Concept

Shva

Shva 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. Moreover, the vowel [ə] is probably not characteristic of earlier pronunciations such as Tiberian vocalization. A shva sign in combination with the vowel diacritics patáẖ, segól and kamáts katán produces a : a diacritic for a (a 'reduced vowel' – lit. 'abducted'). In Modern Hebrew, shva is either pronounced /e/ or is mute (Ø), regardless of its traditional classification as shva nach (שְׁוָא נָח) or shva na (שְׁוָא נָע), see following table for examples. The Israeli standard for its transliteration is only for a pronounced shva na (i.e., one which is pronounced /e/), and no representation in transliteration if the shva is mute. In Modern Hebrew, a shva is pronounced /e/ under the following conditions: One exception to rule 2 seems to be מְלַאי /mlaj/ 'inventory' (although according to the New User-Friendly Hebrew-English Dictionary (Arie Comey, Naomi Tsur; Achiasaf, 2006), the word is instead pronounced /meˈlai/); the absence of a vowel after the (/m/) might be attributable to the high sonority of the subsequent liquid (/l/), however compare with מְלִית (/meˈlit/, not /*mlit/) 'filling' (in cuisine). Exceptions to rule 6 include פְּסַנְתְּרָן (/psantˈran/, not */psanteˈran/ – 'pianist'), אַנְגְּלִית (/aŋˈɡlit/, not */aŋɡeˈlit/ – 'English'), נַשְׁפְּרִיץ (/naʃˈprit͡s/, not */naʃpeˈrit͡s/ – 'we will sprinkle'), several inflections of quinqueliteral roots – e.g.: סִנְכְּרֵן (/sinˈkren/, not */sinkeˈren/ – 'he synchronized'); חִנְטְרֵשׁ (/χinˈtreʃ/, not */χinteˈreʃ/ – 'he did stupid things'); הִתְפְלַרְטֵט (/hitflarˈtet/, not */hitfelartet/ – 'he had a flirt') – as well as other, more recent loanwords, e.

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Related concepts (11)
Hebrew diacritics
Hebrew orthography includes three types of diacritics: Niqqud in Hebrew is the way to indicate vowels, which are omitted in modern orthography, using a set of ancillary glyphs. Since the vowels can be understood from surrounding letters, context can help readers read the correct pronunciations of several letters of the Hebrew alphabet (the rafe sign and other rare glyphs are also listed as part of the niqqud system but are not in common use); geresh and gershayim, two diacritics that are not considered a part of niqqud, each of which has several functions (e.
Begadkefat
Begadkefat (also begedkefet) is the name given to a phenomenon of lenition affecting the non-emphatic stop consonants of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic when they are preceded by a vowel and not geminated. The name is also given to similar cases of spirantization of post-vocalic plosives in other languages; for instance, in the Berber language of Djerba. Celtic languages have a similar system. The name of the phenomenon is made up of these six consonants, mixed with haphazard vowels for the sake of pronunciation: BeGaDKePaT.
Bet (letter)
Bet, Beth, Beh, or Vet is the second letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician bēt , Hebrew bēt ב, Aramaic bēṯ , Syriac bēṯ ܒ, and Arabic ب. Its sound value is the voiced bilabial stop ⟨b⟩ or the voiced labiodental fricative ⟨v⟩. The letter's name means "house" in various Semitic languages (Arabic bayt, Akkadian bītu, bētu, Hebrew: bayīṯ, Phoenician bēt etc.; ultimately all from Proto-Semitic *bayt-), and appears to derive from an Egyptian hieroglyph of a house by acrophony.
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