Geresh (׳ in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

: ‎ or ‎ , or

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

) is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings. #An

apostrophe The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one ...

-like

sign A sign is an object, quality, event, or entity whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. A natural sign bears a causal relation to its object—for instance, thunder is a sign of storm, or ...

(also known colloquially as a ''chupchik'') placed after a letter: #* as a

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

that modifies the

pronunciation Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or language in a specific dialect ("correct pronunciation") or simply the way a particular ...

of some

letters Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet. * Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alpha ...

(only in modern Hebrew), #* as a

that signifies

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

origin Origin(s) or The Origin may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Comics and manga * Origin (comics), ''Origin'' (comics), a Wolverine comic book mini-series published by Marvel Comics in 2002 * The Origin (Buffy comic), ''The Origin'' (Bu ...

of a word or

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...

, ( examples below) #* as a punctuation mark to denote

initialisms An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

or abbreviations, #* or to denote a single-digit Hebrew numeral # A note of cantillation in the reading of the

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

and other

Biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of ...

books, taking the form of a curved diagonal stroke placed above a letter.

Diacritic

As a

, the Geresh is written immediately after (left of) the letter it modifies. It indicates three sounds native to speakers of

modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...

that are common in

loan word A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because the ...

s and

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gr ...

: as in ''judge'', as in ''measure'' and as in ''church''. In transliteration of

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

, it indicates Arabic

phonemes In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

which are usually

allophones In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...

in modern Hebrew: is distinguished from and is distinguished from . Finally, it indicates other sounds foreign to the

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

of modern Hebrew speakers and used exclusively for the transliteration of foreign words: as in ''then'', as in ''thin'', ; and, in some transliteration systems, also , and . It may be compared to the usage of a following ''h'' in various Latin digraphs to form other consonant sounds not supported by the basic Latin alphabet, such as "sh", "th", etc.

Loanwords, slang, foreign names and transliterations

Transcriptions of Arabic

There are six additional letters in the Arabic alphabet. They are Ṯāʾ, Ḫāʾ,

Ḏāl ' (, also be transcribed as ') is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being , , , , ). In Modern Standard Arabic it represents . In name and shape, it is a vari ...

, Ḍād,

Ẓāʾ , or (), is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being , , , , ). In name and shape, it is a variant of . Its numerical value is 900 (see Abjad numerals). ' do ...

, and

Ghayn The Arabic letter ( ar, غَيْنْ ' or ') is the nineteenth letter of the Arabic alphabet, one of the six letters not in the twenty-two akin to the Phoenician alphabet (the others being , , , , ), it represents the sound or . In name and ...

. Also, some letters have different sounds in

Arabic phonology While many languages have numerous dialects that differ in phonology, the contemporary spoken Arabic language is more properly described as a continuum of varieties. This article deals primarily with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which is ...

and

modern Hebrew phonology Modern Hebrew is phonetically simpler than Biblical Hebrew and has fewer phonemes, but it is phonologically more complex. It has 25 to 27 consonants and 5 to 10 vowels, depending on the speaker and the analysis. Hebrew has been used primarily fo ...

, such as Jīm. ט Tet Ŧ z with glottal stop at end ט׳ tet with . ظ

Transliteration of foreign names

;Note :* Both double-vav and vav with geresh are non-standard and so inconsistently used.Transliteration Rules
issued by the

Academy of the Hebrew Language The Academy of the Hebrew Language ( he, הָאָקָדֶמְיָה לַלָּשׁוֹן הָעִבְרִית, ''ha-akademyah la-lashon ha-ivrit'') was established by the Israeli government in 1953 as the "supreme institution for scholarship on t ...

state that both and be indistinguishably represented in Hebrew using the letter Vav. Sometimes the Vav is indeed doubled, however not to denote as opposed to but rather, when spelling without niqqud, to denote the

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

/v/ at a non-initial and non-final position in the word, whereas a single Vav at a non-initial and non-final position in the word in spelling without niqqud denotes one of the

s /u/ or /o/. To pronounce foreign words and

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...

s containing the sound , Hebrew readers must therefore rely on former knowledge and context, see also pronunciation of Hebrew Vav.

Yiddish origin

Some words or suffixes with

origin or pronunciation are marked with a geresh, e.g. the

diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A ( abbreviated ) is a word-form ...

– , e.g. – (as in Yankale Bodo), or the words – , 'guys' (which is the Yiddish pronunciation of Hebrew 'company'), or – , 'bottom-line'.

Punctuation mark

The geresh is used as a punctuation mark in

initialism An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

s and to denote

numerals A numeral is a figure, symbol, or group of figures or symbols denoting a number. It may refer to: * Numeral system used in mathematics * Numeral (linguistics), a part of speech denoting numbers (e.g. ''one'' and ''first'' in English) * Numerical d ...

Indicating initialisms

s, the Geresh is written after the last letter of the initialism. For example: the title גְּבֶרֶת (literally "lady") is abbreviated גב׳, equivalent to English "Mrs" and "Ms".

Denoting a numeral

A Geresh can be appended after (left of) a single letter to indicate that the letter represents a Hebrew numeral. For example: ק׳‎ represents 100. A multi-digit Hebrew numeral is indicated by the

Gershayim Gershayim (Hebrew: , without niqqud ), also occasionally grashayim. (), is two distinct typographical marks in the Hebrew language. The name literally means "double geresh". Punctuation mark Gershayim most commonly refers to the punctuation ma ...

Cantillation mark

As a note of cantillation in the reading of the

, the Geresh is printed above the accented letter: ב֜. The (lit. 'a Geresh made earlier'), a variant cantillation mark, is also printed above the accented letter, but slightly before (i.e. more to the right of) the position of the normal Geresh: ב֝. As a cantillation mark it is also called ()‎.

Computer encoding

Most keyboards do not have a key for the geresh. As a result, an

( ',

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

U+0027) is often substituted for it.

References

{{Hebrew language Hebrew diacritics Punctuation