Shva
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| ְ | |
| IPA | Modern Hebrew: /e/ ([e̞]), Ø |
| Biblical Hebrew: /a/ | |
| Transliteration | e, ' (apostrophe), nothing |
| English example | men, menorah |
Example
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Other Niqqud
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Shva or, in Biblical Hebrew, shĕwa (Hebrew: שְׁוָא) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign written as two vertical dots ( ְ ) beneath a letter. It indicates either the phoneme /ə/ (shva na', mobile shva) or the complete absence of a vowel (/Ø/) (shva naḥ, resting shva).
It is transliterated as ⟨e⟩, ⟨ĕ⟩, ⟨ə⟩, ⟨'⟩ (apostrophe), or nothing. Note that use of ⟨ə⟩ for shva is questionable: transliterating Modern Hebrew shva naḥ with ⟨ə⟩ is misleading, since it is never actually pronounced [ə] – a mid central vowel (IPA [ə]) does not exist in Modern Hebrew. The vowel [ə] was pronounced as a full vowel in earlier Hebrew varieties such as Tiberian vocalization, where it was phonetically usually identical to short [a], in Palestinian vocalization appears as short [e] or [i], and in Babylonian vocalization as [a]. In early Greek and Latin transliterations of Hebrew such as the Hexapla, it appears as [ε] and [e], respectively.[1]
A shva sign in combination with the vowel diacritics patáḥ, segól, and qamatz produces a ḥatáf: a diacritic for a tnuʿá ḥatufá (a 'reduced vowel' – lit. 'abducted vowel'). In Tiberian Hebrew, these were pronounced identical to the short vowels [a], [ɛ], and [ɔ].[2]
- ^ Khan, Geoffrey (2020). The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, Volume 1. Cambridge, England: Open Book Publishers. pp. 305–7. ISBN 978-1-78374-677-4.
- ^ Khan, Geoffrey (2020). The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, Volume 1. Cambridge, England: Open Book Publishers. p. 313. ISBN 978-1-78374-677-4.