In Hebrew orthography, Niqqud or Nikkud (Standard Hebrew נִיקּוּד, Biblical Hebrew נְקֻדּוֹת, Tiberian Hebrew Nəquddôṯ "vowels") is the system of diacritical vowel points (or vowel marks) in the Hebrew alphabet. Several orthographic systems for representing Hebrew vowels 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 (see Masoretic Text, Tiberian Hebrew) in the second half of the first millennium. Note: This article contains special characters. ... Aleph ‎ is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, together with Arabic descended from Phoenician . Its original sound value was a glottal stop. ... Bet or Beth is the second letter of the Phoenician alphabet, the Hebrew alphabet, and the Aramaic alphabet. ...   Gimmel is the third letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Aramaic, Syriac, Phoenician and Hebrew. ...   Dalet or Daleth is the fourth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. ... He is the fifth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ...   Vav or waw is the sixth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic in abjadi order; it is the twenty-seventh in modern Arabic order. ... Zayin or Zain is the seventh letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. ... or (also spelled Khet, Kheth, Chet, Cheth, Het, or Heth) is the reconstructed name of the eighth letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician , Syriac , Hebrew (also ) , Arabic (in abjadi order), and Berber . Heth originally represented a voiceless fricative, either pharyngeal , or velar (the... (also Teth, Tet) is the ninth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew , Syriac and Arabic (in abjadi order, 16th in modern order). ... Yodh (also spelled Yud or Yod) is the tenth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew , Syriac and Arabic (in abjadi order, 28th in modern order). ... Kaph (also spelled Kap or Kaf) is the eleventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew , Arabic alphabet , Persian alphabet . ... Lamed or Lamedh is the twelfth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ... Mem is the thirteenth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ... Nun is the fourteenth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ... Samekh is the fifteenth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ... or Ayin is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic (in abjadi order). ... This is about the Hebrew letter: for the Cyrillic letter, see Pe (Cyrillic). ... Tsade (also spelled or Tzadi or Sadhe) is the eighteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ‎ and Arabic alphabet ‎. Its oldest sound value is probably IPA: , although there is a variety of pronunciation in different modern Semitic languages and their dialects. ...   Qoph is the nineteenth letter in many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic. ... Resh is the twentieth letter of the Phoenician and Hebrew alphabets. ... Shin (also spelled Sin or Sheen) is the twenty-first letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic (in abjadi order, 12th in modern order). ... Taw or Tav is the twenty-second and last letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic alphabet . Its original value is an voiceless alveolar plosive, IPA , The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Tau (Τ), Latin T, and the equivalent in the Cyrillic alphabet. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Hebrew uses the Hebrew alphabet with optional vowel points. ... The dagesh (דגש) is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Gen. ... The system of Hebrew numerals is a quasi-decimal alphabetic numeral system using the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. ... “Hebrew” redirects here. ... The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of writing in that language. ... The Modern Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ... Categories: Language stubs | Judaism-related stubs | Canaanite languages | Hebrew language ... Tiberian Hebrew is an oral tradition of pronunciation for ancient forms of Hebrew, especially the Hebrew of the Bible, that was given written form by masoretic scholars in the Jewish community at Tiberias in the early middle ages, beginning in the 8th century. ... A diacritical mark or diacritic, also called an accent mark, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... The Masoretes (baalei masorah) were scribes based primarily in at least three places, Tiberias (the best known); Eretz Yisrael, or the land of Israel; and Babylonia. ... The Masoretic Text (MT) is the Hebrew text of the Tanakh approved for general use in Judaism. ... Tiberian Hebrew is an oral tradition of pronunciation for ancient forms of Hebrew, especially the Hebrew of the Bible, that was given written form by masoretic scholars in the Jewish community at Tiberias in the early middle ages, beginning in the 8th century. ...

Niqqud marks are small compared to the consonants they are positioned adjacent to, and thus can be added without requiring the retranscription of texts whose writers did not anticipate their eventual addition.

Non-speakers of Hebrew give their greatest attention to vowel points (usually without using the word "niqqud") in the context of controversy over the interpretation of those written with the Tetragrammaton -- written as יְהוָה in Hebrew. The interpretation affects discussion of the authentic ancient pronunciation of the name whose other conventional English forms are "Jehovah" and "Yahweh". It has been suggested that Yahweh be merged into this article or section. ... “Hebrew” redirects here. ... Jehovah is an English transcription of יְהֹוָה, a specific vocalized spelling of יהוה which is found in the Masoretic Text. ...

