Niqqud


In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikúd 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 Early Middle Ages. The most widespread system, and the only one still used to a significant degree today, was created by the Masoretes of Tiberias in the second half of the first millennium AD in the Land of Israel. Text written with niqqud is called ktiv menuqad.
Niqqud marks are small compared to the letters, so they can be added without retranscribing texts whose writers did not anticipate them.
In modern Israeli orthography niqqud is seldom used, except in specialised texts such as dictionaries, poetry, or texts for children or for new immigrants to Israel. For purposes of disambiguation, a system of spelling without niqqud, known in Hebrew as ktiv maleh has developed. This was formally standardised in the Rules for Spelling without Niqqud enacted by the Academy of the Hebrew Language in 1996, and updated in 2017.
One reason for the lesser use of niqqud is that it no longer reflects the current pronunciation. In modern Hebrew, tzere is pronounced the same as segol, although they were distinct in Tiberian Hebrew, and pataḥ the same as qamatz. To the younger generation of native Hebrew speakers, these distinctions seem arbitrary and meaningless; on the other hand, Hebrew language purists have rejected out of hand the idea of changing the basics of niqqud and fitting them to the current pronunciation – with the result that in practice niqqud is increasingly going out of use.
According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann, the lack of nikúd in what he calls "Israeli" often results in "mispronunciations". For example, the Israeli lexical item מתאבנים is often pronounced as mitabním instead of metaavním "appetizers", the latter deriving from תאבון teavón "appetite", whereas the former deriving from אבן éven "stone". Another example is the toponym מעלה אדומים, which is often pronounced as maalé edomím instead of maalé adumím, the latter appearing in the Hebrew Bible. The hypercorrect yotvetá is used instead of yotváta for the toponym יטבתה, mentioned in Deuteronomy 10:7. Some Israelis also pronounce fára fost instead of fára fóset – for the American actress's name פארה פוסט Farrah Fawcett.

Demonstration

This table uses the consonant letters ', ' or , where appropriate, to demonstrate where the niqqud is placed in relation to the consonant it is pronounced after. Any other letters shown are actually part of the vowel. Note that there is some variation among different traditions in exactly how some vowel points are pronounced. The table below shows how most Israelis would pronounce them, but the classic Ashkenazi pronunciation, for example, differs in several respects.

Keyboard

Both consonants and niqqud can be typed from virtual graphical keyboards available on the World Wide Web, or by methods integrated into particular operating systems.

Microsoft Windows

In GTK+ Linux systems, niqqud can be entered by holding down AltGR and pressing the same keys as for Windows below. Or by pressing ctrl+shift+u followed by the appropriate 4 digit Unicode.

Macintosh

Using the Hebrew keyboard layout in Mac OS X, the typist can enter niqqud by pressing the Option key together with a number on the top row of the keyboard. Other combinations such as sofit and hataf can also be entered by pressing either the Shift key and a number, or by pressing the Shift key, Option key, and a number at the same time.
Notes:
SIL International have developed another standard, which is based on Tiro, but adds the Niqqud along the home keys. Linux comes with "Israel — Biblical Hebrew " as a standard layout. With this layout, niqqud can be typed without pressing the Caps Lock key.