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Niqqud
[edit]Niqqud is the system of dots the help determine vowels and consanants. In Hebrew, all forms of niqqud are often omitted in writing, except for children's books, prayer books, foreign words, and words which would be ambiguous to pronounce.
Shin and sin
[edit]Shin and sin are represent by the same letter, ש, but are two separate phonemes. They are not mutually allophonic. When vowel diacritics are used, the two phonemes are differentiated with a shin-dot or sin-dot; the shin-dot is above the upper-right side of the letter, and sin-dot is above the upper-left side of the letter.
| Name | Symbol | IPA | Transliteration | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sin dot (left) | שׂ | /s/ | s | sour |
| Shin dot (right) | שׁ | /ʃ/ | sh | shop |
Dagesh
[edit]Historically, the consonants ב bet, ג gimel, ד dalet, כ kaf, פ pe and ת tav each had two sounds: one hard (plosive consonant), and one soft (fricative consonant), depending on the position of the letter and other factors. When vowel diacritics are used, the hard sounds are indicated by a central dot called dagesh (דגש), while the soft sounds lack a dagesh. In modern hebrew, however, the dagesh only changes the pronunciation of ב bet, כ kaf, פ pe, and ת tav (tav only changes in Ashkenazic pronunciation).
| Dagesh | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Without | With | ||||||
| Name | Symbol | IPA | Example | Name | Symbol | IPA | Example |
| Bet | ב | /b/ | bun | Vet | בּ | /v/ | van |
| Chaph | כ ך | /x/ | loch | Kaph | כּ ךּ | /k/ | kangaroo |
| Pei | פ | /p/ | pass | Fei | פּ | /f/ | find |
| Sav* | ת | /s/ | sorry | Tav | תּ | /t/ | talent |
* Only used in Ashkenazi prounciation. In Israeli Hebrew, it is always a tav, with a /t/ sound.
**Letters, gimmel (ג), and dalet (ד) also contain dagesh (dotted) forms. However, they are not used in Modern Hebrew.
Vowels
[edit]Israeli Hebrew has five vowel phonemes, /i e a o u/, but many more written symbols for them:
| Name | Symbol | Israeli Hebrew | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | Transliteration | English Example | ||
| Hiriq | 
|
/i/ | i | seek |
| Zeire | 
|
/e/ and /ei/ | e and ei | men |
| Segol | 
|
/e/, (/ei/ with succeeding yod) |
e, (ei with succeeding yod) |
men |
| Patach | 
|
/a/ | a | done |
| Kamatz | 
|
/a/, (or /o/) | a, (or o) | done |
| Holam | 
|
/o/ | o | cone |
| Shuruk | 
|
/u/ | u | cool |
| Kubutz | 
|
/u/ | u | cool |
Note Ⅰ: The letter "O" represents whatever Hebrew letter is used.
Note Ⅱ: The dagesh, mappiq, and shuruk are different, however, they look the same .
Note Ⅲ: The letter "ו" is used since it can only be represented by that letter.
Sh'va
[edit]By adding two vertical dots (called sh'va) underneth the letter, the vowel is made very short.
| Name | Symbol | Israeli Hebrew | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | Transliteration | English Example | ||
| Sh'va | 
|
/ə/ or /-/ | apostrophe, e, or nothing |
slient |
| Reduced Segol | 
|
/e/ | e | men |
| Reduced Patach | 
|
/a/ | a | done |
| Reduced Kamatz | 
|
/o/ | o | done |
Vowel comparsion table
[edit]| Vowel Comparsion Table | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vowel Length | IPA | Transliteration | English Example | ||
| Long | Short | Very Short | |||
| ָ | ַ | ֲ | /a/ | a | done |
| ֵ | ֶ | ֱ | /e/ | e | temp |
| וֹ | ָ | ֳ | /o/ | o | coke |
| וּ | ֻ | n/a | /u/ | u | tube |
| יִ | ִ | /i/ | i | ski | |
| Note Ⅰ: | By adding two vertical dots (sh'va) ְ the vowel is made very short. | ||||
| Note Ⅱ: | The short o and long a have the same niqqud. | ||||
| Note Ⅲ: | The short o is is usually promoted to a long o in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation | ||||
| Note Ⅳ: | The short u is is usually promoted to a long u in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation | ||||
Not used in Hebrew
[edit]| Symbol | Explanation |
|---|---|
| װ ױ ײ ײַ | These are intended for Yiddish. They are not used in Hebrew. See: Yiddish orthography. |
| בֿ | This niqqud is called Rafe (רפה) and is not used in Hebrew. It is still occasionally seen in Yiddish. In masoretic manuscripts, the soft fricative consonants are indicated by a small line on top of the letter. Its use has been largely discontinued in printed texts. |
Gershayim
[edit]The symbol ״ is called a gershayim and is a punctuation mark used in the Hebrew language to denote acronyms. It is written before the last letter in the acronym. Gershayim is also the name of a note of cantillation in the reading of the Torah, printed above the accented letter.
Loanwords
[edit]The sounds /tʃ, dʒ, ʒ/, written 'ז' , ג' , צ, are found in many loanwords that are part of the everyday Hebrew colloquial vocabulary, even among people who don't know the source languages. In addition, there are ways of writing some sounds in words that are truly foreign, not part of Israeli Hebrew:
| Everyday Colloquial Hebrew | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Symbol | IPA | Transliteration | Example | Letter |
| Jimel | ג' | /dʒ/ | j | jump | J |
| Zhayin | ז’ | /ʒ/ | varies | vision, Asia | see examples |
| Tshadi | צ’ | //tʃ/ | ch | channel | "ch" |
| Foreign Sounding Loanwords | |||||
| Dhal | ד’ | /ð/ | th | then | "th", Ḏāl (ذ) |
| Kha | ח’ | /χ/ | Arabic | Ḫāʼ (خ) | |
| Za | ט’ | /ðˁ/ | Arabic | Ẓāʼ (ظ) | |
| Ghayin | ע’ | /ʁ/ | Arabic | Ġayn (غ) | |
| Tshadi | צ’ | //dˁ/ | Arabic | Ḍād (ض) | |
| Thav | ת’ | /θ/ | th | thing | "th", Ṯāʼ (ث) |
Same pronunciation
[edit]In Israel's general population, many consonants have merged to the same pronunciation. They are:
| Letter | with | Letter(s) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| א alef |
with (varyingly) | ה hey | ||
| ב vet |
(without dagesh) with | ו vav | ||
| ח het |
with (without dagesh) | כ kaf | ||
| ט tet |
with | ת tav | ||
| כּ kaf |
(with dagesh) with | ק qof | ||
| ס samech |
with | שׂ sin (with left dot) | ||
| צ tzadi |
(varyingly) with the consonant cluster | תס tav-semech |
and | תשׂ tav-sin |