Segol

Segol

Segol

Hebrew niqqud vowel sign


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.

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

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.

Pronunciation

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.

More information Symbol, Name ...

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.

Vowel 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.

More information Vowel comparison table, Vowel length ...

Unicode encoding

More information Glyph, Unicode ...

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This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Segol, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.