| Kubutz and shuruk | - | ||||||
| IPA | u | ||||||
| Transliteration | u | ||||||
| English example | moon | ||||||
| Same appearance as shuruk | Dagesh, Mappiq | ||||||
| Kubutz example | - | - | The word kubutz in Hebrew. The first vowel (under the letter Quf, the three diagonal dots) is the kubutz itself. | ||||
| Shuruk example | - | - | The word shuruk in Hebrew. Both letters vav with a dot in the middle are examples of shuruk. | ||||
| Other Niqqud | |||||||
The kubutz sign is represented by three diagonal dots "◌ֻ" underneath a letter.
The shuruk is the letter vav with a dot in the middle and to the left of it. The dot is identical to the grammatically different signs dagesh and mappiq, but in a fully vocalized text it is practically impossible to confuse them: shuruk itself is a vowel sign, so if the letter before the vav doesn't have its own vowel sign, then the vav with the dot is a shuruk and otherwise it is a vav with a dagesh or a mappiq. Furthermore, the mappiq only appears at the end of the word and only in the letter he in modern Hebrew and in the Bible it sometimes appears in aleph and only in some Bible manuscripts it appears in the letter vav, for example in the word Hebrew: rtl=yes|גֵּוּ ('torso') pronounced as /[ɡev]/.[1] Compare for example vav with dagesh in Hebrew: rtl=yes|מְגֻוָּן pronounced as /[məɡuvˈvan]/ 'varied' (without niqqud: Hebrew: rtl=yes|מגוון) as opposed to shuruk in Hebrew: rtl=yes|מִגּוּן pronounced as /[miɡˈɡun]/ 'protection' (without niqqud: Hebrew: rtl=yes|מיגון); see also orthographic variants of waw.
In older grammar books the kubbutz is called qibbûṣ pum etc. (Hebrew: rtl=yes|קִבּוּץ פּוּם), compression or contraction of the mouth. This was shortened to qibbûṣ (also transliterated as kibbutz etc.) but later all the names of vowel signs were changed to include their own sound in their first syllable.[2] This way kibutz changed to kubutz, and this is the common name today, although the name "kibutz" is still occasionally used, for example by the Academy of the Hebrew Language.[3]
Shuruk was earlier called shureq (Hebrew: rtl=yes|שׁוּרֶק), but this name is rarely used today.
For details on the sounds of Hebrew, see and Hebrew phonology
The shuruk is used to mark pronounced as /[u]/ at the last syllable of the word and in open syllables in the middle of the word:
Regardless of syllable type, shuruk is always written in foreign words and names if they weren't adapted to Hebrew word structure (mishkal):
Differently from all other niqqud signs, a shuruk can stand on its own in the beginning of the word and not after a consonant when it is the conjunction and. Hebrew one-letter words are written together with the next word and their pronunciation may change according to the first letters of that word. The basic vocalization of this conjunction is shva na (pronounced as /[və]/), but before the labial consonants bet, vav, mem and pe, and before any letter with shva (except yodh) it becomes a shuruk (pronounced as /[u]/). This is the consistent vocalization in the Bible[4] and in normative modern Hebrew, but in spoken modern Hebrew it is not consistently productive and the conjunction may simply remain in these cases. It is not reflected in writing without niqqud. Examples:
Kubutz is used only in native Hebrew words and in words with foreign roots that were adapted to Hebrew word structure (mishkal), for example Hebrew: rtl=y|מְפֻרְמָט ('formatted (disk)') pronounced as /[məfuʁˈmat]/ (without niqqud Hebrew: rtl=y|מפורמט). It is written in closed syllables which do not appear at the end of the word. A closed syllable is one which ends in a consonant with shva nakh (zero vowel) or in a consonant with dagesh khazak (essentially two identical consonants, the first of which has shva nakh).
