Gershayim
Encyclopedia
| Gershayim | ||
|---|---|---|
| punctuation Punctuation Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate the structure and organization of written language, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud.In written English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences... mark |
״ | פַּרְדֵּ״ס |
| cantillation Cantillation Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to complement the letters and vowel points... mark |
֞ | וּרְד֞וּ |
| compare with quotation marks | ||
| "פַּרְדֵּ״ס", "וּרְד֞וּ" | ||
Gershayim , also occasionally grashayim , names two distinct typographical
Typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. The arrangement of type involves the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading , adjusting the spaces between groups of letters and adjusting the space between pairs of letters...
marks in the Hebrew language
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
. The name literally means "double geresh
Geresh
Geresh is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings.#An apostrophe-like sign placed after a letter :...
".
Punctuation mark
Gershayim most commonly refers to the punctuation mark ⟨״⟩. It is always written before the last letter of the non-inflected form of a word or numeral. It's used in the following ways:- To indicate an acronym. For example: דּוּ״חַ (singular), דּוּ״חוֹת (plural), "report" represents דין וחשבון; and מ״כ (masculine), מַ״כִּית (feminine), "squad commander" represents מפקד כיתה.
- To indicate a multi-digit Hebrew numeral. For example: ח״י represents 18. Single-digit numerals are indicated with a following gereshGereshGeresh is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings.#An apostrophe-like sign placed after a letter :...
.
- To indicate the names of Hebrew letters, differentiating them from any homographHomographA homograph is a word or a group of words that share the same written form but have different meanings. When spoken, the meanings may be distinguished by different pronunciations, in which case the words are also heteronyms. Words with the same writing and pronunciation A homograph (from the ,...
s. Compare הוּא שִׂרְטֵט עַיִן "he sketched an eyeEyeEyes are organs that detect light and convert it into electro-chemical impulses in neurons. The simplest photoreceptors in conscious vision connect light to movement...
" with הוּא שִׂרְטֵט עַיִ״ן "he sketched an ayinAyin' or ' is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew and Arabic . It is the twenty-first letter in the new Persian alphabet...
".
- To indicate Hebrew word roots. For example: the root of תַּשְׁבֵּצִים /taʃbeˈtsim/ "crossword puzzles" is שב״צ ; the root of לְהַטּוֹת /lehaˈtot/ "to tilt, to conjugate" is נט״ה ; and the root of הִסְתַּנְכְּרְנוּת /histankreˈnut/ "becoming synchronized" is סנכר״נ (s–n–k–r–n).
- In older texts, to indicate the transliterationTransliterationTransliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
of a foreign word. This use corresponds to English's use of italics. For example: in printed works of RashiRashiShlomo Yitzhaki , or in Latin Salomon Isaacides, and today generally known by the acronym Rashi , was a medieval French rabbi famed as the author of a comprehensive commentary on the Talmud, as well as a comprehensive commentary on the Tanakh...
, the town of Rashi's birth, TroyesTroyesTroyes is a commune and the capital of the Aube department in north-central France. It is located on the Seine river about southeast of Paris. Many half-timbered houses survive in the old town...
, is spelled טרוי״ש.
Cantillation mark
Gershayim is the name of a disjunctive cantillationCantillation
Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible to complement the letters and vowel points...
accent in the Tanakh
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
- ֞. It is placed above the stressed syllable, as in וַיִּקַּ֞ח (Genesis 22:3).
Computer encoding
Most keyboards do not have a key for the gershayim. As a result, a quotation markQuotation mark
Quotation marks or inverted commas are punctuation marks at the beginning and end of a quotation, direct speech, literal title or name. Quotation marks can also be used to indicate a different meaning of a word or phrase than the one typically associated with it and are often used to express irony...
is often substituted for it.
| Appearance | Code Points | Name |
|---|---|---|
| ״ | U+05F4 | HEBREW PUNCTUATION GERSHAYIM |
| U+059E | HEBREW ACCENT GERSHAYIM |
See also
- Hebrew acronymsHebrew acronymsAcronyms are a common part of the Hebrew language, with many organisations, places and people known by their acronyms.-Typography:Hebrew typography uses a special punctuation mark called Gershayim to denote acronyms, placing the sign between the second-last and last letters of the non-inflected...
- GereshGereshGeresh is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings.#An apostrophe-like sign placed after a letter :...
- Hebrew punctuationHebrew punctuationHebrew punctuation is similar to that of English and other Western languages, Modern Hebrew having imported additional punctuation marks from these languages in order to avoid the ambiguities sometimes occasioned by the relative paucity of such symbols in Biblical Hebrew.-Quotation marks:Hebrew...
- Hebrew diacriticsHebrew diacriticsHebrew orthography includes several types of diacritics:* a set of mostly optional ancillary glyphs known as niqqud in Hebrew, which are used either to represent vowels or to distinguish between alternate pronunciations of several letters of the Hebrew alphabet ;* geresh and gershayim, two...
- Hebrew numeralsHebrew numeralsThe system of Hebrew numerals is a quasi-decimal alphabetic numeral system using the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.In this system, there is no notation for zero, and the numeric values for individual letters are added together...
- Hebrew alphabetHebrew alphabetThe Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, or more historically, the Assyrian script, is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two...