Holam

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 the mid back rounded vowel, , and is transliterated as an ''o''.

The ''mater lectionis'' letter which is usually employed with holam is vav, although in a few words, the letters ' or ' are used instead of '. When it is used with a ''mater lectionis'', the holam is called ''holam male'' (, , "full holam"), and without it the holam is called ''holam haser'' (, , "deficient holam").

Appearance

If a holam is used without a following ''mater lectionis'' (vav, alef or he), as in (, "here"), it is written as a dot above at the upper-left corner of the letter after which it is pronounced. Letter-spacing is not supposed to be affected by it, although some buggy computer fonts may add an unneeded space before the next letter.

If vav is used as a ''mater lectionis'', the holam appears above the vav. If the ''mater lectionis'' is alef, as in (, "no"), it is supposed to appear above the 's right hand, although this is not implemented in all computer fonts, and does not always appear even in professionally typeset modern books. This means a holam with ' may, in fact, appear in the same place as a regular ''holam haser''. If the alef itself is not a ''mater lectionis'', but a consonant, the holam appears in its regular place above the upper-left corner of the previous letter, as in (, "epithet").

If a ''holam haser'' is written after ', as in (, "to agonize"), it may appear above the ', or slightly farther to the left; this varies between different fonts. In some fonts, a holam merges with the shin dot (which appears on the upper-right corner of its letter seat), in words such as (''ḥṓšeḵ'', , 'darkness') or with the sin dot, as in (, 'satiation'). (These dots may or may not appear merged on your screen, as that depends on your device's Hebrew font.)

Usage

''Holam male'' is, in general, the most common way to write the sound in modern spelling with niqqud. If a word has ''Holam male'' in spelling with niqqud, the ''mater lectionis'' letter ' is without any exception retained in spelling without niqqud, both according to the spelling rules of the Academy of the Hebrew Language and in common practice.

The use of ''holam haser'' is restricted to certain word patterns, although many common words appear in them. In most cases the Academy's spelling rules mandate that the ' will be written even when the spelling with niqqud does not have it. The normative exceptions from this rule are listed below. The Academy's standard is not followed perfectly by all speakers, and common deviations from it are also noted below.

In Biblical Hebrew the above rules are not followed consistently, and sometimes the ' is omitted or added.

For further complications involving ''Kamatz katan'' and ''Hataf kamatz'', see the article Kamatz.

Holam haser which is written as ' in text without niqqud

* In words, in which the penultimate syllable has the vowel and is stressed (sometimes called ''segolate''):
** ('diameter')
** ('radiance', ''Zohar''),
** ('brightness', ''Nogah''),
** ('mail'), or .
: Some people tend to spell some of these words without the ', e.g. דאר instead of דואר, although the Academy mandates דואר. The tendency is especially strong when the words can be used as personal names.
* When ''Kubutz'' is changed to ''holam'' before guttural letters in the passive binyan Pual due to ''tashlum dagesh'' (a vowel-change due to the inability of guttural letters to carry a dagesh):
** ('fancy'),
** ('was explained'), . Without niqqud: מפואר‎, פורש.
* In words which have the pattern /CaCoC/ in the singular and become /CəCuCCim/ with Kubutz in the plural, especially names of colors:
** ('orange'), , pl.
** ('round'), , pl. .
* When the last letter of the root is guttural, ''holam haser'' is preserved due to ''tashlum dagesh'':
** ('black'), , pl. .
*: Without niqqud: כתום‎, כתומים‎, עגול‎, עגולים‎, שחור‎, שחורים‎.
* A similar pattern, in which the last letter of the root is not doubled in declension, has ''holam male'' in the base form, which is preserved in declension:
** sg. ('big'), , pl. .
* In three words, a ''holam male'' is changed to a ''shuruk'' in declension:
** ('place of living'), , pl.
** ('escape'), , pl. ;
** ('sweet'), , pl. .
* Similar to the above is the pattern /CəCaCCoC/, with reduplication of the second and third letters of the root:
** ('crooked'), , pl. . Without niqqud: פתלתול‎, פתלתולים.
* In the future, infinitive and imperative forms of most verbs in binyan Qal:
** ('I shall close'), , ('to close'), , ('close!'), . Without niqqud: אסגור‎, לסגור‎, סגור.
* In words, whose roots' second and third letter are the same, in which case in declension the ''holam'' changes to Kubutz after which there will be a dagesh:
** ''all'', , decl. ('all of her'), root כ־ל־ל‎
** ('most'), , decl. ('most of him'), root ר־ב־ב‎
** ('drum'), , pl. , root ת־פ־פ‎
** ('stronghold'), , pl. , root ע־ז־ז‎
: The standard spelling without niqqud for all of them except in construct state is with ': כול‎, כולה‎, רוב‎, רובו‎, תוף‎, תופים‎, מעוז‎, מעוזים. Despite this, some people occasionally omit the ' in some of those words and spell רב‎, תף etc.
* Several common words are spelled with a ''holam haser'' in the Bible, but the Academy mandates that they be spelled with ''holam male'' in modern Hebrew, among them:
** ('force'),
** ('brain'),
** ('a precious stone', in modern Hebrew 'diamond'),
** ('very'),
** ‎ ('suddenly'),
*: Some people still spell them without ', but the standard spelling is with '.
* The participle of most verbs in binyan Qal is often written with ''holam haser'' in the Bible, but always with ''holam male'' in modern Hebrew.
** For example, in the Bible appear both and ('seer'), , but in modern Hebrew only .

