Rafe
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In Hebrew orthography the rafe, also raphe, (Hebrew: רפה, meaning "soft"), is a diacritic ¯ : a short horizontal overbar placed above the consonant which indicates a softer form of a consonant.
It originated with the Tiberian Masoretes as part of the extended system of niqqud (vowel points), and has the opposite meaning to dagesh, to show that a בגדכפת letter is soft and not hard, or (sometimes) that a consonant is single and not double; or, the opposite to a mappiq, to show that a consonant like ה or א is completely silent (mater lectionis).
The rafe generally fell out of use for Hebrew with the coming of printing, although according to Gesenius (1813) at that time it could still be found in a few places in printed Hebrew Bibles, where the absence of a dagesh or a mappiq was particularly to be noted.[1]
It retained some currency in Yiddish and Ladino, particularly to distinguish /p/ (פּ, pey) from /f/ (פֿ, fey), and to mark non-pronounced consonants.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ p.52, Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, 14th ed, translated by T.J. Conant. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1853. Available online at Google books.
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