Common noun patterns in which kubutz appears in the base form are:[5]
Common noun patterns in which kubutz appears in the declined form are:
The plural form of words which end in Hebrew: rtl=y|־וּת was in the past written with a kubutz in texts with niqqud: sg. Hebrew: rtl=y|חָנוּת ('shop'), pronounced as /[ħaˈnut]/, pl. Hebrew: rtl=y|חֲנֻיּוֹת pronounced as /[ħanujˈjot]/. In March 2009 the Academy decided to simplify the niqqud of such words by eliminating the dagesh in the letter yodh and changing the kubutz to shuruk: Hebrew: rtl=y|חֲנוּיוֹת.[9] This doesn't change the pronunciation, since in modern Hebrew the dagesh is not realized anyway. The spelling without niqqud is also unchanged: Hebrew: rtl=y|חנויות.
Kubutz is common in verbs in the passive binyanim pual and huf'al and in some conjugated forms of verbs whose roots' second and third letters are the same.
Verbs and participles in the passive binyan pual usually have a kubutz in the first letter of the root: Hebrew: rtl=y|כֻּנַּס ('was gathered') pronounced as /[kunˈnas]/, Hebrew: rtl=y|מקֻבָּל ('acceptable') pronounced as /[məkubˈbal]/, without niqqud: Hebrew: rtl=y|כונס, Hebrew: rtl=y|מקובל.
If the second letter of the root is one of the guttural consonants aleph, he, ayin and resh - but not heth -, the kubutz changes to holam haser in a process called tashlum dagesh (Hebrew: rtl=y|תשלום דגש): Hebrew: rtl=y|יְתֹאַר ('will be described') pronounced as /[yətoˈʔaʁ]/, Hebrew: rtl=y|מְדֹרָג ('graded') pronounced as /[mədoˈʁaɡ]/; without niqqud: Hebrew: rtl=y|יתואר, Hebrew: rtl=y|מדורג.
Kubutz is used in the prefixes of verbs and participles in the passive binyan Huf'al: Hebrew: rtl=y|הֻרְדַּם ('was put to sleep') pronounced as /[huʁˈdam]/, Hebrew: rtl=y|מֻסְדָּר ('organized') pronounced as /[musˈdaʁ]/. It is also correct to write words in this binyan with kamatz katan in the prefix: Hebrew: rtl=y|הָרְדַּם, Hebrew: rtl=y|מָסְדָּר (pronounced as /[hoʁˈdam]/, pronounced as /[mosˈdaʁ]/).[10] Without niqqud, in any case: Hebrew: rtl=y|הורדם, Hebrew: rtl=y|מוסדר.
The kubutz is used only if the prefix is a closed vowel, which is the majority of cases. With some root patterns, however, it becomes an open vowel, in which case a shuruk is written:
In many roots whose first letter is nun and in six roots whose first two letters are yodh and tsade, this letter is assimilated with the second letter of the root, which in turn takes a complementary dagesh. This makes the syllable of the prefix closed, so accordingly the prefix takes kubutz: Hebrew: rtl=y|הֻסַּע ('driven') pronounced as /[husˈsaʕ]/, root Hebrew: rtl=y|נסע; Hebrew: rtl=y|הֻצַּג ('presented') pronounced as /[hut͡sˈt͡saɡ]/, root Hebrew: rtl=y|יצג. Without niqqud: Hebrew: rtl=y|הוסע, Hebrew: rtl=y|הוצג.
Kubutz appears in some conjugated forms of verbs with roots whose second and third letter are the same (also called double stems and Hebrew: rtl=y|ע"ע). Most of them are rarely used.
Examples with verb Hebrew: rtl=y|סָבַב ('turn') pronounced as /[saˈ''vav'']/ in the future tense of binyan qal:
In the Bible shuruk and kubutz are not always used according to the above consistent rules and sometimes quite arbitrarily.[11] For example, in Jeremiah 2:19 appear the words: Hebrew: rtl=y|וּמְשֻׁבוֹתַיִךְ תּוֹכִחֻךְ ('and your backslidings shall reprove you', pronounced as /[uməʃuvoˈtajiχ toχiˈħuχ]/). Kubutz is used in both of them, even though in the first word the syllable is not closed and the vav is even a part of this word's root, and in the second word the pronounced as /[u]/ sound is in the last syllable. Contrariwise, a shuruk is used in closed syllables where a kubutz would be expected, for example in Genesis 2:25 - Hebrew: rtl=y|עֲרוּמִּים ('naked', pronounced as /[ʕarumˈmim]/, the plural of Hebrew: rtl=y|עָרֹם, pronounced as /[ʕaˈrom]/), instead of the more regular Hebrew: rtl=y|עֲרֻמִּים (in modern Hebrew without niqqud: Hebrew: rtl=y|ערומים).
