Hebrew orthography includes three types of diacritics:
Several 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 in the Land of Israel (see Masoretic Text, Tiberian Hebrew).The Niqqud signs and cantillation marks developed by the Masoretes are small in size compared to consonants, so they could be added to the consonantal texts without retranscribing them.
See main article: article and Niqqud. In modern Israeli orthography, vowel and consonant pointing is seldom used, except in specialised texts such as dictionaries, poetry, or texts for children or for new immigrants. Israeli Hebrew has five vowel phonemes—pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/—but many more written symbols for them. Niqqud distinguish the following vowels and consonants; for more detail, see the main article.
| Name | Symbol | Unicode | Israeli Hebrew | Keyboard input | Hebrew | Alternate Names | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | Transliteration | English Example | Letter | Key | |||||
| Hiriq | U+05B4 | pronounced as /link/ | i | seek | 4 | Hebrew: חִירִיק | ‒ | ||
| Tzere | U+05B5 | pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /[ei̯]/ | e and ei | men | 5 | Hebrew: צֵירֵי or Hebrew: צֵירֶה | |||
| Segol | U+05B6 | pronounced as /link/, (pronounced as /[ei̯]/ with succeeding yod) | e, (ei with succeeding yod) | men | 6 | Hebrew: סֶגוֹל | |||
| Patach | U+05B7 | pronounced as /link/ | a | far | 7 | Hebrew: פַּתָּח | |||
| Kamatz | U+05B8 | pronounced as /link/ | a | far | 8 | Hebrew: קָמָץ | |||
| Kamatz Katan | U+05C7 | pronounced as /link/ | o | for | Hebrew: קָמָץ | ||||
| Sin dot (left) | U+05C2 | pronounced as /link/ | s | sour | 9 | Hebrew: שִׂי״ן | |||
| Shin dot (right) | U+05C1 | pronounced as /link/ | sh | shop | 0 | Hebrew: שִׁי״ן | |||
| Holam Haser | U+05B9 | pronounced as /link/ | o | bore | - | Hebrew: חוֹלָם חָסֵר | |||
| Holam Male or Vav Haluma | Hebrew: חוֹלָם מָלֵא | ||||||||
| Dagesh or Mappiq | U+05BC | N/A | N/A | N/A | = | Hebrew: דָּגֵשׁ or Hebrew: מַפִּיק | |||
| Shuruk | pronounced as /link/ | u | cool | Hebrew: שׁוּרוּק | |||||
| Kubutz | U+05BB | \ | Hebrew: קֻבּוּץ | ||||||
| Below: Two vertical dots underneath the letter (called sh'va) make the vowel very short. | |||||||||
| Shva | U+05B0 | pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /[-]/ | apostrophe, e, or nothing | silent | ~ | Hebrew: שְׁוָא | ‒ | ||
| Reduced Segol | U+05B1 | pronounced as /link/ | e | men | 1 | Hebrew: חֲטַף סֶגוֹל | Hataf Segol | ||
| Reduced Patach | U+05B2 | pronounced as /link/ | a | far | 2 | Hebrew: חֲטַף פַּתָּח | Hataf Patakh | ||
| Reduced Kamatz | U+05B3 | pronounced as /link/ | o | bore | 3 | Hebrew: חֲטַף קָמָץ | Hataf Kamatz | ||
| Vowel Comparison Table | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vowel length[1] | IPA | Transliteration | English example | |||||
| Long | Short | Very short | ||||||
| [3] | [2] | pronounced as /link/ | a | far | ||||
| [3] | [3] | [2] | pronounced as /link/ | o | cold | |||
| [4] | [4] | N/A | pronounced as /link/ | u | you | |||
| N/A | pronounced as /link/ | i | ski | |||||
| [2] | pronounced as /link/ | e | let | |||||
See main article: article and Meteg. Meteg is a vertical bar placed below a character next to the niqqud for various purposes, including marking vowel length and secondary stress. Its shape is identical to the cantillation mark sof pasuq.
See main article: article and Geresh. Geresh is a mark, that may be used as a diacritic, as a punctuation mark for initialisms, or as a marker of Hebrew numerals. It is also used in cantillation.
As a diacritic, the geresh is combined with the following consonants:
| letter | value | with geresh | value | English example | usage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pronounced as /[ɡ]/ | pronounced as /[dʒ]/ | age | slang and loanwords (phonologically native sounds) | ||
| pronounced as /[z]/ | pronounced as /[ʒ]/ | vision | |||
| pronounced as /[ts]/ | pronounced as /[tʃ]/ | change | |||
| (non standard[1]) | |||||
| pronounced as /[v]/ | pronounced as /[w]/ | quiet | |||
| pronounced as /[d]/ | pronounced as /[ð]/ | there | For transliteration of sounds in foreign languages (non-native sounds, i.e. sounds foreign to Hebrew phonology).[2] | ||
| pronounced as /[ħ]/ | pronounced as /[χ]/ | loch | |||
| pronounced as /[s]/ | pronounced as /[sˤ]/ | ||||
| pronounced as /[ʕ]/ | pronounced as /[ɣ]/ | ||||
| pronounced as /[r]/ | |||||
| pronounced as /[t]/ | pronounced as /[θ]/ | think | |||
See main article: article and Hebrew cantillation. Cantillation has a more limited use than vowel pointing, as it is only used for reciting the Tanakh, and is not found in children's books or dictionaries.
See main article: article and Gershayim. Gershayim between the penultimate and last letters ( e.g.) marks acronyms, alphabetic numerals, names of Hebrew letters, linguistic roots and, in older texts, transcriptions of foreign words. Placed above a letter ( e.g.) it is one of the cantillation marks.
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 II 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.
Torah scrolls in Jewish synagogues do not have any diacritical marks whatsoever, only the letters themselves. It is expected of anyone reading out-loud to know the correct intonations.