Niqqud Explained

Niqqud

Other diacritics

Example

Gen. 1:9, "And God said,
Let the waters be collected".
Letters in black, niqqud in red,
cantillation in blue^[1]

Niqqud articles

In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud (or) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such 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 AD in the Land of Israel (see Masoretic Text, Tiberian Hebrew). Text written with niqqud is called ktiv menuqad.

Niqqud marks are small compared to the letters, so they can be added without retranscribing texts whose writers did not anticipate them.

In modern Israeli orthography, niqqud is mainly used in specialised texts such as dictionaries, poetry, or texts for children or new immigrants to Israel.^[2] For purposes of disambiguation, a system of spelling without niqqud, known in Hebrew as ktiv maleh (Hebrew: rtl=y|כְּתִיב מָלֵא, literally "full spelling") had developed before the introduction of niqqud. This was formally standardised in the Rules for Spelling without Niqqud (Hebrew: ltr=y|כְּלָלֵי הַכְּתִיב חֲסַר הַנִּקּוּד) enacted by the Academy of the Hebrew Language in 1996,^[3] and updated in 2017.^[4] Nevertheless, niqqud is still used occasionally in texts to prevent ambiguity and mispronunciation of specific words.

One reason for the lesser use of niqqud is that it no longer reflects the current pronunciation. In modern Hebrew, tzere is pronounced the same as segol, although they were distinct in Tiberian Hebrew, and pataḥ the same as qamatz. To the younger generation of native Hebrew speakers, these distinctions seem arbitrary and meaningless; on the other hand, Hebrew language purists have rejected out of hand the idea of changing the basics of niqqud and fitting them to the current pronunciation – with the result that in practice niqqud is increasingly going out of use.^[5]

According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann, the lack of niqqud in what he calls "Israeli" (Modern Hebrew) often results in "mispronunciations".^[6] For example, the Israeli lexical item Hebrew: rtl=y|מתאבנים is often pronounced as mitabním (literally "becoming fossilized (masculine plural)") instead of metaavním "appetizers", the latter deriving from Hebrew: rtl=y|תאבון teavón "appetite", the former deriving from Hebrew: rtl=y|אבן éven "stone".^[6] Another example is the toponym Hebrew: rtl=y|מעלה אדומים, which is often pronounced as maalé edomím instead of maalé adumím, the latter appearing in the Hebrew Bible (Joshua 15:7 and 18:17).^[6] The hypercorrect yotvetá is used instead of yotváta for the toponym Hebrew: rtl=y|יטבתה, mentioned in Deuteronomy 10:7.^[6] The surname of American actress Farrah Fawcett (Hebrew: rtl=y|פארה{{nbsp|1) is often pronounced fost instead of fóset by many Israelis.^[6]

Chart

This table uses the consonant letters , or , where appropriate, to demonstrate where the niqqud is placed in relation to the consonant it is pronounced after. Any other letters 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.

Note concerning IPA: the transcription symbols are linked to the articles about the sounds they represent. The diacritic ˘ (breve) indicates a short vowel; the triangular colon symbol ː indicates that the vowel is long.

Symbol

Common name

Alternative names

Type

Scientific name

Hebrew

IPA

Transliteration

Comments

Sh'va

sheva

Niqqud Explained

Chart

Keyboard

Microsoft Windows

Linux

macOS

See also

Bibliography

External links

Notes and References