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Zeire

 
Wikipedia: Zeire
Zeire
ֵ
IPA e
Transliteration e
English example bed
Same sound segol
Example
תֵּל
The word for mound in Hebrew, tel. The two dots is a zeire.
Other Niqqud
Shva · Hiriq · Zeire · Segol · Patach · Kamatz · Holam · Dagesh · Mappiq · Shuruk · Kubutz · Rafe · Sin/Shin Dot

Zeire (Hebrew: צֵירֵי‎, Tzeirei) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by two dots "ֵ" underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew, it indicates the phoneme /e/ which is the same as the "e" sound in sell and is transliterated as an "e". As well in modern Hebrew, a zeire makes the same sound as a segol.

Contents

Pronounciation

The following table contains the pronunciation and transliteration of the different zeires in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The pronunciation in IPA is above and the transliteration is below.

The letters Bet "ב" used in this table are only for demonstration. Any letter can be used.

Symbol Name Pronunciation
Israeli Ashkenazi Sephardi Yemenite Tiberian Reconstructed
Mishnaic Biblical
בֵ Zeire [e]  ?  ?  ? [eː]  ?  ?
בֵי, בֵה, בֵא Zeire Male [e]  ?  ?  ? [eː]  ?  ?

In addition, a letter with a zeire or segol with a succeeding yud often makes the "ei" (also spelled "ey") sound such as in they or tape.

Vowel Length comparison

By adding two vertical dots (sh'va) the vowel is made very short. However, these vowels lengths are not manifested in Modern Hebrew.

Vowel comparison table
Vowel Length IPA Transliteration English
example
Long Short Very Short
ֵ ֶ ֱ [e] e temp
Zeire Segol Reduced Segol

Unicode encoding

Glyph Unicode Name
ֵ U+05B5 TSERE

See also


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Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Zeire" Read more