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Niqqud

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Niqqud is the system of dots the help determine vowels and consanants. In Hebrew, all forms of niqqud are often omitted in writing, except for children's books, prayer books, foreign words, and words which would be ambiguous to pronounce.

Shin and sin

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Shin and sin are represent by the same letter, ש‎, but are two separate phonemes. They are not mutually allophonic. When vowel diacritics are used, the two phonemes are differentiated with a shin-dot or sin-dot; the shin-dot is above the upper-right side of the letter, and sin-dot is above the upper-left side of the letter.

Name Symbol IPA Transliteration Example
Sin dot (left) שׂ /s/ s sour
Shin dot (right) שׁ /ʃ/ sh shop

Dagesh

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Historically, the consonants בbet, גgimel, דdalet, כkaf, פpe and תtav each had two sounds: one hard (plosive consonant), and one soft (fricative consonant), depending on the position of the letter and other factors. When vowel diacritics are used, the hard sounds are indicated by a central dot called dagesh (דגש‎), while the soft sounds lack a dagesh. In modern hebrew, however, the dagesh only changes the pronunciation of בbet, כkaf, פpe, and תtav (tav only changes in Ashkenazic pronunciation).

Dagesh
Without With
Name Symbol IPA Example Name Symbol IPA Example
Bet ב /b/ bun Vet בּ /v/ van
Chaph כ ך /x/ loch Kaph כּ ךּ /k/ kangaroo
Pei פ /p/ pass Fei פּ /f/ find
Sav* ת /s/ sorry Tav תּ /t/ talent

* Only used in Ashkenazi prounciation. In Israeli Hebrew, it is always a tav, with a /t/ sound.
**Letters, gimmel (ג), and dalet (ד) also contain dagesh (dotted) forms. However, they are not used in Modern Hebrew.

Vowels

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Israeli Hebrew has five vowel phonemes, /i e a o u/, but many more written symbols for them:

Name Symbol Israeli Hebrew
IPA Transliteration English
Example
Hiriq /i/ i seek
Zeire /e/ and /ei/ e and ei men
Segol /e/, (/ei/ with
succeeding yod)
e, (ei with
succeeding yod)
men
Patach /a/ a done
Kamatz /a/, (or /o/) a, (or o) done
Holam /o/ o cone
Shuruk /u/ u cool
Kubutz /u/ u cool

Note Ⅰ: The letter "O" represents whatever Hebrew letter is used.
Note Ⅱ: The dagesh, mappiq, and shuruk are different, however, they look the same .
Note Ⅲ: The letter "ו" is used since it can only be represented by that letter.

Sh'va

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By adding two vertical dots (called sh'va) underneth the letter, the vowel is made very short.

Name Symbol Israeli Hebrew
IPA Transliteration English
Example
Sh'va /ə/ or /-/ apostrophe, e,
or nothing
slient
Reduced Segol /e/ e men
Reduced Patach /a/ a done
Reduced Kamatz /o/ o done

Vowel comparsion table

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Vowel Comparsion Table
Vowel Length IPA Transliteration English
Example
Long Short Very Short
ָ ַ ֲ /a/ a done
ֵ ֶ ֱ /e/ e temp
וֹ ָ ‎ֳ /o/ o coke
וּ ֻ n/a /u/ u tube
יִ ִ /i/ i ski
Note Ⅰ: By adding two vertical dots (sh'va) ְ
the vowel is made very short.
Note Ⅱ: The short o and long a have the same niqqud.
Note Ⅲ: The short o is is usually promoted to a long o
in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation
Note Ⅳ: The short u is is usually promoted to a long u
in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation

Not used in Hebrew

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Symbol Explanation
װ ױ ײ ײַ These are intended for Yiddish. They are not used in Hebrew. See: Yiddish orthography.
בֿ This niqqud is called Rafe (רפה‎) and is not used in Hebrew. It is still occasionally seen in Yiddish. In masoretic manuscripts, the soft fricative consonants are indicated by a small line on top of the letter. Its use has been largely discontinued in printed texts.

Gershayim

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The symbol ״‎ is called a gershayim and is a punctuation mark used in the Hebrew language to denote acronyms. It is written before the last letter in the acronym. Gershayim is also the name of a note of cantillation in the reading of the Torah, printed above the accented letter.

Loanwords

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The sounds /tʃ, dʒ, ʒ/, written 'ז' , ג' , צ, are found in many loanwords that are part of the everyday Hebrew colloquial vocabulary, even among people who don't know the source languages. In addition, there are ways of writing some sounds in words that are truly foreign, not part of Israeli Hebrew:

Everyday Colloquial Hebrew
Name Symbol IPA Transliteration Example Letter
Jimel ג' /dʒ/ j jump J
Zhayin ז’ /ʒ/ varies vision, Asia see examples
Tshadi צ’ //tʃ/ ch channel "ch"
Foreign Sounding Loanwords
Dhal ד’ /ð/ th then "th", Ḏāl (ذ)
Kha ח’ /χ/ Arabic Ḫāʼ (خ)
Za ט’ /ðˁ/ Arabic Ẓāʼ (ظ)
Ghayin ע’ /ʁ/ Arabic Ġayn (غ)
Tshadi צ’ //dˁ/ Arabic Ḍād (ض)
Thav ת’ /θ/ th thing "th", Ṯāʼ (ث)

Same pronunciation

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In Israel's general population, many consonants have merged to the same pronunciation. They are:

Letter with Letter(s)
א
alef
with (varyingly) ה
hey
ב
vet
(without dagesh) with ו
vav
ח
het
with (without dagesh) כ
kaf
ט
tet
with ת
tav
כּ
kaf
(with dagesh) with ק
qof
ס
samech
with שׂ
sin (with left dot)
צ
tzadi
(varyingly) with the consonant cluster תס
tav-semech
and תשׂ
tav-sin

See also

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