Product Code Database
| '''Rafe''' | ||
| ֿ | ||
| Similar appearance | macron | |
| Example | ||
| פֿיש | ||
| The word for fish in [[Yiddish]], ''fish''. The first diacritic (the line over the pei) is a rafe. | ||
| Other Niqqud | ||
| Shin dot]] | ||
In Hebrew language orthography the rafe or raphe (, , meaning "weak, limp") is a diacritic (), a subtle horizontal overbar placed above certain letters to indicate that they are to be pronunciation as .
It originated with the Tiberian Hebrew Masoretes as part of the extended system of niqqud (vowel points), and has the opposite meaning of dagesh qal, showing that one of the letters is to be pronounced as a fricative and not as a plosive, or (sometimes) that a consonant is single and not double; or, as the opposite to a mappiq, to show that the letters or are silent ( mater lectionis).
The rafe generally fell out of use for Hebrew with the coming of printing, although according to Wilhelm Gesenius (1813) at that time it could still be found in a few places in printed , where the absence of a dagesh or a mappiq was noticeable. (e.g. Exodus 20:13,14,15; Deuteronomy 5:13,17,18,19; 2 Samuel 11:1; Isaiah 22:10; Jeremiah 20:17; Psalm 119:99; Zechariah 5:11)
In some (e.g. those printed by ArtScroll) a diacritical symbol, typographically the same as the rafe, but utterly unrelated, is used to mark instances of "moving shva" ( Shva Na).Rabbi Nosson Scherman, Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, Siddur Kol Yaakov/The Complete ArtScroll Siddur—Nusach Ashkenaz, 3rd Edition, Eighteenth Impression, Mesorah Publications Ltd., July 2003. . Preface, p. IX.
The rafe is similar in function to the buailte (dot above, denoting lenition) in the old-style Irish alphabet.
| Pey | p | pan | ||
| Fey | f | fan | ||
In Ladino, as in Tiberian Hebrew, the rafe changes b into v, d into ð, and p into f. Unlike in Hebrew, the rafe also changes g into (d͡ʒ or t͡ʃ), z into ʒ, and in words of Semitic origin also (s or ʃ) into ʃ. In words of Romance origin, s is spelled as , freeing up for the voiceless postalveolar fricative ʃ without the need for a rafe to disambiguate.
Note Ladino orthography is far less standardized than Yiddish; original Ladino works may be written in Rashi script (using rafe), Hebrew block print (using geresh), or in the Latin alphabet (e.g. the 1553 Ferrara Bible).
| b | boy | () | v | ~ | voyage | ||
| g | gap | () | dj, ǧ, or ch, č | ~ | Jupiter, George, chip | ||
| d | day | () | dh, th, ḏ, đ | they | |||
| z | zoo | () | j, g, zh, ž | Jacques, bei ge, vi sion | |||
| t | toy | () | th | thirty | |||
| c, k | care, king | () | ch, kh, k | ~ | lo ch, Ba ch | ||
| p | past | () | f | fast | |||
| s, ç | sin, cent | () | sh, š | shin | |||
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