Segol ֶ IPA 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 ShvaHiriqTzereSegolPatachKamatzHolamDageshMappiqKubutz and ShurukRafeSin/Shin Dot
Segol (modern , ; formerly , 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 which is similar to "e" in the English word sound in sell and is transliterated as an e.
In Modern Hebrew segol makes the same sound as tzere, as does the Hataf Segol ( , "Reduced Segol"). The reduced (or ħataf) niqqud exist for segol, patah, and kamatz which contain a shva next to it.
Etymology The segol name comes from the Aramaic word סְגוֹל (segol) meaning 'cluster of grapes', because the vowel's sign, three dots forming an upside down triangle " ֶ ", resembles a cluster of grapes.
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 and Het used in this table are only for demonstration; any letter can be used. Symbol Name Pronunciation Modern Ashkenazi Sephardi Yemenite Tiberian Reconstructed Mishnaic Biblical Segol [e̞] [e̞] [a] ? Segol Male [e̞] [e̞] [a] ? Hataf Segol [e̞] [e̞] [a] ?
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.
Vowel comparison table Vowel length IPA Transliteration Englishexample Long Short Very Short etemp Tzere SegolReduced Segol
Unicode encoding Glyph Unicode NameֶU+05B6SEGOL ֱU+05B1HATAF SEGOL
References