Hebrew Basics | The Hebrew Writing System | Lesson 4
Pastor Billy Myron
The Hebrew alphabet is made up entirely of consonants. Originally, though the Hebrew words used vowels, the vowels were not written down. Eventually, as Hebrew began to drop out of use, scribes began inventing systems to record the vowels and proper pronunciation of the words. One of those systems of vowel pointings is the system used in Hebrew Old Testaments today.
מִ Hirek ‘i’ as in ‘trip’
מיִ Hirek Yodh ‘i’ as in ‘elite’
מִ Tsere ‘a’ as in ‘late’
מיִ Tsere Yodh ‘a’ as in ‘late’
מִ Seghol ‘e’ as in ‘red’
מִ Pathah ‘a’ as in ‘bad’
מִ Kamets ‘a’ as in ‘father’
מִ Holem ‘o’ as in ‘over’
וֹ Full Holem ‘o’ as in ‘over’
מ וִ ‘moweh’
וּ Shurek ‘u’ as in ‘rude’
מִ Kibbuts ‘u’ as in ‘shut’
מִ Vocal Shewa ‘ə’ as in ‘rəmove’, ‘bəlow’
There are rules about when Shewa is vocal and when it is not. We will look at them later.
Note that when Holem is attached to ש, the Holem may be combined with the dot already being used to distinguish between שׁ and שׂ. You may also see this: שִׁ.
Vowel pointings are pronounced after the letter they are attached to. Therefore, מִ is pronounced “mah”, not “ahm”. However, when waw has a Shurek or Full Holem, it drops the “w” sound and only pronounces the vowel. Therefore וִּ is pronounced “oo”, not “woo”; and וִ is pronounced “oh”, not “woh”. Shurek and Full Holem are only used with waw.
By way of example: שׁ וִ מר is pronounced “shomar”; א חדִ is pronounced “ĕchŏd”; etc.
מִן גִם שׁם ע שׂה ל חִם י לד ח סד מ בית פ קדִִִ
ק ול רִִִוּת אישׁ הִִוּא מ לך יהוּ דה שִִׁוּב ז ק נִ תיִִִ
יִג דלוִִּ