Segol
Hebrew niqqud vowel sign
| Segol | |
| ֶ | |
| IPA | ɛ |
| Transliteration | e |
| English example | bed |
| Same sound | tzere |
| Example | |
| שֶׁל | |
| The word for of in Hebrew, shel. The triangular array of three dots under the letter Shin form the segol. | |
| Other Niqqud | |
| Shva · Hiriq · Tzere · Segol · Patach · Kamatz · Holam · Dagesh · Mappiq · Kubutz and Shuruk · Rafe · Sin/Shin Dot | |
Segol (modern Hebrew: סֶגּוֹל, IPA: [seˈɡol]; formerly סְגוֹל, səḡôl) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign that is represented by three dots forming an upside down equilateral triangle "ֶ ". As such, it resembles an upside down therefore sign (a because sign) underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew, it indicates the phoneme /e/ which is similar to "e" in the English word sound in sell and is transliterated as an e.
In Modern Hebrew segol makes the same sound as tzere, as does the Hataf Segol (Hebrew: חֲטַף סֶגּוֹל IPA: [ħaˈtaf seˈɡol], "Reduced Segol"). The reduced (or ħataf) niqqud exist for segol, patah, and kamatz which contain a shva next to it.
01Etymology
The segol name comes from the Aramaic word סְגוֹל (segol) meaning 'cluster of grapes', because the vowel's sign, three dots forming an upside down triangle " ֶ ", resembles a cluster of grapes.
02Pronunciation
The following table contains the pronunciation and transliteration of the different segols in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet.
The letters Bet ⟨ב⟩ and Het ⟨ח⟩ used in this table are only for demonstration; any letter can be used.
| Symbol | Name | Pronunciation | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Modern | Ashkenazi | Sephardi | Yemenite | Tiberian | Reconstructed | |||
| Mishnaic | Biblical | |||||||
| בֶ | Segol | [e̞] | [e̞] | [e̞] | [a] | [ɛ, ɛː] | ? | [ɛ] |
| בֶי בֶה בֶא | Segol Male | [e̞] | [e̞] | [e̞] | [a] | [ɛː] | ? | [ɛː, ɛj] |
| חֱ | Hataf Segol | [e̞] | [e̞] | [e̞] | [a] | [ɛ̆] | ? | [ɛ] |
In addition, a letter with a segol or tzere with a succeeding yod often makes the "ei" (also spelled "ey") sound such as in they or tape.
03Vowel length comparison
By adding two vertical dots (shva), the vowel can be made very short. However, the vowels lengths are not manifested in Modern Hebrew.
| Vowel comparison table | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vowel length | IPA | Transliteration | English example | ||
| Long | Short | Very Short | |||
| ֵ | ֶ | ֱ | [e̞] | e | temp |
| Tzere | Segol | Reduced Segol | |||
04Unicode encoding
| Glyph | Unicode | Name |
|---|---|---|
| ֶ | U+05B6 | SEGOL |
| ֱ | U+05B1 | HATAF SEGOL |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Segol”, 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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