The word Hebrew: rtl=y|נְאֻם (speech, pronounced as /[nəum]/) is written with kubutz in the Bible. It was previously frequently used to mark the signature on documents (e.g. Hebrew: rtl=y|נאם יוסף לוי - 'so says Yosef Levi'), but this usage is rare in modern Hebrew, where this word usually means "(a delivered) speech" and is regularly spelled with shuruk - Hebrew: rtl=y|נְאוּם. The name Hebrew: rtl=y|יְהוֹשֻׁעַ ('Joshua', pronounced as /[jəhoˈʃuaʕ]/) is spelled with kubutz in the Bible, but usually Hebrew: rtl=y|יְהוֹשׁוּעַ in modern Hebrew.
In the first decades of the revival of the Hebrew language it was common in spelling without niqqud not to write the vav in words which were written with kubutz. For example, in the printed works of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda the word מרבה may mean Hebrew: rtl=y|מְרֻבֶּה ('multiplied', pronounced as /[məʁubˈbe]/) and Hebrew: rtl=y|מַרְבֶּה ('multiplying', pronounced as /[maʁˈbe]/).[12] This practice disappeared in the middle of twentieth century and now Hebrew: rtl=y|מְרֻבֶּה is written Hebrew: rtl=y|מרובה and Hebrew: rtl=y|מַרְבֶּה is written Hebrew: rtl=y|מרבה.
In Biblical Hebrew both signs may have indicated the same sound and when the Bible manuscripts were vocalized kubutz was simply used where the letter vav was not written,[13] although other possibilities were proposed by researchers, most commonly that the vowels had different length (quantity), kubutz being shorter,[14] or that the signs indicated different sounds (quality), kubutz being more rounded,[15] although this is a matter of debate. It is also possible that Biblical Hebrew had several varieties of pronounced as /[u]/ sounds, which were not consistently represented in writing.[16]
Shuruk is usually a reflection of reconstructed Proto-Semitic long pronounced as //uː// (ū) sound, although most likely in the Bible kubutz stands for it when the letter vav is not written. Kubutz is one of the reflections of the short Proto-Semitic short pronounced as //u// (ŭ) sound. Kamatz katan is a variant of kubutz in the Bible, as they are found in complementary distribution in closely related morphological patterns.
In modern Hebrew, both signs indicate the phoneme pronounced as //u//, a close back rounded vowel. Its closest equivalent in English is the "oo" sound in tool. It is transliterated as a "u".
In modern Hebrew writing without niqqud the pronounced as //u// sound is always written as waw, in which case it is considered a mater lectionis.
The following table contains the pronunciation of the kubutz and shuruk in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet.
| Symbol | Name | Pronunciation | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Israeli | Ashkenazi | Sephardi | Yemenite | Tiberian | Reconstructed | |||
| Biblical | ||||||||
| Kubutz | pronounced as /[u]/ | ? | pronounced as /[u]/ | ? | pronounced as /[u, uː]/ | ? | pronounced as /[ʊ]/ | |
| Shuruk | pronounced as /[u]/ | pronounced as /[uː, iː]/ | pronounced as /[u]/ | pronounced as /[əw]/ | pronounced as /[uː]/ | ? | pronounced as /[uː]/ | |
These vowels lengths are not manifested in modern Hebrew. In addition, the short u is usually promoted to a long u in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation.
| Glyph | Unicode | Name | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ֻ | U+05BB | QUBUTS | |
| ּ | U+05BC | DAGESH, MAPIQ, OR SHURUQ |