Jill Suzanne Jacobs - Hebrew For Dummies

Originally, Hebrew had no vowels. Vowels, in the form of dots and lines below the consonants, were added to Hebrew writing in the seventh century CE. Before then, people read without vowels. Even today, most books, magazines, and newspapers in Modern Hebrew — not to mention the Torah scroll — are written without vowels.

Modern Hebrew has both long and short vowels. As a general rule, a long vowel can make up one syllable, but a short vowel needs either another vowel or a שָׁוְא (shuh- vah; two vertical dots below a consonant ) to form a syllable. For more on the שָׁוְא, see “ Introducing the Shvah” later in this chapter.

As I mentioned earlier, vowels are divided into long and short vowels. This categorization doesn’t have to do with their pronunciation but with the fact that long vowels are usually in open syllables — syllables that end with a vowel — and short vowels are usually in closed syllables — syllables that end with a consonant. The long vowel חִירִיק מָלֵא(Chirik Maleh), however, holds its sound longer than the corresponding short vowel חָרִיק חַסֵּר(hirek haser). Table 1-6shows the long vowels.

TABLE 1-6The Long Vowels

Note: In this table, I used the letter א( aleph ) so you could see how the vowels look when they’re attached to a consanant. (The vowels are the little squiggles and dots around the א.) Unlike in English, Hebrew vowels can never be written alone; they’re always attached to a consonant.

Table 1-7shows the short vowels.

TABLE 1-7The Short Vowels

Note: In this table, I used the letter א( aleph ) so you could see how the vowels look when they’re attached to a consanant. (The vowels are the little squiggles and dots around the א.)

Sometimes, the Kamatz Patah, Kamatz Katan, or the Segol is paired with a Shvah . This pairing doesn’t change the pronunciation.

The Kamatz Katan looks identical to the Kamatz . If you see something that looks like a Kamatz at the beginning of a word followed by a Shvah or between two Shvah, it's probably a Kamatz Katan and should be pronounced O.

The Shvah looks like a colon (:), and you find it below letters. Hebrew actually has three types of Shvahs (but they all look the same):

Shvah Na (sh vah nah ), which opens a syllable

Shvah Nach (sh vah nah ḥ ), which closes a syllable

Shvah Merahef (sh vah mehr-rah- ḥehf ), known as the flying shvah , which results from two Shvah Nas being next to each other in a word

The Shvahs don’t make their own sound but are essentially placeholders for the consonant above them. The Shvah Na ḥ, however, holds the sound a little bit longer. You can tell a Shvah Na ḥbecause it usually comes in the middle or at the end of a word. A Shvah Na is at the beginning of a word or syllable

The little dot that you see in the middle of letters is called a Dagesh. Most of the time, this dot doesn’t change the pronunciation of the consonant except for three letters. I discuss this point later in this section.

Hebrew has two types of D’geshim (duh- gehsh -eem ; the plural form of Dagesh ):

Dagesh Kal (dah- gehsh kahl ): Appears at the beginning of all words and at the beginning of all syllables in the following letters: בּ (Bet), גּ (Gimmel), דּ (Dalet), כּ (Kaf), פּ (Pey), and תּ (Tav).

Dagesh ḥazak ( dah -gehsh ḥah-zahk ): Appears after the word the , which in Hebrew is a prefix consisting of the letter Hey and the vowel Patach below it.

Don’t get too hung up on this distinction, because all D’geshim look the same!

Sometimes in Hebrew, a letter acts like a weak letter, such as a ה (Hey) or a נ(Nun), and disappears in the course of verb conjugation. (By “weak letter,” I mean that it sometimes drops out during conjugation.) When a weak letter disappears, a Dagesh Chazak appears in the letter that comes after the dropped letter. Also, certain word patterns called Mishkalim (meesh- kah -leem), in which all the words belong to a certain category (such as professions, colors, and physical challenges), have a Dagesh in one of the letters. Words that describe physical challenges, such as blindness and deafness, for example, always take a Dagesh ḥazak in the middle letter of the word.

Judaism has always regarded Hebrew as a sacred language. Hebrew is often referred to as לְשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶשׁ (le- shohn hah- koh -desh; the Holy Tongue ), and even the Hebrew word for letter , אוֹת ( oht ), means “sign” or “wonder.” In fact, during the period of Hebrew’s revival as a spoken language, some people objected, saying that Hebrew was simply too sacred for saying things like “Take out the garbage.”

Also, all Hebrew letters have numeric value. A particular form of Jewish numerology called גִּמַּהְרִיָּה (gee- meht -ree-yah) plays on the words’ numeric values. Both the Hebrew word for wine (יַיִן ; yah -yeen) and secret (סוֹד ; sohd ) have the same numerical value. The Talmud has a saying, “When the wine goes in, secrets come out!” Other Jewish sacred writings claim that the Hebrew letters are the manifestation of divine energy patterns and even that the universe’s DNA is composed of Hebrew letters.