Dagesh Kal

The dagesh () is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud (vowel points). It takes the form of a dot placed inside a Hebrew letter and has the effect of modifying the sound in one of two ways.

An identical mark, called mappiq, has a different phonetic function, and can be applied to different consonants; the same mark is also employed in the vowel shuruk.

Dagesh and mappiq symbols are often omitted in writing. For instance, is often written as . The use or omission of such marks is usually consistent throughout any given context. The two functions of dagesh are distinguished as either ''kal'' (light) or ''ḥazak'' (strong).

Dagesh kal

A ' or ' (, or , also "' lene", "weak/light ''dagesh''", opposed to " strong dot") may be placed inside the consonants ''bet'', ''gimel'', ''dalet'', ''kaf'', ''pe'' and ''tav''. They each had two sounds, the original "hard" plosive sound (which originally contained no dagesh pointing as it was the only pronunciation), and a "soft" fricative version produced as such for speech efficiency because of the position in which the mouth is left immediately after a vowel has been produced.

Prior to the Babylonian captivity, the soft sounds of these letters did not exist in Hebrew, but they were later differentiated in Hebrew writing as a result of the Aramaic-influenced pronunciation of Hebrew after this point in Jewish history. The Aramaic languages, including Jewish versions of Aramaic, have these same allophonic pronunciations of the same letters.

The letters take on their hard sounds when they have no vowel sound before them, and take their soft sounds when a vowel immediately precedes them. In Biblical-era Hebrew this was the case within a word and also across word boundaries, though in Modern Hebrew no longer across word boundaries since in Modern Hebrew the soft and hard sounds are no longer allophones of each other, but regarded as distinct letters.

When vowel diacritics are used, the hard sounds are indicated by a central dot called ''dagesh'', while the soft sounds lack a ''dagesh''. In Modern Hebrew, however, the ''dagesh'' only changes the pronunciation of ''bet'', ''kaf'', and ''pe'' (traditional Ashkenazic pronunciation also varies the pronunciation of ''tav'', and some traditional Middle Eastern pronunciations carry alternate forms for ''dalet'').

:

In Ashkenazi pronunciation, ''Tav'' without a ''dagesh'' is pronounced , while in another traditions it is assumed to have been pronounced at the time niqqud was introduced. In Modern Hebrew, it is always pronounced .

The letters ''gimmel'' (ג) and ''dalet'' (ד) may also contain a ''dagesh kal''. This indicates an allophonic variation of the phonemes and , a variation which no longer exists in modern Hebrew pronunciation. The variations are believed to have been: =, =, =, =. The Hebrew spoken by the Jews of Yemen (Yemenite Hebrew) still preserves unique phonemes for these letters with and without a dagesh.

When the letter ''hey'' () is the final letter of word, it is usually silent, and it indicates the presence of a word-final vowel. When it receives a ''dagesh kal'', however, the ''hey'' is pronounced, instead of being silent. This is the rule in historic pronunciation, but this rule is generally ignored in Modern Hebrew. Nevertheless, when a non-silent word-final ''hey'' () occurs, it can take a furtive patach.

Pronunciation

In Israel's general population, the pronunciation of some of the above letters has become pronounced the same as others:
:

Dagesh hazak

''Dagesh ḥazak'' or ''dagesh ḥazaq'' (, "strong dot", i.e. "gemination ''dagesh''", or , also "''dagesh'' forte") may be placed in almost any letter, this indicated a gemination (doubling) of that consonant in the pronunciation of pre-modern Hebrew. This gemination is not adhered to in modern Hebrew and is only used in careful pronunciation, such as reading of scriptures in a synagogue service, recitations of biblical or traditional texts or on ceremonious occasions, and then only by very precise readers.

The following letters, the gutturals, almost never have a dagesh: ''aleph'' , '' he'' , '' chet'' , ''ayin'' , ''resh'' . (A few instances of ''resh'' with dagesh are masoretically recorded in the Hebrew Bible, as well as a few cases of ''aleph'' with a dagesh, such as in Leviticus 23:17.)

The presence of a dagesh ḥazak or consonant-doubling in a word may be entirely morphological, or, as is often the case, is a lengthening to compensate for a deleted consonant.

