-
Recent Articles
- Polysemy in Biblical Hebrew: One Word, Many Worlds
- The Binyanim That Open the Ark: How Form and Function Shape Genesis 7:1
- Verb–Subject–Object (VSO) Word Order in Biblical Hebrew: Syntax, Style, and Theology
- Calls for Blood: Sequential Imperatives and Double Causal כִּי
- Perfect and Imperfect Verbs in Biblical Hebrew: Understanding Completed and Ongoing Action
- “Speak What I Speak”: Mirroring Divine Speech in the Septuagint
- Main Clauses: How Independent Clauses Function in Biblical Hebrew
- On the Day YHWH Spoke: Learning Hebrew Narrative Structure in Exodus 6:28
- Two Voices, One Mission: The Syntactic Unity of Aaron and Moshe in Hebrew and Greek
- Pointing Them Out: Hebrew Grammar in Exodus 6:26
- The Construct Chain (סְמִיכוּת) and How It Modifies Nouns in Biblical Hebrew
- Use of Interjections in Biblical Hebrew: Emotion, Syntax, and Exegesis
Categories
Archives
Tag Archives: Vowel
The Hebrew Vowels in General, Vowel Letters and Vowel Signs
1. The original vowels in Hebrew, as in the other Semitic tongues, are a, i, u. E and o always arise from an obscuring or contraction of these three pure sounds, viz. ĕ by modification from ĭ or ă; short ŏ from ŭ; ê by contraction from ai (properly ay); and ô sometimes by modification (obscuring) from â, sometimes by contraction from au (properly aw).[1]
In Arabic writing there are vowel signs only for a, i, u; the combined sounds ay and aw are therefore retained uncontracted and pronounced as diphthongs (ai and au), e.g.… Learn Hebrew
Hebrew Phonology
Hebrew Vowels
The original Hebrew alphabet consisted only of consonants and vowel letters. The vowel signs and pronunciation (known as vowel pointings) currently accepted for Biblical Hebrew were created by scholars known as Masoretes after the 5th century AD and are known as Tiberian vocalization. The Masoretes are thought also to have standardized various dialectal differences.
However, it is questioned that Classical Hebrew’s vowel inventory was not identical to that notated by the Masoretes. For instance, /e/ and /ē/ were both indicated with a tzeire in the Masoretic text, but in Greek transcription (Septuagint, Origen, etc.)… Learn Hebrew