Holam with other matres lectionis

* The most common occasion for not writing the sound as a ' in text without niqqud is when in text with niqqud the ''mater lectionis'' is Alef (א) or He (ה) instead of '. In the Bible some words are irregularly and inconsistently spelled with ה as a mater lectionis:
** ‎ alongside ‎, e.g. alongside ‎, etc.
*: but the number of these irregularities was brought to minimum in modern Hebrew.
* In the future forms of several verbs whose roots' first letter is Alef:
** ('you shall eat'), , root א־כ־ל‎, without niqqud תאכל.
** The prefix of the first person singular is itself Alef and in spelling with niqqud only one Alef is written: ('I shall say'), , root א־מ־ר, and in spelling without niqqud a ' ''is'' added: אומר. This always happens in the roots א־ב־ד ('perish'), א־ב־י ('wish'),Rare in modern Hebrew. א־כ־ל ('eat'), א־מ־ר ('say'), אפי ('bake') and less consistently in the roots א־ה־ב ('love'), א־ח־ז ('hold'), א־ס־ף ('collect'), א־ת־י ('come'). In the root א־מ־ר a ''holam male'' with ' is used in the infinitive in Mishnaic and modern Hebrew:
** ‎ .
* In the infinitive form of a small number of verbs whose roots' last letter is Alef: ('upon becoming full'), , root מ־ל־א‎.
* In the following words the mater lectionis is always Alef (א‎):
** ('this' fem.),
** ('no'),
** ('scales'), , without niqqud מאזניים‎
** ('wineskin'),
** ('sheep' or 'goats'),
** ('head'),
** ('left'),
* In the following words the ''mater lectionis'' is always He (ה‎):
** ('such'),
** ('here'),
** ('where?'),
* In the ''absolute infinitive'' form of verbs which end in He: ( 'to be'). This form is common in the Bible, but in modern Hebrew it is not productive and it is preserved only in fossilized sayings. For example, a common opening for fairy tales, ('there once was'), is written היה היה without niqqud.

Holam without vav in personal names

Some examples of usage of holam without ' in personal names:
* The names ''Pharaoh'' (, ), ('Moshe') (‎) and '' Shlomo'' (‎) are never written with '. '' Shilo'' () is sometimes written with ' in the Bible, but always with He in modern Hebrew. The adjectives ‎, are written with ' and with a nun in the suffix.
* The name '' Aharon'' () is spelled with ''holam haser'' in the Bible. In modern Hebrew both אהרן and אהרון are used.
* The name ''Noah'' () is spelled with ''holam haser'' in the Bible, but it is sometimes written with the ' in the Mishna and in modern Hebrew.
* Several other names of places and people are spelled with holam and Alef in the Bible include ''Yoshiyahu'' (, ''Josiah''), '' Dor'' (, in modern Hebrew ) and ''No Amon'' (, the Hebrew name of Thebes).
* The word ('priest'), is spelled with ''holam haser'' in the Bible. It is a common Jewish last name, '' Cohen''. The Academy mandates ''holam male'' for the noun , but allows the omission of ' for spelling the personal name.
* Some personal names, such as ''Ohad'' (), ''Zohar'' () and ''Nogah'' (), are sometimes spelled without ' in modern writing without niqqud, although this varies from person to person.
* God's name ''Adonai'' () is written with ''holam haser'' to distinguish it from the word "Lord" () used for humans. When the ''Tetragrammaton'' is written with niqqud, it follows that of Adonai, so it is written with ''holam haser'', too. For religious reasons writing Adonai and the Tetragrammaton is avoided in modern religious texts except in direct quotes from the Bible. They rarely appear in secular modern Hebrew texts and their spelling there is inconsistent.
* The name ''Elohim'' () is written with ''holam haser'' in the Bible, although its singular form Eloah () is usually written with ''holam male''. In modern Hebrew ''Elohim'' is a common word for "God" and it is usually spelled with the ', which is also the Academy's recommendation.

Pronunciation

The following table contains the pronunciation and transliteration of the different ''holams'' in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The transcription in IPA is above and the transliteration is below.

The letters ' and ' are used in this table only for demonstration. Any letter can be used.

Vowel length comparison

These vowel lengths are not manifested in modern Hebrew. In addition, the short ''o'' is usually promoted to a long ''o'' in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation. As well, the short ''o'' () and long ''a'' () have the same ''niqqud''. As a result, a ' is usually promoted to ''Holam male'' in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation.

Computer encoding

In computers there are three ways to distinguish the vowel ' and the consonant-vowel combination + . For example, in the pair (, the plural of , ') and (, the plural of '):
# By using the zero-width non-joiner after the ' and before the holam:
# By using the Unicode character U+05BA HEBREW POINT HOLAM HASER FOR VAV: .
# By the precomposed character,Also known as a presentation form in Unicode. U+FB4B (HTML Entity (decimal) וֹ)

See also

* Niqqud
* Zero-width non-joiner
* Combining Grapheme Joiner

References

{{Hebrew language

Niqqud