| Dagesh | |
| Script: | Hebrew alphabet |
| Type: | Abjad |
| Language: | Hebrew |
| Unicode: | U+05BC |
| Sisters: | Hebrew: [[Mappiq]], Hebrew: [[shuruk]] |
| Associates: | Hebrew: [[Bet (letter)|bet]], Hebrew: [[gimel]], Hebrew: [[dalet]], Hebrew: [[Kaph|kaf]], Hebrew: [[Pe (Semitic letter)|pe]], Hebrew: [[taw|tav]] |
The dagesh (Hebrew: דָּגֵשׁ dagésh) is a diacritic that is used in the Hebrew alphabet. It takes the form of a dot placed inside a consonant. A Hebrew: dagesh can either indicate a "hard" plosive version of the consonant (known as Hebrew: dagesh qal, literally 'light dot') or that the consonant is geminated (known as Hebrew: dagesh ḥazaq, literally 'hard dot'), although the latter is rarely used in Modern Hebrew.
The Hebrew: dagesh was added to Hebrew orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of Hebrew: [[niqqud]] (vowel points).
Two other diacritics with different functions, the Hebrew: [[mappiq]] and the Hebrew: [[shuruk]], are visually identical to the Hebrew: dagesh but are only used with vowel letters.
The Hebrew: dagesh and Hebrew: mappiq symbols are often omitted when writing Hebrew: niqqud (e.g. is written as). In these cases, Hebrew: dagesh may be added to help readers resolve the ambiguity.[1] The use or omission of such marks is usually consistent throughout any given context.
A Hebrew: dagesh kal or Hebrew: dagesh qal (Hebrew: דגש קל, or Hebrew: דגש קשיין, also Hebrew: dagesh lene, weak/light dagesh) may be placed inside the consonants Hebrew: bet, Hebrew: gimel, Hebrew: dalet, Hebrew: kaf, Hebrew: pe and Hebrew: tav. They each have two sounds, the original hard plosive sound (which originally contained no Hebrew: dagesh as it was the only pronunciation), and a soft fricative version produced as such for speech efficiency because of the position in which the mouth is left immediately after a vowel has been produced.
Prior to the Babylonian captivity, the soft sounds of these letters did not exist in Hebrew, but were later differentiated in Hebrew writing as a result of the Aramaic-influenced pronunciation of Hebrew. The Aramaic languages, including Jewish versions of Aramaic, have these same allophonic pronunciations of the letters.
The letters take on their hard sounds when they have no vowel sound before them, and take their soft sounds when a vowel immediately precedes them. In Biblical Hebrew this was the case within a word and also across word boundaries, though in Modern Hebrew there are no longer across word boundaries, since the soft and hard sounds are no longer allophones of each other, but regarded as distinct phonemes.
When vowel diacritics are used, the hard sounds are indicated by a central dot called Hebrew: dagesh, while the soft sounds lack the mark. In Modern Hebrew, however, the Hebrew: dagesh only changes the pronunciation of Hebrew: bet, Hebrew: kaf, and Hebrew: pe. Traditional Ashkenazic pronunciation also varies the pronunciation of Hebrew: tav, and some traditional Middle Eastern pronunciations carry alternate forms for Hebrew: dalet.
| With dagesh | Without dagesh | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Symbol | Name | Transliteration | IPA | Example in English | Symbol | Name | Transliteration | IPA | Example in English | |||
| align=center | Hebrew: bet | b | pronounced as /link/ | bun | align=center | Hebrew: vet | v | pronounced as /link/ | van | |||
| align=center | Hebrew: kaph | k | pronounced as /link/ | kangaroo | align=center | Hebrew: khaph | kh/ch/ḵ | pronounced as /link/ | loch | |||
| align=center | Hebrew: pe | p | pronounced as /link/ | pass | align=center | Hebrew: phe | f/ph | pronounced as /link/ | find | |||
In Ashkenazi pronunciation, Hebrew: tav without a Hebrew: dagesh is pronounced pronounced as /link/, while in other traditions it is assumed to have been pronounced pronounced as /link/ at the time Hebrew: [[niqqud]] was introduced. In Modern Hebrew, it is always pronounced pronounced as /link/.
The letters Hebrew: [[gimel]] and Hebrew: [[dalet]] may also contain a Hebrew: dagesh kal. This indicates an allophonic variation of the phonemes pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/, a variation which no longer exists in modern Hebrew pronunciation. The variations are believed to have been: pronounced as pronounced as /link/, as pronounced as /link/, as pronounced as /link/, and as pronounced as /link/. The Hebrew spoken by the Jews of Yemen (Yemenite Hebrew) still preserves unique phonemes for these letters with and without a dagesh.[2]
Among Modern Hebrew speakers, the pronunciation of some of the above letters has become the same as others:
| Letter | Pronounced like | Letter | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| align=center | Hebrew: vet | align=center | (without Hebrew: dagesh) like | align=center | Hebrew: vav | |
| align=center | Hebrew: khaf | align=center | (without Hebrew: dagesh) like | align=center | Hebrew: chet | |
| align=center | Hebrew: kaf | align=center | (with Hebrew: dagesh) like | align=center | Hebrew: qof | |
| align=center | Hebrew: tav | align=center | (with and without Hebrew: dagesh) like | align=center | Hebrew: tet |
Hebrew: Dagesh ḥazak or Hebrew: dagesh ḥazaq (Hebrew: דגש חזק,, i.e. 'gemination Hebrew: dagesh', or Hebrew: דגש כפלן, also 'Hebrew: dagesh forte') may be placed in almost any letter, indicating a gemination (doubling) of that consonant in the pronunciation of pre-modern Hebrew. This gemination is not adhered to in modern Hebrew and is only used in careful pronunciation, such as the reading of scripture in a synagogue service, recitation of biblical or traditional texts or on ceremonial occasions, and only by very precise readers.
The following letters, the gutturals, almost never have a Hebrew: dagesh: Hebrew: [[aleph]], Hebrew: [[he (letter)|he]], Hebrew: [[heth (letter)|chet]], Hebrew: [[ayin]], and Hebrew: [[resh]] . A few instances of Hebrew: resh with Hebrew: dagesh are recorded in the Masoretic Text, as well as a few cases of Hebrew: aleph with Hebrew: dagesh, such as in Leviticus 23:17.
The presence of a Hebrew: dagesh ḥazak or consonant-doubling in a word may be entirely morphological, or, as is often the case, is a lengthening to compensate for a deleted consonant. A Hebrew: dagesh ḥazak may be placed in letters for one of the following reasons:
In Masoretic manuscripts the opposite of a Hebrew: dagesh would be indicated by a Hebrew: [[rafe]], a small line on top of the letter. This is no longer found in Hebrew, but may still sometimes be seen in Yiddish and Ladino.
In computer typography there are two ways to use a Hebrew: dagesh with Hebrew text. The following examples give the Unicode and numeric character references:
U+05D1U+05BC or בּU+05DBU+05BC or כּU+05E4U+05BC or פּU+FB31 or בּU+FB3B or כּU+FB44 or פּSome fonts, character sets, encodings, and operating systems may support neither, one, or both methods.