# About vowels...



## Konstantinos

Please, explain to me what is happening with vowels, because I cannot understand well... In some words, vowels omitted in writing, but in speaking they are not omitted, and in other words, in both speaking - writing they are not omitted... But I had had in my mind that the vowels are omitted 100% in the writing system.


----------



## Drink

I think this is because you are reading things that are meant for learners of Hebrew. They often use vowels for words that you probably don't know yet, but don't use vowels for words you probably already know. Real written Hebrew only uses vowels very rarely for words that could have different meanings or that people would be unlikely to figure out.


----------



## Konstantinos

So, how are the following words written???

Read : קורה, קר?
Word: מילה, מל?
Hotel: מלון, מלן?


----------



## Drink

You are confusing vowels points and consonants that represent vowels. Hebrew is written without vowel points, but because of this, more consonants need to be used to represent vowels. For example:

With vowel points:
read: קוֹרֵא
word: מִלָּה
hotel: מָלוֹן
morning: בֹּקֶר
beef: בָּקָר

Without vowel points (used for everyday writing):
read: קורא
word: מילה
hotel: מלון
morning: בוקר
beef: בקר

Notice the added letters to replace the some of the vowels in מילה and בוקר. Without these added letters you would not be able to tell the difference between "morning" and "beef".


----------



## arielipi

We have one system that is comprised of two parts: Niqqud and Matre-Lections (which you should know, you have that in greek from what i remember)
Matre lections are - represent vowels (order is by most used vowel)
א - a e i o
ה - e a (o i)
ו - o u (not to confuse with vav hahibur)
י - i e ay/ei

this one is not official but is used as one in modern hebrew as well
ע - a e

And we have niqqud: for some reason i cant show here niqqud without letters
http://www.shlomitoltchik.com/17.php
starting from top right moving to left row by row
אָ קמץ kamatz a
אֳ חטף קמץ khataf kamatz o
אַ פתח patakh a 
אֲ חטף פתח khataf patakh a
אֶ סגול segol e
אֱ khataf segol e
אֵ צירה tzeyre ey
אֻ שורוק\קובוץ shuruq/qubutz u
אִ חיריק khiriq i
אׂ חולם חסר kohlam khaser o
אוׂ חולם מלא kholam male o
אְ שווא shva - a vowelless letter, like d in sound
אּ דגש dagesh - changes some letters 
בגד כפת are the ones changed with dagesh
ב -> v  -> b
ג -> g  -> ? (lost, yemens know though) supposed to be something between g and q (like an arabic one)
ד -> d  -> ? (lost, yemens know though) same as above
כ -> ch -> k
פ -> f   -> p
ת -> th -> t (redundant today, it is simply used as t)
also theres a dagesh khazaq which is used for something else
שׁ shin yemanit gives sh
שׂ shin smalit gives s

Also, in modern hebrew there are a few extra letters that change sound when written with a tag (chupchik) '
ג' gets a j as in jar
ז' gets a j like the french j
ח' denotes the proper way this letter should be pronounced, arabic kh
ד' this or the next one
ת' denotes th
צ' ch as in chakra, char, chick

note that words that end with 
פ כ with dagesh are written with regular form and not end word form.


----------



## Drink

arielipi said:


> ה - e a (o *i*)



When does ה ever represent i?


----------



## arielipi

Drink said:


> When does ה ever represent i?


It's in brackets for a reason, very rare, cant think now of an example but i know there are a few cases.


----------



## Drink

arielipi said:


> It's in brackets for a reason, very rare, cant think now of an example but i know there are a few cases.



If you ever remember any, I would really like to know.


----------



## ystab

Drink said:


> When does ה ever represent i?



I don't know of any case of ה being a mater lectonis of Hiriq (/i/).

In the Bible you can see one (repeated) case of Hiriq appearing before ה: the tetragammaton is vowelized with a Hiriq under the ו, when it appears after the word אדני (Adonai). It is then read aloud as "Elohim" and not as "Adonai".


----------



## Drink

ystab said:


> I don't know of any case of ה being a mater lectonis of Hiriq (/i/).
> 
> In the Bible you can see one (repeated) case of Hiriq appearing before ה: the tetragammaton is vowelized with a Hiriq under the ו, when it appears after the word אדני (Adonai). It is then read aloud as "Elohim" and not as "Adonai".



