Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, §12, §13- M. Spiegel and J. Volk, 2003. "Hebrew Vowel Restoration with Neural Networks," Proceedings of the Class of 2003 Senior Conference, Computer Science Department, Swarthmore College, pp. 1–7: Open Access Copy
| Dagesh | ||
| ּ | ||
| IPA | Biblical | ḥazaq: [ː] (gemination) |
| qal: [β]→[b], [ɣ]→[ɡ], [ð]→[d], [x]→[k], [ɸ]→[p], [θ]→[t] | ||
| Israeli | [v]→[b], [x]~[χ]→[k], [f]→[p] | |
| Transliteration | Biblical | ḥazaq: doubling of consonant |
| qal: none (SBL transliteration system[1]) | ||
| Israeli | v→b, kh→k, f→p | |
| Same appearance | mappiq, shuruk | |
| Example | ||
| דָּגֵשׁ | ||
| "Dagesh" in Hebrew. The center dot on the rightmost character (which is the letter Dalet) is a dagesh. | ||
| Other Niqqud | ||
| Shva · Hiriq · Tzere · Segol · Patach · Kamatz · Holam · Dagesh · Mappiq · Shuruk · Kubutz · Rafe · Sin/Shin Dot | ||
The dagesh (דָּגֵשׁ) is a diacritic that is used in the Hebrew alphabet. It takes the form of a dot placed inside a consonant. A dagesh can either indicate a "hard" plosive version of the consonant (known as dagesh qal, literally "light dot") or that the consonant is geminated (known as dagesh ḥazaq, literally "hard dot"), although the latter is rarely used in Modern Hebrew.
The dagesh was added to the Hebrew orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud (vowel points).
Two other diacritics with different functions, the mappiq and the shuruq, are visually identical to the dagesh but are only used with vowel letters.
The dagesh and mappiq symbols are often omitted when writing niqqud (e.g. בּ is written as ב). In these cases, dagesh could be added to help readers resolve the ambiguity.[2] The use or omission of such marks is usually consistent throughout any given context.
A dagesh kal or dagesh qal (דגש קל, or דגש קשיין, also "dagesh lene", "weak/light dagesh", opposed to "strong dot") may be placed inside the consonants ב bet, ג gimel, ד dalet, כ kaf, פ pe and ת tav. They each had two sounds, the original "hard" plosive sound (which originally contained no dagesh pointing as it was the only pronunciation), and a "soft" fricative version produced as such for speech efficiency because of the position in which the mouth is left immediately after a vowel has been produced.
Prior to the Babylonian captivity, the soft sounds of these letters did not exist in Hebrew, but they were later differentiated in Hebrew writing as a result of the Aramaic-influenced pronunciation of Hebrew after this point in Jewish history.[citation needed] The Aramaic languages, including Jewish versions of Aramaic, have these same allophonic pronunciations of the same letters.
The letters take on their hard sounds when they have no vowel sound before them, and take their soft sounds when a vowel immediately precedes them. In Biblical-era Hebrew this was the case within a word and also across word boundaries, though in Modern Hebrew no longer across word boundaries since in Modern Hebrew the soft and hard sounds are no longer allophones of each other, but regarded as distinct phonemes.
When vowel diacritics are used, the hard sounds are indicated by a central dot called dagesh, while the soft sounds lack a dagesh. In Modern Hebrew, however, the dagesh only changes the pronunciation of ב bet, כ kaf, and פ pe (traditional Ashkenazic pronunciation also varies the pronunciation of ת tav, and some traditional Middle Eastern pronunciations carry alternate forms for ד dalet).
| With dagesh | Without dagesh | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Symbol | Name | Transliteration | IPA | Example | Symbol | Name | Transliteration | IPA | Example |
| בּ | bet | b | /b/ | bun | ב | vet | v | /v/ | van |
| [3]כּ ךּ | kaph | k | /k/ | kangaroo | כ ך | khaph | kh/ch/ḵ | /χ/ | loch |
| [4]פּ ףּ | pe | p | /p/ | pass | פ ף | phe | f/ph | /f/ | find |
In Ashkenazi pronunciation, Tav without a dagesh is pronounced [s], while in another traditions it is assumed to have been pronounced [θ] at the time niqqud was introduced. In Modern Hebrew, it is always pronounced [t].
The letters gimmel (ג) and dalet (ד) may also contain a dagesh kal. This indicates an allophonic variation of the phonemes /ɡ/ and /d/, a variation which no longer exists in modern Hebrew pronunciation. The variations are believed to have been: גּ=[ɡ], ג=[ɣ], דּ=[d], ד=[ð]. The Hebrew spoken by the Jews of Yemen (Yemenite Hebrew) still preserves unique phonemes for these letters with and without a dagesh.[5]
When the letter he (ה) is the final letter of a word, it is usually silent and indicates the presence of a word-final vowel. However, when it receives a dagesh kal, the he is pronounced instead of being silent. This is the rule in historic pronunciation, but this rule is generally ignored in Modern Hebrew. Nevertheless, a non-silent word-final hey (הּ) can take a furtive patach.
In Israel's general population, the pronunciation of some of the above letters has become pronounced the same as others:
| Letter | pronounced like | Letter |
|---|---|---|
| ב vet |
(without dagesh) like | ו vav |
| כ khaf |
(without dagesh) like | ח chet |
| כּ kaf |
(with dagesh) like | ק qof |
| תּ, ת tav |
(with and without dagesh) like | ט tet |
Dagesh ḥazak or dagesh ḥazaq (דגש חזק, "strong dot", i.e. "gemination dagesh", or דגש כפלן, also "dagesh forte") may be placed in almost any letter, this indicated a gemination (doubling) of that consonant in the pronunciation of pre-modern Hebrew. This gemination is not adhered to in modern Hebrew and is only used in careful pronunciation, such as reading of scriptures in a synagogue service, recitations of biblical or traditional texts or on ceremonious occasions, and then only by very precise readers.
The following letters, the gutturals, almost never have a dagesh: aleph א, he ה, chet ח, ayin ע, resh ר. (A few instances of resh with dagesh are masoretically recorded in the Hebrew Bible, as well as a few cases of aleph with a dagesh, such as in Leviticus 23:17.)
The presence of a dagesh ḥazak or consonant-doubling in a word may be entirely morphological, or, as is often the case, is a lengthening to compensate for a deleted consonant. A dagesh ḥazak may be placed in letters for one of the following reasons:
In Masoretic manuscripts the opposite of a dagesh would be indicated by a rafe, a small line on top of the letter. This is no longer found in Hebrew, but may still sometimes be seen in Yiddish and Ladino.
In computer typography there are two ways to use a dagesh with Hebrew text. Here are Unicode examples:
Some fonts, character sets, encodings, and operating systems may support neither, one, or both methods.