Ktiv hasar niqqud (; , literally "spelling lacking niqqud"), colloquially known as ktiv maleh (; כתיב מלא, literally "full spelling"), are the rules for writing Hebrew language without Niqqud (niqqud), often replacing them with mater lectionis ( and ). To avoid confusion, () and () are doubled in the middle of words. In general use, niqqud are rarely used, except in specialized texts such as dictionaries, poetry, or texts for children or for new immigrants.
Comparison example
From a
Hebrew translation of
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (translated by Eliyahu Tsifer):
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| Note: In Modern Hebrew, the letter is commonly pronounced (not ), and the letter is (not ) if at all; i.e., often neither nor is pronounced. The consonants and are pronounced daily only dialect; sometimes however they are also pronounced in festive or theatrical contexts: in , where a more distinct articulation than usual of the as would be common; thus the proposed transcription could be representative of a literary reading of this text, not representative of everyday Israeli speech. Similarly, the consonantal in the dual forms כנפיים and אפיים is distinctly pronounced only dialectically or in festive or theatrical contexts and is otherwise not pronounced, resulting in the hiatus . |
Historical examination
Ktiv haser
Ktiv haser (כתיב חסר) is writing whose consonants match those generally used in voweled text, but without the actual niqqud. For example, the words שֻׁלְחָן and דִּבֵּר written in ktiv haser are שלחן and דבר. In vowelled text, the niqqud indicate the correct
vowels, but when the niqqud is missing, the text is difficult to read, and the reader must make use of the context of each word to know the correct reading.
A typical example of a Hebrew text written in ktiv haser is the Torah, read in (simply called the Torah reading). For assistance, readers often use a Tikkun, a book where the text of the Torah appears in two side-by-side versions, one identical to the text which appears in the Torah, and one with niqqud and cantillation.
Ktiv male
Due to the difficulty of reading unvowelled text, the Va'ad ha-lashon introduced the Rules for the Spelling-Without-Niqqud (כללי הכתיב חסר הניקוד), which in reality dictates ktiv male. This system mostly involved the addition of and to mark the different vowels. Later on, these rules were adopted by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, which continued to revise them, and they were mostly accepted by the public, mainly for official writing.
Ktiv haser became obsolete in Modern Hebrew, and ktiv male has already been dominant for decades in unvowelled texts: all of the newspapers and books published in Hebrew are written in ktiv male. Additionally, it is common for children's books or texts for those with special needs to contain niqqud, but ktiv haser without niqqud is rare.
Despite the Academy's standardization of the rules for ktiv male, there is a substantial absence of unity in writing, partly because of a lack of grammatical knowledge, partly because of the historical layers of the language, and partly because of a number of linguistic categories in which the Academy's decisions are not popular. As a result, book publishers and newspaper editors make their own judgments.
Rules for spelling without niqqud
As is the norm for linguistic rules, the rules for spelling without niqqud are not entirely static. Changes occur from time to time, based on amassed experience. For example, originally the rules for spelling without niqqud dictated that אשה
isha ("woman") should be written without a yod (to distinguish it from אישה
ishah – "her husband"), but currently the exception has been removed, and now, the Academy prefers אישה. The last substantial change to the rules for spelling without niqqud was made in 1993 updated in 1996. The following is the summary of the current rules:
[ Principles of spelling without niqqud ]
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Every letter that appears in vowelled text also appears in unvowelled text.
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After a letter vowelled with a kubuts (the vowel /u/), the letter waw appears: קופסה, הופל, כולם ( k ufsa, h upal, k ulam).
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After a letter vowelled with a holam haser (the vowel /o/) the letter waw appears: בוקר, ישמור ( b oker, yishm or).
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After a letter vowelled with a hirik haser (the vowel /i/) the letter yod appears: דיבור, יישוב, תעשייה ( d ibur, y ishuv, ta'as iya). The letter yod does not appear in the following situations:
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Before a shva nah, for example: הרגיש, מנהג, דמיון ( hirgish, minhag, dimyon);
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Words whose base forms do not contain the vowel /i/: ליבי, איתך, עיתים ( livi, itkha/itakh, itim), which are inflected forms of לב, את, עת; ( lev, et, et), respectively
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After affix letters, like in מביתו, מיד ( mi-beto, mi-yad), and also in the words: עם im, הנה hine
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Before (/ju/ or /jo/): דיון, קיום, בריות, נטיות ( diyun, kiyum, briyot, netiyot).
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After a letter vowelled with a tsere (the vowel /e/) the letter yod generally does not appear: ממד (=מֵמַד), אזור (=אֵזוֹר) ( memad, ezor), but there are situations when yod does appear: תיבה, הישג ( teva, heseg) and in words in which tsere replaces hirik because the presence of a guttural letter (אהחע״ר): תיאבון, תיאבד ( te'avon, teaved).
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Consonantal vav (the consonant /v/) is doubled in the middle of a word: תקווה, זווית ( tikva, zavit). The letter is not doubled at the beginning or the end of a word: ורוד, ותיק, צו ( varod, vatik, tzav). Initial vav is doubled when an affix letter is added except for the affix (meaning "and-"). Thus from the word ורוד varod one has הוורוד ha-varod but וורוד u-varod.
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Consonantal yod (the consonant /j/) is doubled in the middle of a word, for example: בניין, הייתה ( binyan, hayta). The letter is not doubled at the beginning of a word or after affix letters: ילד, יצא, הילד ( yeled, yatza, ha-yeled). Still, consonantal yod is not doubled in the middle of a word where it appears before or after a mater lectionis: פרויקט, מסוים, ראיה, הפניה, בעיה ( proyekt, mesuyam, re'aya, hafnaya/hapniya, be'aya).
These are the most basic rules. Each one has exceptions which is described in the handbook "כללי הכתיב חסר הניקוד" (spelling rules without niqqud) that the Academy publishes in Hebrew.
Notes
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When a reader is likely to err in the reading of a word, the use of partial vowelling is recommended: מִנהל minhal (to distinguish it from מנַהל menahel).
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While the rules above apply to the writing of native Hebrew words, they are not used for spelling , which are frequently written in ktiv haser rather than ktiv male: שלמה, יעקב, כהן ( Shlomo, Ya'akov, Kohen).
See also
External links
