The dagesh ( dagésh) is a diacritic that is used in the Hebrew alphabet. It takes the form of a dot placed inside a consonant. A dagesh can either indicate a "hard" plosive version of the consonant (known as dagesh qal, literally 'light dot') or that the consonant is geminated (known as dagesh ḥazaq, literally 'hard dot'), although the latter is rarely used in Modern Hebrew. The dagesh was added to Hebrew orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud (vowel points). Two other diacritics with different functions, the mappiq and the shuruk, are visually identical to the dagesh but are only used with vowel letters. The dagesh and mappiq symbols are often omitted when writing niqqud (e.g. is written as ). In these cases, dagesh may be added to help readers resolve the ambiguity. The use or omission of such marks is usually consistent throughout any given context.

Dagesh qal

A dagesh kal or dagesh qal (דגש קל, or דגש קשיין, also dagesh lene, weak/light dagesh) may be placed inside the consonants bet, gimel, dalet, kaf, pe and tav. They each have two sounds, the original hard plosive sound (which originally contained no dagesh as it was the only pronunciation), and a soft fricative version produced as such for speech efficiency because of the position in which the mouth is left immediately after a vowel has been produced. Prior to the Babylonian captivity, the soft sounds of these letters did not exist in Hebrew, but were later differentiated in Hebrew writing as a result of the Aramaic-influenced pronunciation of Hebrew. The Aramaic languages, including Jewish versions of Aramaic, have these same allophonic pronunciations of the letters. The letters take on their hard sounds when they have no vowel sound before them, and take their soft sounds when a vowel immediately precedes them. In Biblical Hebrew this was the case within a word and also across word boundaries, though in Modern Hebrew there are no longer across word boundaries, since the soft and hard sounds are no longer allophones of each other, but regarded as distinct phonemes. When vowel diacritics are used, the hard sounds are indicated by a central dot called dagesh, while the soft sounds lack the mark. In Modern Hebrew, however, the dagesh only changes the pronunciation of bet, kaf, and pe. Traditional Ashkenazic pronunciation also varies the pronunciation of tav, and some traditional Middle Eastern pronunciations carry alternate forms for dalet. In Ashkenazi pronunciation, tav without a dagesh is pronounced, while in other traditions it is assumed to have been pronounced at the time niqqud was introduced. In Modern Hebrew, it is always pronounced. The letters gimel and dalet may also contain a dagesh kal. This indicates an allophonic variation of the phonemes and, a variation which no longer exists in modern Hebrew pronunciation. The variations are believed to have been: pronounced as, as , as , and as. The Hebrew spoken by the Jews of Yemen (Yemenite Hebrew) still preserves unique phonemes for these letters with and without a dagesh.

Pronunciation

Among Modern Hebrew speakers, the pronunciation of some of the above letters has become the same as others:

Dagesh hazaq

Dagesh ḥazak or dagesh ḥazaq (דגש חזק, lit. 'strong dot', i.e. 'gemination dagesh', or דגש כפלן, also 'dagesh forte') may be placed in almost any letter, indicating a gemination (doubling) of that consonant in the pronunciation of pre-modern Hebrew. This gemination is not adhered to in modern Hebrew and is only used in careful pronunciation, such as the reading of scripture in a synagogue service, recitation of biblical or traditional texts or on ceremonial occasions, and only by very precise readers. The following letters, the gutturals, almost never have a dagesh: aleph, he , chet , ayin , and resh. A few instances of resh with dagesh are recorded in the Masoretic Text, as well as a few cases of aleph with dagesh, such as in Leviticus 23:17. The presence of a dagesh ḥazak or consonant-doubling in a word may be entirely morphological, or, as is often the case, is a lengthening to compensate for a deleted consonant. A dagesh ḥazak may be placed in letters for one of the following reasons:

Rafe

In Masoretic manuscripts the opposite of a dagesh would be indicated by a rafe, a small line on top of the letter. This is no longer found in Hebrew, but may still sometimes be seen in Yiddish and Ladino.

<!-- # Pronunciation of modern Israeli Hebrew Below is a complete list of Hebrew letters which may take a dagesh, and their pronunciation as consonants in modern Israeli Hebrew: ! Character !! Name !! Pronunciation Dagesh and [mappiq](https://bliptext.com/articles/mappiq) symbols, the dots in otherwise identical letters, are often omitted in writing. For instance, בּ is often written as ב. The use or omission of such marks is usually consistent throughout any given context. ## Matres lectionis The letters alef, he, vav and yod are consonants that can sometimes have the value of vowels. Vav and yod in particular are more often vowels than they are consonants. !Symbol!!Name!!Vowel formation ## Loanwords The sounds /tʃ, dʒ, ʒ/, written 'ז', ג' , צ, are found in many loanwords that are part of the everyday Hebrew colloquial vocabulary, even among people who don't know the source languages. In addition, there are ways of writing some sounds in words that are truly foreign, not part of Israeli Hebrew: !! colspan=6 | Everyday Colloquial Hebrew !! colspan=1 | Name !! colspan=1 | Symbol !! colspan=1 | [IPA](https://bliptext.com/articles/international-phonetic-alphabet) !! colspan=1 | [Transliteration](https://bliptext.com/articles/transliteration) !! colspan=1 | Example ! Letter !! colspan=6 | Foreign Sounding Loanwords ## Pronunciation In [Israel](https://bliptext.com/articles/israel)'s general population, many consonants have merged to the same pronunciation. They are: ! Letter ! with !! colspan=3 | Letter(s) -->

Unicode encodings

In computer typography there are two ways to use a dagesh with Hebrew text. The following examples give the Unicode and numeric character references: Some fonts, character sets, encodings, and operating systems may support neither, one, or both methods.