Darga (Hebrew: דַּרְגָּא) is a cantillation mark commonly found in the Torah, Haftarah, and other books. The symbol for the darga resembles a backwards Z.

The darga is a conjunctive (mesharet) which precedes disjunctives (mafsikim) Tevir, Mercha kefula and Revia, but the cases in which it appears differ dependig on the disjunctive:

Before a Tevir, the conjunctive is a darga only when there is at least four syllables between the conjunctive and the disjunctive (both included) as in וַיַּ֧רְא אֱלֹהִ֛ים (Genesis 1:4). Otherwise it is a Mercha
When there is two conjunctives before a Revia, the first one is a darga (the second one is a Munach as usual)
The conjunctive which precedes a mercha kefulah is always a darga

The Aramaic word דַּרְגָּא translates into English as step.

01Total occurrences

Book	Number of appearances
Torah	1091
Genesis	253
Exodus	221
Leviticus	171
Numbers	237
Deuteronomy	209
Nevi'im	710
Ketuvim	637

02Melody

The Ashkenazic darga is recited in a fast, downward slope, as follows:

The Sefardic darga is ascending, and the Moroccan darga is descending with a waver in the middle.

Watch videos about DargaExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Darga”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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