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

Among those who do not speak Hebrew, niqqud are the sometimes unnamed focus of controversy regarding the interpretation of those written with the Tetragrammaton—written as 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 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.

For most letters the dagesh is written within the glyph, near the middle if possible, but the exact position varies from letter to letter (some letters do not have an open area in the middle, and in these cases it is written usually beside the letter, as with yod).

The guttural consonants (אהחע) and resh (ר) are not marked with a dagesh, although the letter he (ה) (and rarely א) may appear with a mappiq (which is written the same way as dagesh) at the end of a word to indicate that the letter does not signify a vowel but is consonantal.

To the resulting form, there can still be added a niqqud diacritic designating a vowel. |- !| Tiberian || || ָ}} ||   ||   |- |rowspan="2" align="center"| }} !| Israeli |rowspan="2"| Rafe |rowspan="2"| rafe |colspan="5"| Not used in Hebrew. Still occasionally seen in Yiddish (actually more often as the spelling becomes more standardized, embracing YIVO rules) to distinguish פּ from פֿ (note that this letter is always pronounced when in the final position, with the exception of loanwords—שׁוֹפּ—, foreign names—פִילִיפּ— and some slang—חָרַפּ). Some ancient manuscripts have a dagesh or a rafe on nearly every letter. It is also used to indicate that a letter like ה or א is silent. In the particularly strange case of the Ten Commandments, which have two different traditions for their Cantillations which many texts write together, there are cases of a single letter with both a dagesh and a rafe, if it is hard in one reading and soft in the other. |- ! Tiberian |colspan="5"| Niqqud, but not a vowel. Used as an "anti-dagesh", to show that a בגדכפת 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 |- |rowspan="2" align="center"| }} !| Israeli |rowspan="2"| Shin dot |rowspan="2"| shin dot |rowspan="2"| |rowspan="2"| , or , "right Shin" |rowspan="2"| |rowspan="2"| š/sh |rowspan="2"| Niqqud, but not a vowel (except when inadequate typefaces merge the holam of a letter before the shin with the shin dot). The dot for shin is written over the right (first) branch of the letter. It is usually transcribed "sh". |- !| Tiberian |- |rowspan="2" align="center"| }} !| Israeli |rowspan="2"| Sin dot |rowspan="2"| sin dot |rowspan="2"| |rowspan="2"| , , "left Sin" |rowspan="2"| |rowspan="2"| ś/s || Niqqud, but not a vowel (except when inadequate typefaces merge the holam of the sin with the sin dot). The dot for sin is written over the left (third) branch of the letter |- !| Tiberian || Some linguistic evidence indicates that it was originally IPA , though poetry and acrostics show that it has been pronounced since quite ancient times). |}

Keyboard

Using the Hebrew keyboard layout in Microsoft Windows the typist can enter niqqud by pressing CapsLock, putting the cursor after the consonant letter and then pressing Shift and one of the following keys. In GTK+ Linux systems niqqud can be entered by pressing ctrl+shift+u followed by the appropriate 4 digit Unicode.

Using the Hebrew keyboard layout in Mac OS X, the typist can enter niqqud by pressing the Option key together with a number on the top row of the keyboard. Other combinations like sofit and hataf can also be entered by pressing either the Shift key and a number, or by pressing the Shift key, Option key, and a number at the same time.

{|border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" style="background:transparent" |- |valign="top"| {|class="wikitable" |- !colspan="6"| Niqqud input |- !colspan="1"| Input (Windows) !colspan="1"| Key (Windows) !colspan="1"| Input (MacOS X) !colspan="1"| Unicode !colspan="1"| Type !colspan="1"| Result |- |align="center"| ~ || || 0 || 05B0 || Sh'va || 35px ^[1] |- |align="center"| 1 || || 3 || 05B1 || Reduced Segol || 35px ^[1] |- |align="center"| 2 || || 1 || 05B2 || Reduced Patach || 35px ^[1] |- |align="center"| 3 || || 2 || 05B3 || Reduced Kamatz || 35px ^[1] |- |align="center"| 4 || || 4 || 05B4 || Hiriq || 35px ^[1] |- |align="center"| 5 || || 5 || 05B5 || Zeire || 35px ^[1] |- |align="center"| 6 || || 9 || 05B6 || Segol || 35px ^[1] |- |align="center"| 7 || || 6 || 05B7 || Patach || 35px ^[1] |} |valign="top"| {|class="wikitable" |- !colspan="6"| Niqqud input |- !colspan="1"| Input (Windows) !colspan="1"| Key (Windows) !colspan="1"| Input (MacOS X) !colspan="1"| Unicode !colspan="1"| Type !colspan="1"| Result |- |align="center"| 8 || || 7 || 05B8 || Kamatz || 35px ^[1] |- |align="center"| 9 || || A || 05C2 || Sin dot (left) || 35px ^[2] |- |align="center"| 0 || || M || 05C1 || Shin dot (right) || 35px ^[2] |- |align="center"| – || || = || 05B9 || Holam || סֹ‏ ^[1] |- |rowspan="2" align="center"| = ^[3] |rowspan="2"| || , || 05BC || Dagesh or Mappiq || 35px ^[1] |- || U || 05BC || Shuruk || 35px ^[4] |- |align="center"| \ || || 8 || 05BB || Kubutz || 35px ^[1] |} |} Notes:

See also

Bibliography

References

Category:Hebrew diacritics