 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Mappiq" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(February 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Mappiq | |
| ּ | |
| IPA | h |
| Transliteration | h |
| Same appearance | dagesh,shuruk |
| Example | |
| גֹּבַהּ | |
| The word for height inHebrew,govah. The centre dot in the leftmost letter (which is the letterHe) is a mappiq. | |
| OtherNiqqud | |
| Shva · Hiriq · Tzere · Segol · Patach · Kamatz · Holam · Dagesh · Mappiq · Shuruk · Kubutz · Rafe · Sin/Shin Dot | |
Themappiq (מַפִּיקmapík; alsomapiq,mapik,mappik, lit. "causing to go out") is adiacritic used in theHebrew alphabet. It is part of theMasoretes' system ofniqqud (vowel points), and was added toHebreworthography at the same time. It takes the form of a dot in the middle of a letter (usuallyה,he). An identical point with a different phonetic function (marking different consonants) is called adagesh.
Themappiq is used to indicate that the corresponding letter is to be pronounced as a consonant, although in a position where the letter usually indicates a vowel. Typically, the mappiq is used in the middle ofהּ (he), though it historically and biblically has been used withיּ (yodh),וּ (vav), andאּ (aleph).[1]
Before the vowel points were invented, some consonants were used to indicate vowel sounds. These consonants are calledmatres lectionis (New Latin: sg.māter lēctiōnis "mother of reading", pl.mātrēs lēctiōnis "mothers of reading",calques of Hebrew:אֵם קְרִיאָהem kriá andאִמּוֹת קְרִיאָהimót kriá - with the same meaning). The letterhe (transliteratedH) at the end of a word (Hebrew is written from right to left) can indicate the vowel sounda ore. When it does, it is not acting as a consonant, and therefore in pure phonetic logic the Biblical name Zechariah (among others) should be spelled "Zekharya" without the final "h". However, silent final h being also a feature of English, it is usually retained in Hebrew transliterations to distinguish finalhe from finalaleph.
The divine nameYah has a mappiq (a dot inside the last letter), so the last letter shall not be read as a vowela, but as the consonantH - and therefore Yah (and not Ya).
The most common occurrence ofmappiq is in the suffix "-ah", meaning "her".
Ahe withmappiq is meant to be pronounced as a full consonant "h". InMizrahi andYemenite Hebrew it is pronounced more strongly than a normalhe, sometimes with a slight followingshwa sound (this rule is also followed by Dutch Sephardim), and in Ashkenazi Hebrew, it is pronounced[ʔʼ].[clarification needed][citation needed] In modern Hebrew, however, it is normally silent; although it is still pronounced in religious contexts by careful readers of theprayers and scriptures.
In Masoretic manuscripts the opposite of amappiq would be indicated by arafe, a small line on top of the letter. This is no longer found in Hebrew.
 | This article related to theHebrew language is astub. You can help Wikipedia byexpanding it. |