''Ktiv hasar niqqud'' (; he, כתיב חסר ניקוד, literally "spelling lacking niqqud"),
colloquially
Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conversa ...
known as ''ktiv maleh'' (; , literally "full spelling"), are the rules for writing Hebrew without vowel points (
niqqud
In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in the ...
), often replacing them with
matres lectionis ( and ). To avoid confusion,
consonantal
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and prono ...
() and () are doubled in the middle of words. In general use, ''niqqud'' are seldom used, except in specialized texts such as dictionaries, poetry, or texts for children or for new immigrants.
Comparison example
From a
Hebrew translation of
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (translated by Eliyahu Tsifer)
Historical examination
Ktiv haser
Ktiv haser () is writing whose consonants match those generally used in voweled text, but without the actual niqqud. For example, the words and written in ktiv haser are and . In vowelled text, the niqqud indicate the correct
vowels
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...
, but when the niqqud is missing, the text is difficult to read, and the reader must make use of the context of each word to know the correct reading.
A typical example of a Hebrew text written in ktiv haser is the
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...
, read in
synagogues (simply called the
Torah reading
Torah reading (; ') is a Jewish religious tradition that involves the public reading of a set of passages from a Torah scroll. The term often refers to the entire ceremony of removing the scroll (or scrolls) from the Torah ark, chanting the a ...
). For assistance readers often use a
Tikkun, a book in which the text of the Torah appears in two side-by-side versions, one identical to the text which appears in the Torah, and one with niqqud and
cantillation
Cantillation is the ritual chanting of prayers and responses. It often specifically refers to Jewish Hebrew cantillation. Cantillation sometimes refers to diacritics used in texts that are to be chanted in liturgy.
Cantillation includes:
* Chant
...
.
Ktiv male
Because of the difficulty of reading unvowelled text, the
Va'ad ha-lashon introduced the Rules for the Spelling-Without-Niqqud (), which in reality dictates ktiv male. This system mostly involved the addition of and to mark the different vowels. Later on, these rules were adopted by the
Academy of the Hebrew Language, which continued to revise them, and they were mostly accepted by the public, mainly for official writing.
Ktiv haser became obsolete in Modern Hebrew, and ktiv male has already been dominant for decades in unvowelled texts: all of the
newspapers
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports ...
and
books published in Hebrew are written in ktiv male. Additionally, it is common for children's books or texts for those with special needs to contain niqqud, but ktiv haser without niqqud is rare.
Despite the Academy's standardization of the rules for ktiv male, there is a substantial lack of unity in writing, partly because of a lack of grammatical knowledge, partly because of the historical layers of the language, and partly because of a number of linguistic categories in which the Academy's decisions are not popular. As a result, book publishers and newspaper editors make their own judgments.
Rules for spelling without niqqud
As is the norm for linguistic rules, the rules for spelling without niqqud are not entirely static. Changes occur from time to time, based on amassed experience. For example, originally the rules for spelling without niqqud dictated that ("woman") should be written without a (to distinguish it from – "her husband"), but currently the exception has been removed, and now, the Academy prefers . The last substantial change to the rules for spelling without niqqud was made in 1993 updated in 1996. The following is the summary of the current rules:
[Principles of spelling without niqqud]
* Every letter that appears in vowelled text also appears in unvowelled text.
* After a letter vowelled with a
kubuts (the vowel /u/), the letter appears: , , .
* After a letter vowelled with a
holam haser
Holam (modern he, , , formerly , ') is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a dot above the upper left corner of the consonant letter. For example, here the holam appears after the letter ''mem'' : . In modern Hebrew, it indicates t ...
(the vowel /o/) the letter appears: , .
* After a letter vowelled with a
hirik haser (the vowel /i/) the letter appears: , , . The letter does not appear in the following situations:
** Before a
shva nah
Shva or, in Biblical Hebrew, shĕwa ( he, שְׁוָא) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign written as two vertical dots () beneath a letter. It indicates either the phoneme (shva na', mobile shva) or the complete absence of a vowel (/ Ø/) (shva na ...
, for example: , , ;
** Words whose base forms do not contain the vowel /i/: (), (), ();
** After
affix letters, like in , and also in the words: , (=, and
inflected
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defi ...
: etc., , etc.), , ;
** Before (/ju/ or /jo/): , , , .
* After a letter vowelled with a
tsere
Tzere (also spelled ''Tsere'', ''Tzeirei'', ''Zere'', ''Zeire'', ''Ṣērê''; modern he, צֵירֵי, , sometimes also written ; formerly ''ṣērê'') is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by two horizontally-aligned dots "◌ֵ" un ...
(the vowel /e/) the letter generally does not appear
(=), (=) but there are situations when does appear (, ) and in words in which
tsere
Tzere (also spelled ''Tsere'', ''Tzeirei'', ''Zere'', ''Zeire'', ''Ṣērê''; modern he, צֵירֵי, , sometimes also written ; formerly ''ṣērê'') is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by two horizontally-aligned dots "◌ֵ" un ...
replaces
hirik because the presence of a
guttural
Guttural speech sounds are those with a primary place of articulation near the back of the oral cavity, especially where it's difficult to distinguish a sound's place of articulation and its phonation. In popular usage it is an imprecise term fo ...
letter (): (), ().
* Consonantal (the consonant /v/) is doubled in the middle of a word: , . The letter is not doubled at the beginning or the end of a word: , , . Initial is doubled when an affix letter is added except for the affix (meaning "and-"). Thus from the word one has but (that is, ).
* Consonantal (the consonant /j/) is doubled in the middle of a word, for example: , . The letter is not doubled at the beginning of a word or after affix letters: , (=), .
:Still, consonantal is not doubled in the middle of a word when it is before or after
mater lectionis
''Matres lectionis'' (from Latin "mothers of reading", singular form: ''mater lectionis'', from he, אֵם קְרִיאָה ) are consonants that are used to indicate a vowel, primarily in the writing down of Semitic languages such as Arabic, ...
: , , (=), , .
Those are the most basic rules. Each one has exceptions which is described in the handbook "" (spelling rules without niqqud) that the Academy publishes in Hebrew.
Notes
* When a reader is likely to err in the reading of a word, the use of partial vowelling is recommended: (to distinguish it from ).
* While the rules above apply to the writing of native Hebrew words, they are not used for spelling
given name
A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a ...
s, which are frequently written in ''ktiv haser'' rather than ''ktiv male'': , , .
See also
*
Hebrew alphabet
The Hebrew alphabet ( he, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewi ...
References
External links
Academy of the Hebrew Language rules
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ktiv Male
Hebrew grammar
ar:تسطير عبري#كتيب ملئ