A ''dagesh ḥazak'' may be placed in letters for one of the following reasons:

* The letter follows the definite article, the word "the". For example, ''shamayim'' "heaven(s)" in is ''Hashshamayim'' "the heaven(s)" in . This is because the definite article was originally a stand-alone particle ''hal'', but at some early stage in ancient Hebrew it contracted into a prefix 'ha-', and the loss of the 'l' was compensated for by doubling the following letter. In this situation where the following letter is a guttural, the vowel in 'ha-' becomes long to compensate for the inability to double the next letter - otherwise, this vowel is almost always short. This also happens in words taking the prefix 'la-', since it is a prefix created by the contraction of 'le-' + 'ha-'. Occasionally, the letter following a He which is used to indicate a question may also receive a dagesh, e.g. ''Hashshemena hi?'' - "whether it is fat".
* The letter follows the prefix 'mi-' where this prefix is an abbreviation for the word ''min'', meaning "from". For example, the phrase "from your hand", if spelled as two words, would be ''min yadekha''. In Gen. 4:11, however, it occurs as one word: ''miyyadekha''. This prefix mostly replaces the usage of the particle ''min'' in modern Hebrew.
* The letter follows the prefix 'she-' in modern Hebrew, which is a prefixed contraction of the relative pronoun ''asher'', where the first letter is dropped and the last letter disappears and doubles the next letter. This prefix is rare in Biblical texts, but mostly replaces the use of ''asher'' in Modern Hebrew.
* It marks the doubling of a letter that is caused by a weak letter losing its vowel. In these situations, the weak letter disappears, and the following letter is doubled to compensate for it. For example, compare Ex. 6:7 ''lakachti'' with , where the first letter of the root has been elided: ''vayyikkach''. Lamed only behaves as a weak letter in this particular root word, but never anywhere else.
* If the letter follows a ''vav'' consecutive imperfect (sometimes referred to as ''vav'' conversive, or '' vav ha'hipuch''), which, in Biblical Hebrew, switches a verb between perfect and imperfect. For example, compare Judges 7:4 ''yelekh'' "let him go" with Deu. 31:1 ''vayyelekh'' "he went". A possible reason for this doubling is that the 'va-' prefix could be the remains of an auxiliary verb ''hawaya'' (the ancient form of the verb ''hayah'', "to be") being contracted into a prefix, losing the initial 'ha', and the final 'ya' syllable disappearing and doubling the next letter.
* In some of the ''binyan'' verbal stems, where the Piel, Pual and Hitpa'el stems themselves cause doubling in the second root letter of a verb. For example:
** Ex. 15:9 ''achallek'' "I shall divide", Piel Stem, first person future tense
** in the phrase ''hallelu yah'' "praise the ", where ''hallelu'' is in Piel Stem, masculine plural Imperative form
** Gen. 47:31 ''vayyitchazzek'', "he strengthened himself", Hitpael stem

Rafe

In Masoretic manuscripts the opposite of a ''dagesh'' would be indicated by a ''rafe'', a small line on top of the letter. This is no longer found in Hebrew, but may still sometimes be seen in Yiddish and Ladino.

Unicode encodings

In computer typography there are two ways to use a dagesh with Hebrew text. Here are Unicode examples:

*Combining characters:
**bet + dagesh: בּ בּ = U+05D1 U+05BC
**kaf + dagesh: כּ כּ = U+05DB U+05BC
**pe + dagesh: פּ פּ = U+05E4 U+05BC
*Precomposed characters:
**bet with dagesh: בּ בּ = U+FB31
**kaf with dagesh: כּ כּ = U+FB3B
**pe with dagesh: פּ פּ = U+FB44

Some fonts, character sets, encodings, and operating systems may support neither, one, or both methods.

See also

* Analogous to Dagesh Hazak, is the Shadda, in written Arabic
* Hebrew spelling
* Yiddish spelling
* Ladino spelling
* Mappiq
* Rafe
* Geresh
* Niqqud
* Biblical Hebrew
* Modern Hebrew

Notes

Further reading

* ,
* M. Spiegel and J. Volk, 2003. "Hebrew Vowel Restoration with Neural Networks," Proceedings of the Class of 2003 Senior Conference, Computer Science Department, Swarthmore College, pp. 1–7
Open Access Copy

External links

{{Hebrew language

Niqqud