Gen. 1:9 And God said, "Let the waters be collected". Letters in black, niqqud in red, cantillation in blue
In Hebreworthography, niqqud or nikkud () is the system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of consonants of the Hebrew alphabet. Several systems for representing Hebrew vowels 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 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, niqqud are the sometimes unnamed focus of controversy regarding the interpretation of those written with the Tetragrammaton?written as ??????? in Hebrew. The interpretation affects discussion of the authentic ancient pronunciation of the name whose other conventional English forms are "Jehovah" and "Yahweh".
Below: Two vertical dots underneath the letter (called sh'va) make the vowel very short.
Sh'va
U+05B0
or
apostrophe, e, or nothing
silent
~
?
Reduced Segol
U+05B1
e
men
1
Hataf Segol
Reduced Patakh
U+05B2
a
far
2
Hataf Patakh
Reduced Kamatz
U+05B3
o
bore
3
Hataf Kamatz
Note ?: The symbol "O" represents whatever Hebrew letter is used. Note ?: The letter "?" is used since it can only be represented by that letter.. Note ?: 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 ?: The letter "?" is used since it can only be represented by that letter.
By adding two vertical dots (sh'va) the vowel is made very short.
Note ?:
The short o and long a have the same niqqud.
Note ?:
The short o is usually promoted to a long o in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation
Note ?:
The short u is usually promoted to a long u in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation
Long table
This table uses the consonants , or , where appropriate, to demonstrate where the niqqud is placed in relation to the consonant it is pronounced after. Any other consonants shown are actually part of the vowel. Note that there is some variation among different traditions in exactly how some vowel points are pronounced. The table below shows how most Israelis would pronounce them, but the classic Ashkenazi pronunciation, for example, differs in several respects.
This demonstration is known to work in Internet Explorer and Mozillabrowsers in at least some circumstances, but in most other Windows browsers the niqqud do not properly combine with the consonants. This is because, currently, the Windows text display engine does not combine the niqqud automatically. Except as noted, the vowel pointings should appear directly beneath the consonants and the accompanying "vowel letter" consonants for the m?lê (long) forms appear after.
In modern Hebrew, shva is pronounced either /e/ or Ø, regardless of its traditional classification as shva na? (???? ??) or shva na (???? ??), see following table for examples:
A patach on a letter ? at the end of a word is sounded before the letter, and not behind. Thus, ???? (Noah) is pronounced /no-ax/. This only occurs at the ends of words and only with patach and ?, ?, and ?? (that is, ? with a dot (mappiq) in it). This is sometimes called a patach g'nuvah, or "stolen" patach (more formally, "furtive patach"), since the sound "steals" an imaginary epenthetic consonant to make the extra syllable.
Usually promoted to Holam Malei in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation. The holam is written above the consonant on the left corner, or slightly to the left of (i.e., after) it at the top.
The shuruk is written after the main consonant, because it is essentially a vav with a piercing; the piercing is written identically to a dagesh (see below).
Though Standard Hebrew indicates doubled consonants in transliteration, such doubling (gemination)?but not consonant hardening?is almost universally ignored in Israeli Hebrew. For most consonants the dagesh is written within the consonant, near the middle if possible, but the exact position varies from letter to letter; some letters do not have an open area in the middle, and in these cases it is written usually beside the letter, as with yod. A dagesh used to signify a hardening (of letters ?), but not gemination is known as a dagesh qal, whereas that which geminates a letter is known as a dagesh hazaq. The guttural consonants (??) and resh () do not take a dagesh, although the letter he (?) may appear with a mappiq (which is written the same way as dagesh) at the end of a word to indicate that the letter is not only being used to signify a vowel, but is consonantal. See Dagesh.
Some linguistic evidence indicates that it was originally IPA , though poetry and acrostics show that it has been pronounced /s/ since quite ancient times).
Not used in Hebrew. Still occasionally seen in Yiddish (actually more often as the spelling becomes more standardized, embracing YIVO rules) to distinguish ?? /p/ from ?? /f/ (note that this letter is always pronounced when in the final position, with the exception of loanwords—??????—, foreign names—????????— and some slang—??????). Some ancient manuscripts have a dagesh or a rafe on nearly every letter. It is also used to indicate that a letter like ? or ? is silent. In the particularly strange case of the Ten Commandments, which have two different traditions for their Cantillations which many texts write together, there are cases of a single letter with both a dagesh and a rafe, if it is hard in one reading and soft in the other.
Niqqud, but not a vowel. Used as an "anti-dagesh", to show that a ?????? letter is soft and not hard, or (sometimes) that a consonant is single and not double, or that a letter like ? or ? is completely silent
Niqqud and the keyboard
For the Hebrew letters there is a standardized Hebrew keyboard. But when it comes to niqqud, different computer systems and programs provide for adding the signs in different ways.
Nevertheless, a standard is beginning to emerge in the keystrokes that enter niqqud in Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Word and Open Office alike. In these applications, to enter niqqud the typist first switches to a Hebrew layout, then presses "Caps Lock." Then, to enter any specific niqqud, one presses "shift" and simultaneously presses one of the following keys:
Niqqud input
Input
Key
Type
Result
~
Sh'va
1
Reduced Segol
2
Reduced Patach
3
Reduced Kamatz
4
Hiriq
5
Zeire
6
Segol
7
Patach
8
Kamatz
9
Sin dot (left)
0
Shin dot (right)
Holam
=
Dagesh or Mappiq
Shuruk
\
Kubutz
Note ?: The letter "O" represents whatever Hebrew letter is used. Note ?: For sin-dot and shin-dot, the letter "?" (sin/shin) is used since they can only be used with that letter.. Note ?: The dagesh, mappiq, and shuruk are different; however, they look the same and (hence) are input the same way (all 3 of them.) Note ?: For shuruk, the letter "?" (vav) is used since it can only be used with that letter.
Rules for writing without niqqud
In modern Israeli orthography niqqud is seldom used, except in specialised texts such as dictionaries, poetry, or texts for children or for new immigrants. For purposes of disambiguation, a system of spelling-without-niqqud, known in Hebrew as ktiv male (Hebrew: ???? ???), literally "full spelling" has developed. This was formally standardised in the Rules for Spelling without Niqqud (???? ????? ??? ??????) enacted by the Academy of the Hebrew Language in 1996.[1]
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.
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