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

Image File history File links Example_of_biblical_Hebrew_trope. ... Image File history File links Example_of_biblical_Hebrew_trope. ... A trope is a rhetorical figure of speech that consists of a play on words, i. ...

The signs of the niqqud

This table uses the consonants ב ,ח or ש, 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. Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim (אַשְׁכֲּנָזִי אַשְׁכֲּנָזִים Standard Hebrew, AÅ¡kanazi,AÅ¡kanazim, Tiberian Hebrew, ʾAÅ¡kănāzî, ʾAÅ¡kănāzîm, pronounced sing. ...

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. 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 (unchangeable long) forms appear after.

It has been suggested that Internet Explorer 7 be merged into this article or section. ... Mozilla was the official, public, original name of Mozilla Application Suite by the Mozilla Foundation, nowadays called SeaMonkey suite. ... An example of a web browser (Internet Explorer), displaying the English Wikipedia main page. ... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ... Tiberian Hebrew is an oral tradition of pronunciation for ancient forms of Hebrew, especially the Hebrew of the Bible, that was given written form by masoretic scholars in the Jewish community at Tiberias in the early middle ages, beginning in the 8th century. ... The Modern Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ... Not to be confused with the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Not to be confused with the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean: An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in any language, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel. ... In articulatory phonetics, the term guttural consonant is sometimes used to describe any of several consonantal speech sounds whose primary place of articulation is near the back of the oral cavity, specifically some velar consonants, uvular consonants, pharyngeal consonants, and epiglottal consonants (q. ... The dagesh (דגש) is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. ... YIVO, (Yiddish: ייִוואָ), founded in 1925 as the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut (Yiddish: ייִדישער װיסנשאַפֿטלעכער אינסטיטוט), or Yiddish Scientific Institute, is the most authoritative source for orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to the Yiddish language. ... Gen. ...

Niqqud and the Keyboard

For the Hebrew letters there is a standardized Hebrew keyboard. But when it comes to niqqud, different computer systems and programs provide for adding the signs in different ways.

Nevertheless, a standard is beginning to emerge in the keystrokes that enter niqqud in both Microsoft Word and Open Office alike. In these programs, to enter niqqud the typist first presses "Caps Lock." Then, to enter any specific niqqud, one presses "shift" and simultaneously presses one of the following keys: Microsoft Office Word is Microsofts flagship word processing software. ... OpenOffice. ...

• ~ Shewa
• 1 Hataf Segol
• 2 Hataf Patah
• 3 Hataf Qamaz
• 4 Hiriq
• 5 Zeire
• 6 Segol
• 7 Patah
• 8 Qamaz
• 9 Sin dot (left)
• 0 Shin dot (right)
• - Holam
• = Daggesh or mappiq
• Qubuz

Disputes among Protestant Christians

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 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. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Louis Cappel (1585-1658), was a French Protestant churchman and scholar. ... In the 16th and 17th centuries, the name Huguenot was applied to a member of the Protestant Reformed Church of France, historically known as the French Calvinists. ... Saumur is a small city and commune in the Maine-et-Loire département of France on the Loire River, with an approximate population of 30,000 (in 2001). ... Johannes Buxtorf (1564-1629) was a celebrated Hebraist, born in Westphalia, member of a family of Orientalists; professor of Hebrew for 39 years at Basel and was known by the title, Master of the Rabbis. This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopaedia. ... Brian Walton (1600 - November 29, 1661) was an English divine and scholar. ... The Helvetic Consensus (Latin: Formula consensus ecclesiarum Helveticarum) is a Swiss Reformed symbol drawn up in 1675 to guard against doctrines taught at the French academy of Saumur, especially Amyraldism. ... The Reformed branch of Protestantism in Switzerland was started in Zurich by Huldrych Zwingli and spread within a few years to Basle (Johannes Oecolampadius), Berne (Berchtold Haller and Niklaus Manuel), St. ...

See also

• The Arabic equivalent Harakat
• Q're perpetuum
• Dagesh

Arabic ( or just ) is the largest living member of the Semitic language family in terms of speakers. ... In Arabic orthography, harakat are the diacritic marks used to represent vowel sounds. ... A Qre perpetuum or standing Qre is a technical orthographic device to indicate the pronunciation of certain words in the masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). ... The dagesh (דגש) is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. ...

Technical problems on Wikimedia

• Important: There is currently a serious bug affecting niqqud in all Wikimedia projects. See Wikipedia:Niqqud for a discussion of the problem in English, and click the language link in the sidebar for an extensive analysis of the problem in Hebrew.