Ahh, but I would not consider that to be mater lectionis.


----------



## Konstantinos

Thank you everyone for your help. A question:

How important is to learn the niqqud system??? I want modern Hebrew for business, holidays and for sciences, like mathematics, physics, engineering etc... What you think? Can I learn advanced scientific - business hebrew, without niqqud system?


----------



## arielipi

Konstantinos said:


> Thank you everyone for your help. A question:
> 
> 1. How important is to learn the niqqud system?
> 2. I want modern Hebrew for business, holidays and for sciences, like mathematics, physics, engineering etc... What you think?
> 3. Can I learn advanced scientific - business hebrew, without niqqud system?



1. it helps to know, sometimes if a word can be read in two different ways and still make sense in a sentence (but altering its meaning) we add a defining niqqud to make sure people will read properly.
2. from what i know, its not really necessary in science fields.
3. yes.


----------



## Konstantinos

Ok, thank you.


----------



## Albert Schlef

Konstantinos said:


> I want modern Hebrew for [...] sciences, like mathematics, physics, engineering etc... Can I learn [...] without niqqud system?



C'mon!

Hebrew is useful for these fields just like a bicycle is useful for a fish.

Scientists in Israel have to know English to maintain their learning. Students may even write their papers in English.

 (Were you thinking about immigrating to Israel and enrolling in a university? That'd be a different question. Some universities have programs for foreigners. In the Weizmann institute (which produced several Nobel laureates) the official language for instruction is English. In the Technion, in 2008, they changed the language of the Business administration postgraduate courses to English.)

  (This doesn't mean you should stop studying whatever language(s) you're studying: many people learn a language because they enjoy it in some way, not because of utilitarianism. I myself am studying a certain language and I'd have a hard time explaining to others why the heck I'm studying it.)


----------



## Konstantinos

I do not want to study in a university of Israel (my 5-year-diploma from a Greek university is enough for my career) and Ι know that English is enough for scientists and engineers. Simply, the scientific, engineering, medicine and biology terminology of any language is the best one (of course after "compliments for girls" terminology)

Now, I am 25 years old and I want till my 30, to know in excellent (if not in fluent) level Hebrew, Arabic and Persian, except English, Greek and Russian that I know now. If you understand, I want to build a different kind of "career in Eastern Mediterranean" than a simple career of a specialized scientist-engineer who knows only English.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Triangle


----------



## Codinome Shlomo

What if you ask: "how does one pronounce 'שמים'?" and one answers:
שָּׁמַיִם
Niqqud is a very important thing.


----------



## arielipi

Codinome Shlomo said:


> What if you ask: "how does one pronounce 'שמים'?" and one answers:
> שָּׁמַיִם
> Niqqud is a very important thing.


באותה המידה היית יכול לכתוב פתח פתח חיריק ומבחינת כל ישראלי זה היה אותו דבר


----------



## Drink

Codinome Shlomo said:


> What if you ask: "how does one pronounce 'שמים'?" and one answers:
> שָׁמַיִם
> Niqqud is a very important thing.



The dagesh in the shin does not belong there when the word is by itself.



arielipi said:


> באותה המידה היית יכול לכתוב פתח פתח חיריק ומבחינת כל ישראלי זה היה אותו דבר



רוב, לא כל


----------



## airelibre

To Konstantinos: just learn the nikkud, it is so easy, compared to learning all the vocabulary you need to consider yourself excellent/fluent in Hebrew. It will take you a couple of days maximum.


----------



## Konstantinos

Ok I will. Any good site that expains the nikkud system? And of course I want in the future to read the original Old Testament - Bible in Hebrew language and the original New Testament in Greek language.


----------



## MuttQuad

>>

Also, in modern hebrew there are a few extra letters that change sound when written with a tag (chupchik) '
ג' gets a j as in jar
ז' gets a j like the french j
ח' denotes the proper way this letter should be pronounced, arabic kh
ד' this or the next one
ת' denotes th
צ' ch as in chakra, char, chick
<<

When we were typesetting modern Hebrew in our shop, the mark was always to the left of the base letter. Has something changed in the decade or so sine I retired?


