Dagesh

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, 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, 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 ḥazak (strong).

Dagesh kal[]

A dagesh kal or dagesh qal (דגש קל‎, or דגש קשיין‎, also "dagesh lene", "weak/light dagesh", opposed to "strong dot") may be placed inside the consonants ב‎ bet, ג‎ gimel, ד‎ dalet, כ‎ kaf, פ‎ pe and ת‎ tav. They each had two sounds: the original "hard" (plosive) sound, and a "soft" (fricative) sound. Before the Babylonian captivity, the soft sounds did not exist in Hebrew, but were added as a result of Aramaic-influenced pronunciation of Hebrew after this point in history.^{[citation needed]} 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, across word boundaries in Biblical Hebrew, but not in Modern Hebrew. 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 ב‎ bet, כ‎ kaf, and פ‎ pe (traditional Ashkenazic pronunciation also varies the pronunciation of ת‎ tav, and some traditional Middle Eastern pronunciations carry alternate forms for ד‎ dalet).

With dagesh					Without dagesh
Symbol	Name	Transliteration	IPA	Example	Symbol	Name	Transliteration	IPA	Example
בּ‎	bet	b	/b/	bun	ב‎	vet	v	/v/	van
[2]כּ ךּ‎	kaph	k	/k/	kangaroo	כ ך‎	khaph	kh/ch/ḵ	/χ/	loch
[3]פּ ףּ‎	pe	p	/p/	pass	פ ף‎	phe	f/ph	/f/	find

* Only in Ashkenazi pronunciation Tav without a dagesh is pronounced [s], while in another traditions it is assumed to have been pronounced [θ] at the time niqqud was introduced. In Modern Hebrew, it is always pronounced [t].

** The letters gimmel (ג) and dalet (ד) may also contain a dagesh kal. This indicates an allophonic variation of the phonemes /ɡ/ and /d/, a variation which no longer exists in modern Hebrew pronunciation. The variations are believed to have been: גּ‎=[ɡ], ג‎=[ɣ], דּ‎=[d], ד‎=[ð]. The Hebrew spoken by the Jews of Yemen (Yemenite Hebrew) still preserves unique phonemes for these letters with and without a dagesh.^[4]

*** The letter hey (ה‎) when word final is usually silent in order to indicate the presence of a word-final vowel. But when it receives a dagesh kal, the hey is pronounced instead of being silent. This is the rule in historic pronunciation, but in Modern Hebrew, this rule is generally ignored. However, when a non-silent word-final hey (הּ‎) 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:

Letter	pronounced like	Letter
ב‎ vet	(without dagesh) like	ו‎ vav
כ‎ khaf	(without dagesh) like	ח‎ chet
תּ‎ tav	(with dagesh) like	ט‎ tet
כּ‎ kaf	(with dagesh) like	ק‎ qof

Dagesh hazak[]

Dagesh ḥazak or dagesh ḥazaq (דגש חזק‎, "strong dot", i.e. "gemination dagesh", or דגש כפלן‎, 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 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 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, שָׁמָיִם‎ shamayim "heaven(s)" in Gen 1:8 is הַשָּׁמַיִם‎ Hashshamayim "the heaven(s)" in Gen 1:1. This is because the definite article was originally a stand-alone particle הַל‎ hal, but at some early stage in ancient Hebrew it contracted into a prefix הַ‎ 'ha-', and the loss of the ל‎ 'l' was compensated for by doubling the following letter.^[5] 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 לַ‎ 'la-', since it is a prefix created by the contraction of לְ‎ 'le-' + הַ‎ 'ha-'. Occasionally, the letter following a He which is used to indicate a question may also receive a dagesh, e.g. Num 13:20 הַשְּׁמֵנָה הִוא‎ Hashshemena hi? - "whether it is fat".
• The letter follows the prefix מִ‎ '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 מִן יָדֶךָ‎ min yadekha. In Gen. 4:11, however, it occurs as one word: מִיָּדֶךָ‎ miyyadekha. This prefix mostly replaces the usage of the particle מִן‎ min in modern Hebrew.
• The letter follows the prefix שֶׁ‎ 'she-' in modern Hebrew, which is a prefixed contraction of the relative pronoun אֲשֶׁר‎ 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 אֲשֶׁר‎ 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 לָקַחְתִּי‎ lakachti with Num 23:28, where the first letter of the root ל‎ has been elided: וַיִּקַּח‎ 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 יֵלֵךְ‎ yelekh "let him go" with Deu. 31:1 וַיֵּלֶך‎ vayyelekh "he went". A possible reason for this doubling is that the וַ‎ 'va-' prefix could be the remains of an auxiliary verb הָוַיַ‎ hawaya (the ancient form of the verb הָיָה‎ 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 אֲחַלֵּק‎ achallek "I shall divide", Piel Stem, first person future tense
  • in the phrase הָלֵּלוּ יַהּ‎ hallelu yah "praise the LORD", where hallelu is in Piel Stem, masculine plural Imperative form
  • Gen. 47:31 וַיִּתְחַזֵּק‎ 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[]

Notes[]

Further reading[]

•  Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, §12, §13
• 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[]

• alanwood.com Hebrew^{[permanent dead link]}
• alanwood.com Alphabetic presentation