Niqqud: Difference between revisions

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	\|\| ''rɔfa''		\|\| ''rɔfa''
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	\|\| {{IPAblink\|◌̆}}
	\|\| ă, ĕ, ĭ, or ŭ		\|\| ă, ĕ, ĭ, or ŭ
	\|\| 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 ה or א is completely silent		\|\| 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 ה or א is completely silent

Revision as of 19:54, 1 March 2017

Niqqud

	ְ ֱ ֲ ֳ ִ
	ֵ ֶ ַ ָ ֹ
	ֻ ּ ֿ ׁ ׂ

Other diacritics

cantillation, geresh,
gershayim

Example

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

Niqqud articles

Shva · Hiriq · Zeire · Segol · Patach · Kamatz · Holam · Dagesh · Mappiq · Shuruk · Kubutz · Rafe · Sin/Shin Dot

In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikkud (Hebrew: נִקּוּד, Modern: nikud, Tiberian: niqqûḏ, "dotting, pointing" or Hebrew: נְקֻדּוֹת, Modern: nekudot, Tiberian: nəquddôṯ, "dots") 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 consonants, so they can be added without retranscribing texts whose writers did not anticipate them.

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 maleh (Template:Hebrew, literally "full spelling") has developed. This was formally standardised in the Rules for Spelling without Niqqud (Template:Hebrew) enacted by the Academy of the Hebrew Language in 1996.

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 also pataḥ makes the same sound as a 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.

Among those who do not speak Hebrew, niqqud are the sometimes unnamed focus of controversy regarding the interpretation of the name written with the Tetragrammaton—written as Template:Hebrew in Hebrew. The interpretation affects discussion of the authentic ancient pronunciation of the name whose other conventional English forms are "Jehovah" and "Yahweh".

Demonstration

This table uses the consonants Template:Hbrbet, Template:Hbrhet or Template:Hbrshin, 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 Mozilla browsers in at least some circumstances, but in most other Windows browsers the niqqud do not properly combine with the consonants. It works very well when "dir=rtl" is added in the HTML source. 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 mālê (long) forms appear after.

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

Type

Common name

Alternate names

Scientific name

Hebrew

IPA

Transliteration

Comments

Revision as of 19:54, 1 March 2017

Demonstration

Keyboard

Microsoft Windows

Linux

Macintosh

See also

Bibliography

External links

References