----------



## Drink

MuttQuad said:


> >>
> 
> Also, in modern hebrew there are a few extra letters that change sound when written with a tag (chupchik) '
> ג' gets a j as in jar
> ז' gets a j like the french j
> ח' denotes the proper way this letter should be pronounced, arabic kh
> ד' this or the next one
> ת' denotes th
> צ' ch as in chakra, char, chick
> <<
> 
> When we were typesetting modern Hebrew in our shop, the mark was always to the left of the base letter. Has something changed in the decade or so sine I retired?



No this is just computers being silly. If the text had been in a right-to-left context, they would have appeared on the correct side:
ג' Here I used the forum's RTL tags.


----------



## ystab

The mark is still to the left (after the letter). Above we have a direction problem that occurs when you try to write Hebrew in a left-to-right paragraph.


----------



## MuttQuad

Thanks to both of you for reassuring me about this. It was my understanding that the convention is used primarily for foreign words that have sounds not normally represented by the Hebrew alphabet, such as j or th. 

Arabic does something similar by using a cluster of three dots to give some letters sounds not normally used for Arabic words.


----------



## Drink

MuttQuad said:


> Thanks to both of you for reassuring me about this. It was my understanding that the convention is used primarily for foreign words that have sounds not normally represented by the Hebrew alphabet, such as j or th.
> 
> Arabic does something similar by using a cluster of three dots to give some letters sounds not normally used for Arabic words.



Your understanding is correct. Although I'll also add that they are also used for native onomatopoeic words such as צ'יק צ'ק.


----------



## origumi

MuttQuad said:


> >>
> ח' denotes the proper way this letter should be pronounced, arabic kh
> ת' denotes th


For 'ח the term "proper" is improper. In Biblical Hebrew and Arabic both ח types exist. In post-Biblical they seem to have merged into 'ח (like Arabic ح ḥ) and later in some places shifted to ח (like Arabic خ kh).
'ת denotes also (not often though) the Ashkenazi soft ת that sounds like s.


----------



## arbelyoni

origumi said:


> For 'ח the term "proper" is improper. In Biblical Hebrew and Arabic both ח types exist. In post-Biblical they seem to have merged into 'ח (like Arabic ح ḥ) and later in some places shifted to ח (like Arabic خ kh).
> 'ת denotes also (not often though) the Ashkenazi soft ת that sounds like s.


The accepted transliteration is 'ח for خ (kh) and ח for ح (ḥ).


----------



## Drink

origumi said:


> For 'ח the term "proper" is improper. In Biblical Hebrew and Arabic both ח types exist. In post-Biblical they seem to have merged into 'ח (like Arabic ح ḥ) and later in some places shifted to ח (like Arabic خ kh).
> 'ת denotes also (not often though) the Ashkenazi soft ת that sounds like s.



The way I understood it is the opposite. When you write both ח and ח', then ח represents ح, while ח' represents خ. Even though the usual Israeli pronunciation of ח is like خ. For example ח'ליפה represents خليفة.


----------



## Yuzer

Codinome Shlomo said:


> What if you ask: "how does one pronounce 'שמים'?" and one answers:
> שָּׁמַיִם
> Niqqud is a very important thing.


Actually, that's not percise. Truth is, you can't write that word the way Israelis pronounce it using traditional niqqud.
According to niqqud and "traditional" pronunciation rules, that word should be pronounced [ʃa'majim] - that's once we've already stopped distinguishing the two [a] sound. [ji] is not a sound that exists in Modern Hebrew. For example the name יצחק is even commonly transliterated as commonly "Itzhak" nowadays. I'm not sure it's even pronounceable to Israelis at all, even if they would try to pronounce the י as a consonant, assuming that's how they think it "should be", in careful speech. If I try it, I can at max pronounce something like [ʃa'majem], which sound like I'm attempting to imitate a Yiddish-accent... Yiddish itself is pronounced ['idiʃ], by the way. The vowel preceding the [j] doesn't help, and it's simply pronounced [ʃa'ma.im], or even [ʃa'mai̯m] in rapid speech.

And the reason I'm saying you can't write it according to the formal rules, is that you simply cannot write the ['a.i] part, as Classic Hebrew spelling only allows a hiatus before ח and ע, and even then it happens in order a to "ease" pronunciation for speakers of the ancient language in certain cases. In order to have two vowels in a row you have to insert a glottal stop in Ancient Hebrew. If an Israeli would try to write two vowels in a row, transliterating a foreign-origin word, he would write an א, but he wouldn't pronounce it, while he would sometimes pronounce א between vowels in Hebrew.


----------

