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The 'dagesh' (דָּגֵשׁ) 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, carrying a different phonetic function, may be applied to different consonants; the same mark is also employed in the vowel shuruq.
Dagesh and mappiq symbols are often omitted in writing. For instance, בּ is often written as ב. 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 ''hazak'' (strong).

Contents

Dagesh Kal

Dagesh Hazak

Meaning of dagesh

Pronunciation of modern Israeli Hebrew

Matres lectionis

Loanwords

Same pronunciation

Unicode encodings

Sources

Related Studies

External links

See also

Dagesh Kal

''Dagesh Kal'' (דגש קל, or דגש קשיין, sometimes referred to as "dagesh lene") may be placed inside the consonants ''bet'', ''gimel'', ''dalet'', ''kaf'', ''pe'' and ''tav''. Historically, each had two sounds: one hard (plosive consonant), and one soft (fricative consonant), depending on the position of the letter and other factors. 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'').
:

'Dagesh'
Without				With
Name	Symbol	IPA	Example	Name	Symbol	IPA	Example
Vet		/v/	'v'an	Bet		/b/	'b'un
Chaph		/x/	lo'ch'	Kaph		/k/	'k'angaroo
Fe		/f/	'f'ind	Pe		/p/	'p'ass
Sav ★		/s/	's'orry	Tav		/t/	't'alent

★ Only used in Ashkenazi prounciation. According to its original pronunction, a tav without a dagesh was pronounced as a TH sound. In Modern Hebrew, it is always a tav, with a /t/ sound.

★
★ Letters gimmel (), and dalet () also contain dagesh (dotted) forms. However, they are not used in most recent Hebrew pronunciations.

Dagesh Hazak

''Dagesh Hazak'' (דגש חזק, "strong dot" — i.e. ''gemination dagesh'', or דגש כפלן, sometimes referred to as "dagesh forte") may be placed in almost any letter to indicate a doubling of that letter in pronunciation. This phonological variation is not adhered to in Modern Hebrew and is only used by current speakers of Hebrew in situations for careful pronunciation, such as reading of scriptures in a synagogue service, and then only by very precise readers.
The following letters, the gutturals, almost never have a dagesh: ''aleph'' א, ''he'' ה, ''chet'' ח, ''ayin'' ע, ''resh'' ר. (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 hazak 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.

Meaning of dagesh

Israeli linguist Vadim Cherny argues that both dagesh kal and hazak represent the same phenomenon, namely a stop. In his theory, dagesh hazak is post-tonic stop that produces gemination of trailing consonants, and dagesh kal prevents consonantal clustering and thus blurring. Cherny asserts that dagesh kal is only pronounceable in cantillation, and the Masoretes intended it as cantillation mark.

Pronunciation of modern Israeli Hebrew

Below is a complete list of Hebrew letters which may take a dagesh, and their pronunciation as consonants in modern Israeli Hebrew:
:

Character	Name	Pronunciation
א	''alef''	silent (traditionally, when before a vowel)
בּ	''bet''	[b]
ב	''vet''	[v] ([b] among Egyptian Jews)
גּ	''gimel''	[] ( among some Teimanim)
ג	''ghimel''	[] ( among Teimanim, Mizrachim and some Sephardim)
’ג	''jimel''	(used only in loanwords)
דּ	''dalet''	[d]
ד	''dhalet''	[d] ([ð] among Teimanim, Mizrahim and some Sephardim)
ה	''he''	[h], silent in word-final position
ו	''vav''	[v] ([w] among Teimanim and some Mizrahim)
ז	''zayin''	[z]
’ז	''zhayin''	(used only in loanwords)
ח	''khet''	[χ] ( among Oriental Hebrew speakers)
ט	''tet''	[t] ( among Teimanim)
י	''yod''	[j]
כּ	''kaf''	[k]
ךּ	''final kaf''	[k]
כ	''khaf''	[χ]
ך	''final khaf''	[χ]
ל	''lamed''	[l]
מ	''mem''	[m]
ם	''final mem''	[m]
נ	''nun''	[n]
ן	''final nun''	[n]
ס	''samekh''	[s]
ע	''ayin''	silent, like א ( among Oriental Hebrew speakers)
פּ	''pe''	[p]
פ	''fe''	[f]
ף	''final fe''	[f]
צ	''tsadi''
ץ	''final tsadi''
’צ	''tshadi''	(used only in loanwords) and [] (used to indicate the Arabic letter ض)
ק	''kuf''	[k] (pronounced [q] by many Israelis as well as speakers hailing from the Arab world, [g] by some Teimanim)
ר	''resh''	([r] among Oriental Hebrew speakers)
שׁ	''shin''
שׂ	''sin''	[s]
תּ	''tav''	[t]
ת	''thav''	[t] ( among Teimanim, Mizrahim and some Sephardim, [s] by some Ashkenazim)

Dagesh and mappiq symbols, the dots in otherwise identical letters, are often omitted in writing. For instance, בּ is often written as ב. The use or omission of such marks is usually consistent throughout any given context.

Matres lectionis

The letters ''alef'', ''he'', ''vav'' and ''yod'' are consonants that can sometimes have the value of vowels. ''Vav'' and ''yod'' in particular are more often vowels than they are consonants.
:

Symbol	Name	Vowel formation
א	alef	ê, ệ, ậ, â, ô
ה	he	ê, ệ, ậ, â, ô
ו	vav	ô, û
י	yod	î, ê, ệ

Loanwords

The sounds /tʃ, dʒ, ʒ/, written 'ז' , ג' , צ, are found in many loanwords that are part of the everyday Hebrew colloquial vocabulary, even among people who don't know the source languages. In addition, there are ways of writing some sounds in words that are truly foreign, not part of Israeli Hebrew:
:

Everyday Colloquial Hebrew
Name	Symbol	IPA	Transliteration	Example	Letter
Jimel			j	'j'ump	J
Zhayin			varies	vi'si'on, A'si'a	''see examples''
Tshadi			ch	'ch'annel	"ch"
Double Vav			w	'w'ing	W
Foreign Sounding Loanwords
Dhal			th	'th'en	"th", Ḏāl (ذ)
Kha			''Arabic''		Ḫāʼ (خ)
Za			''Arabic''		Ẓāʼ (ظ)
Ghayin			''Arabic''		Ġayn (غ)
Tshadi			''Arabic''		Ḍād (ض)
Thav			th	'th'ing	"th", Ṯāʼ (ث)

Same pronunciation

In Israel's general population, many consonants have merged to the same pronunciation. They are:
:

Letter	with	Letter(s)
''alef''	''with (varyingly)''	''hey''
''vet''	''(without ''dagesh'') with''	''vav''
''het''	''with (without ''dagesh'')''	''kaf''
''tet''	''with''	''tav''
''kaf''	''(with ''dagesh'') with''	''qof''
''samech''	''with''	''sin (with left dot)''
''tzadi''	''(varyingly) with the consonant cluster''	''tav-semech''	''and''	''tav-sin''

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.

Sources

★ alanwood.com Hebrew

★ alanwood.com Alphabetic presentation

★ vadimcherny.org Dagesh is a stop

Related Studies

★ 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

★ A free online course to learn Hebrew syllabification

See also

★ Hebrew language

★ Niqqud