IPAHebrew: Yiddish: Transliterationi English approximationHebrew: skiYiddish: skip Other Niqqud Hiriq, also called Chirik ( ) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a single dot underneath the letter. In Modern Hebrew, it indicates the phoneme which is similar to the "ee" sound in the English word deep and is transliterated with "i". In Yiddish, it indicates the phoneme which is the same as the "i" sound in the English word skip and is transliterated with "i".
Spelling When writing with niqqud, the letter yud is often written after the letter that carries the Hiriq sign. This is called ( ), meaning "full" (or "plene") hiriq. In writing without niqqud, the letter yud is added more often as a mater lectionis, than in writing with niqqud, The main exception is the "i" vowel in a syllable that ends with shva naḥ. For example the words (series) and (she organized) are pronounced identically in modern Hebrew, but in spelling without niqqud is written because there is a shva naḥ on the letter , and is written .
In Yiddish orthography the is placed under the yud .
Pronunciation The following table contains the pronunciation and transliteration of the different Hiriqs in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet.
The letter Bet used in this table is only for demonstration, any letter can be used. Symbol Name Pronunciation Israeli Ashkenazi Sephardi Yemenite Tiberian Reconstructed Mishnaic Biblical Hiriq ? (Also called, ) ?
Vowel length comparison These vowels lengths are not manifested in Modern Hebrew. In addition, the short i is usually promoted to a long i in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation. Vowel comparison table Vowel Length IPA Transliteration Englishapproximation Long Short Very Short n/a i ski
Yiddish orthography style Vowel IPA Transliteration Englishapproximation No length distinction i skip
Note: In Yiddish orthography only, the glyph, (), pronounced , can be optionally used, rather than typing then (). In Hebrew spelling this would be pronounced . is written under the previous letter then ().
Computer encoding Glyph Unicode NameU+05B4HIRIQ
References
See also Niqqud Unicode and HTML for the Hebrew alphabet