵירֶה | ‒ |
| Segol |  |
U+05B6 | [ɛ], ([ɛi] with succeeding yod) |
e, (ei with succeeding yod) |
men | 6 |  |
סֶגוֹל | ‒ |
| Patakh |  |
U+05B7 | [a] | a | far | 7 |  |
פַּתָּח | ‒ |
| Kamatz |  |
U+05B8 | [a], (or [ɔ]) | 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 | סׁ | U+05B9 | [ɔ] | o | bore | - |  |
חוֹלָם חָסֵר | ‒ |
| Holam Male or Vav Haluma | וֹ | U+05B9 | [ɔ] | o | bore | - | |
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 | [u] | u | cool | \ |  |
קֻבּוּץ | ‒ |
| 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 | ~ |  |
שְׁוָא | ‒ |
| Reduced Segol |  |
U+05B1 | [ɛ] | e | men | 1 |  |
חֲטַף סֶגוֹל | Hataf Segol |
| Reduced Patakh |  |
U+05B2 | [a] | a | far | 2 |  |
חֲטַף פַּתָּח | Hataf Patakh |
| Reduced Kamatz |  |
U+05B3 | [ɔ] | o | bore | 3 |  |
חֲטַף קָמָץ | 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 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[1] | IPA | Transliteration | 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.
Geresh
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 | usage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ג | [ɡ] | ג׳ | [dʒ] | slang and loanwords (phonologically native sounds) |
| ז | [z] | ז׳ | [ʒ] | |
| צ | [ts] | צ׳ | [tʃ] | |
| (non standard[2]) | ||||
| ו | [v] | ו׳[2] | [w] | |
| ד | [d] | ד׳ | [ð] | For transliteration of sounds in foreign languages (non-native sounds, i.e. sounds foreign to Hebrew phonology).[3] |
| ח | [ħ] | ח׳ | [χ][3] | |
| ס | [s] | ס׳ | [sˤ] | |
| ע | [ʕ] | ע׳ | [ɣ] | |
| ר | [r] | ר׳ | ||
| ת | [t] | ת׳ | [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 two successive letters ("״", e.g. כנ״ל) marks acronyms, alphabetic numerals, and, in order texts, transcriptions of foreign words. Placed above a letter ("֞", e.g.פְּרִ֞י) it is one of the cantillation marks.
Disputes among Protestant Christians
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 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.
See also
References
- ^ Cantillation
- ^ a b Vav with geresh, "ו׳", is non standard and its usage is therefore inconsistent: "Transliteration Rules". http://hebrew-academy.huji.ac.il/PDF/taatiq2007.pdf. issued by the Academy of the Hebrew Language states that both [v] and [w] be indistinguishably represented in Hebrew using the letter Vav. To pronounce foreign words and loanwords containing the sound [w], Hebrew readers must therefore rely on former knowledge and context, see also pronunciation of Hebrew Vav.
- ^ a b The sound [χ] represented by ח׳ is a native sound in Hebrew; the geresh is however used only to distinguish Arabic "خ" from "ح" when transcribing Arabic (in which context just ח—without geresh—represents "ح" / [ħ]), whereas in everyday usage ח without geresh is pronouced [ħ] only dialectically but [χ] commonly.
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 Language website.
Important: There is currently a serious bug affecting Hebrew diacritics in all Wikimedia projects. See Wikipedia:Niqqud for a discussion of the problem in English, and click the language link in the sidebar for an extensive analysis of the problem in Hebrew.
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