Lesson 2
【Special note for the online readers: In order to make my editing easier, I skipped the step of optimizing the fond and the character size for the Hebrew letters to optimize your reading experience. You might need to zoom in the webpage in order to read the vowels at the last several examples of this lesson. And I suggest you copy the whole text here by ctrl+A --> ctrl+C --> ctrl+V to your WORD, before your reading begins.】
2.1 Every syllable starts with a consonant. The only exception is the conjunctive “u”.
2.2 Every syllable has only one vowel.
2.3 A syllable can end with a consonant or a vowel. A syllable ending in vowel is called “open syllable”; a syllable ending in consonant is called “closed syllable”.
2.4 There are 3 types of vowels, namely a-type, i-type and u-type. Some vowels are long and some are short. In Latin transliteration, a long vowel carries a macron (a bar above its head).
2.4 The vowel table is as follows:
Note:
(1) Except for cholem, a vowel is written beneath a consonant, and it is pronounced after the consonant. For example:
(2) Cholem is written at the top-left corner of the consonant. For example:
(3) The shin point can join cholem. For example:
2.5 ה ,ו and י can also serve as long vowels. They are called ‘matres lectiones’ (mothers of pronunciations).
2.6 There are 3 types of such long vowels as follows:
Note:
The ending ה can be a mater lectionis or a consonant. If it’s a consonant, a point called mappiq is put inside. For example:
2.7 Some Hebrew words have both a long written form and a short written form. In the long written form, the mater
lectionis is employed while it is omitted in the short written form.
2.8 Usually, the stress of a discrete word rests on the last syllable – ultima. But it also sometimes appears on the last but second syllable – penultima.
2.9 Syllables can be classified into tonic, pretonic and propretonic syllables.
2.10 Shewa is a symbol that can be
classified into “silent shewa” and “vocal shewa”. A vocal shewa has a sound of
/e/ or /ə/. A silent sheva takes the function of ending a closed syllable.
One example of silent shewa:יִשְׂרָאֵל
(1) A vocal shewa occurs when
(2) A silent shewa occurs when
2.11 א ,ה ,ח and ע are called gutturals. They can’t take vocal shewa because /e/ or /ə/ can’t be pronounced in the throat.Instead, they take compound shewas when originally it should be a vocal shewa.
2.12 When qamets is in an unaccented closed syllable, it’s an o sound instead of an a sound. This qamets is called qamets hatuph.
A vertical bar called metheg is used to show the qamets is a.
2.13 If a word ends inהּ,חorע, withthe preceding vowel not belonging to a-type, guttural will add a pathach.
גָּבוֹהַּ high
רוּחַ wind, spirit
2.14 When an א ends a syllable, א is silent.
For example: לֵאלֹהִים
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