Hiriq ( he, חִירִיק ' ) is a

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 ...

niqqud In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) 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 ...

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...

sign represented by a single dot underneath the letter. In

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 ...

, it indicates 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 ...

which is similar to the "ee" sound in the English word ''deep'' and is transliterated with "i". In Yiddish, it indicates the phoneme which is the same as the "i" sound in the English word ''skip'' and is transliterated with "i".

Spelling

When writing with niqqud, the letter '' yud'' is often written after the letter that carries the Hiriq sign. This is called ( he, חִירִיק מָלֵא ), meaning "full" (or "plene") hiriq. In writing without niqqud, the letter yud is added more often as a

mater lectionis ''Matres lectionis'' (from Latin "mothers of reading", singular form: ''mater lectionis'', from he, אֵם קְרִיאָה ) are consonants that are used to indicate a vowel, primarily in the writing down of Semitic languages such as Arabic, ...

, than in writing with niqqud, The main exception is the i vowel in a syllable that ends with shva naḥ. For example the words סִדְרָה (series) and סִדְּרָה (she organized) are pronounced identically in modern Hebrew, but in spelling without niqqud סִדְרָה is written סדרה because there is a shva naḥ on the letter ד, and סִדְּרָה is written סידרה. In Yiddish orthography the ' is placed under the ''yud'' .

Pronunciation

The following table contains 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 ...

and transliteration of the different Hiriqs in reconstructed historical forms and

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...

s using the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...

. The pronunciation in IPA is above and the transliteration is below. The letter

Bet Black Entertainment Television (acronym BET) is an American basic cable channel targeting African-American audiences. It is owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global via BET Networks and has offices in New York City, Los ...

() used in this table is only for demonstration. Any letter can be used.

Vowel length comparison

These vowels lengths are not manifested in Modern Hebrew. In addition, the short ''i'' is usually promoted to a long ''i'' in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation. Note: In Yiddish orthography only, the glyph, ' (), pronounced , can be optionally used, rather than typing ' then ' (). In Hebrew spelling this would be pronounced . is written ' then ' ().

Spelling

Pronunciation

Vowel length comparison

Computer encoding

See also