Rafe

In Hebrew orthography the rafe, also raphe, (IPA| [ʀa'fe̞] , Hebrew: רפה, meaning "weak, limp"), is a diacritic ֿ : a short horizontal overbar placed above certain letters to indicate that they are to be pronounced as fricatives.

It originated with the Tiberian Masoretes as part of the extended system of "niqqud" (vowel points), and has the opposite meaning to "dagesh qal", showing that one of the letters בגדכפת is to be pronounced as a fricative and not as a plosive, or (sometimes) that a consonant is single and not double; or, as the opposite to a "mappiq", to show that the letters ה or א are 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. [p.52, "Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar", 14th ed, translated by T.J. Conant. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1853. Available online at Google books.] It retained some currency in Yiddish and Ladino, particularly to distinguish /p/ (פּ, "pey") from /f/ (פֿ, "fey"), and to mark non-pronounced consonants.

See also

* Hebrew alphabet
* Hebrew phonology
* Yiddish orthography
* Macron
* Mappiq

References