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Hebrew Helps: 6-8

Help 6: When navigating the Hebrew language, two of the most troubling letters can be
“yod” and “vav”. This is because in Hebrew, these two letters can be read two different
ways, that is, both of them can either be read as a vowel or consonant. It is kind of
similar to the letter “y” in the English language (in fact, when students are learning their
English vowels early on, they learn in recitation to say: A, E, I, O, U…and sometimes
Y); “y” can be read as either a vowel or consonant. Now, this is not exactly the same
type of thing that is going on in Hebrew but the analogy helps us understand a little
better.

So, it is up to the reader to figure out when “yod” or “vav” are supposed to be read a
certain way (e.g. consonantal or vocalic). Well, in Hebrew, there are some general rules
for figuring this out. However, because I like to memorize by way of mnemonic devices,
I do not just take the typical “rote memory” approach. Instead, I use rhymes to help me
remember the rules. So, here are the “rhyming rules” for how to discover whether “yod”
or “vav” is meant to be taken as consonantal or vocalic; this is important for many
reasons but as you will see in the next few helps, it is very important to learn this if you
want to accurately be able to “cut words” or “syllabify” correctly:

Yod
1. Sere, Hireq, Segol, no dot—then it’s a vowel you’ve got
a. In other words, if the “yod” is preceded by a “sere”, “hireq” or “segol” and
has no dot (or vowel point), then it is meant to be taken as a vowel
2. No Sere, Hireq, Segol but starts or dots—then it’s a
consonant you’ve got
a. In other words, if the “yod” is preceded by a vowel than is not “sere”,
“hireq” or “segol” or if it has a dot or vowel, or if it starts a word, then it is
meant to be taken as a vowel

Vav
1. Dot in the middle, dot on top, start a word or consonant
in front, it’s a vowel
a. In other words, if the “vav” appears in the middle of a consonant that
starts a word, appears in the middle and is preceded by a consonant or has
a dot on top and is preceded by a consonant, it is meant to be taken as a
vowel
2. No dot within, not dot atop, it’s a consonant you’ve got
3. Dot within, dot atop, vowel or shewa in front, it’s a
consonant you’ve got

© 2009, T. Michael W. Halcomb

http://www.michaelhalcomb.blogspot.com
http://www.michaelhalcomb.com

Help 7: A Hebrew word MUST ALWAYS begin with a consonant and have a single
vowel!!!

Help 8: To be sure, one of the most confusing things about Hebrew, especially for
beginners, is that it is read from right-to-left. Now, one of the things that makes this even
MORE confusing is that when you’re attempting to divide Hebrew words into syllables,
you MUST do so from left-to right. If you’re like me, you probably need to read those
last two sentences a few more times to get a grasp on it all!

“Cutting words” or “syllabifying” in Hebrew can seem very confusing. So, I want to
offer a few helps to aid you in the process. First of all, it is important to note that if
you’re looking at a Hebrew word and you see no accent mark ( ◌֫ ), then this means that
the stress falls upon the last syllable. To give an pseudo-English example, I would offer
something like the word “Hello”. This word is 2 syllables, of course. And in this
example, there is no accent mark. Thus, if we broke the word down into syllables, it
would look like Hell / ◌֫ . The word, when pronounced would sound like “Hell…ohh”.
Again, in Hebrew, if there is no accent mark visible, the stress falls on the last syllable.

Now, we need to know that when cutting Hebrew words into syllables, we must make 2
distinctions: 1) Open syllables, and 2) Closed syllables. All this means is that an open
syllable ends with a vowel or a final ‫ א‬or ‫ה‬. Closed syllables will end with a consonant
(remember that if it ends in ‫ א‬or ‫ה‬, it is not considered “closed”).

© 2009, T. Michael W. Halcomb