ShvaShva or, in Biblical Hebrew, shĕwa (שְׁוָא) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign written as two vertical dots ( ) beneath a letter. It indicates either the phoneme /ə/ (shva na', mobile shva) or the complete absence of a vowel (/Ø/) (shva nach, resting shva). It is transliterated as , , , (apostrophe), or nothing. Note that use of for shva is questionable: transliterating Modern Hebrew shva nach with is misleading, since it is never actually pronounced [ə] – the vowel [ə] does not exist in Modern Hebrew.
NiqqudIn 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 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 (see Masoretic Text, Tiberian Hebrew).
DageshThe dagesh () 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.
Waw (letter)Waw ( "hook") is the sixth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician wāw , Aramaic waw , Hebrew vav ו, Syriac waw ܘ and Arabic wāw و (sixth in abjadi order; 27th in modern Arabic order). It represents the consonant w in classical Hebrew, and v in modern Hebrew, as well as the vowels u and o. In text with niqqud, a dot is added to the left or on top of the letter to indicate, respectively, the two vowel pronunciations. It is the origin of Greek Ϝ (digamma) and Υ (upsilon), Cyrillic У, Latin F and V and later Y, and the derived Latin- or Roman-alphabet letters U, and W.
Hebrew cantillationHebrew cantillation, trope, trop, or te'amim is the manner of chanting ritual readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic Text of the Bible, to complement the letters and vowel points. These marks are known in English as 'accents' (diacritics), 'notes' or trope symbols, and in Hebrew as (טעמי המקרא) or just (טעמים). Some of these signs were also sometimes used in medieval manuscripts of the Mishnah.
Hebrew alphabetThe Hebrew alphabet (אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, Alefbet ivri), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is traditionally an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian. In modern Hebrew, vowels are increasingly introduced. It is also used informally in Israel to write Levantine Arabic, especially among Druze.
