Modern Israeli Hebrew

Letters

Combining marks

Punctuation

Symbols

Other

Show

list all 9

⁧2067

RIGHT-TO-LEFT ISOLATErtl isolate

‫202B

RIGHT-TO-LEFT EMBEDDINGrtl embed

⁦2066

LEFT-TO-RIGHT ISOLATEltr isolate

‪202A

LEFT-TO-RIGHT EMBEDDINGltr embed

⁨2068

FIRST STRONG ISOLATEfirst-strong isolate

⁩2069

POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATEpop direction isolate

‬202C

POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTINGpop direction

‏200F

RIGHT-TO-LEFT MARKrtl mark

‎200E

LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARKltr mark

To be investigated

list all 19

[005B

(tbc)    LEFT SQUARE BRACKETbracket [

]005D

(tbc)    RIGHT SQUARE BRACKETbracket ]

{007B

(tbc)    LEFT CURLY BRACKET

}007D

(tbc)    RIGHT CURLY BRACKET

ʼ02BC

(tbc)    MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHEapostrophe ʼ

͏034F

(tbc)    COMBINING GRAPHEME JOINERcombining grapheme joiner

‑2011

(tbc)    NON-BREAKING HYPHENnon-breaking hyphen ‑

–2013

(tbc)    EN DASHen dash –

—2014

(tbc)    EM DASHem dash —

‘2018

(tbc)    LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARKquotation mark ‘

“201C

(tbc)    LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARKquotation mark “

…2026

(tbc)    HORIZONTAL ELLIPSISellipsis …

‰2030

(tbc)    PER MILLE SIGNper mille mark

⁠2060

(tbc)    U+2060 WORD JOINERword joiner

Notes on phonology

Modern Israeli Hebrew was born from speakers who brought their own accents and pronunciations from different parts of the world. There are still variations in pronunciation, but two main types predominate today: Oriental and Occidental. Oriental Hebrew was chosen as the preferred accent for Israel by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, but has since declined in popularity. Age is often a factor in individual pronunciation.13→

In particular, there are alternative pronunciations for x~ħ, ʁ~r, ʔ~ʕ. In this document we use the left-hand side of each of these pairings.

Younger speakers also tend to make all consonants in a cluster voiced or unvoiced, depending on the last consonant, eg. לִסְגֹּר lisᵊgoˑʁ lis'ɡoʁ to close becomes liz'ɡoʁ, and אַבְטָחָה ʔavᵊtāxāh avta'xa security becomes afta'xa.

For more details, see: Wikipedia.

Vowel sounds

See also the Notes on phonology.

Consonant sounds

	labial	alveolar	post- alveolar	palatal	velar	uvular	glottal
stop	p b	t d			k ɡ		ʔ
affricate		t͡s	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
fricative	f v	s z	ʃ ʒ		x	ʁ	h
nasal	m	n
approximant	w	l		j
trill/flap		r ɾ

x is sometimes described as χ, and ʁ as r. For more variants see Notes on phonology.

Final -h is rarely pronounced in modern Hebrew.13

Tone

Hebrew is not a tonal language.

Structure

tbd

Hebrew spelling

Wikipedia describes 3 main types of spelling found in contemporary Israeli text.

כתיב חסר Ktiv haser (missing spelling) uses no niqqud or additional matres lectionis. It looks anachronistic and can be ambiguous but can still be found sometimes in newspapers and published books.

אמץ ˈˀomets courage

אויר ˀaˈvir air

חלקה ħaluˈqa distribution

כתיב מנוקד Ktiv menuqad (pointed spelling), rarely used in everyday life because it is too cumbersome, shows all the vowels using the niqqud points. It is used wherever the pronunciation needs to be clear and unambiguous, such as in children's books, poetry, language instruction for newcomers, or ambiguous or foreign terms.

אֹמֶץ ˈˀomets courage

אֲוִיר ˀaˈvir air

חֲלֻקָּה ħaluˈqa distribution

כתיב מלא Ktiv male (full spelling) or ktiv hasar niqqud is the predominant approach, including in personal correspondence, movies subtitles, etc. It adds matres lectionis to words where certain niqqud points would occur in the pointed spelling approach. To avoid confusion, consonantal וU+05D5 LETTER VAV v and יU+05D9 LETTER YOD j are doubled in the middle of words.

אומץ ˈˀomets courage

אוויר ˀaˈvir air

חלוקה ħaluˈqa distribution

More vowel details

Hebrew is normally unvocalised (ie. the vowel diacritics are hidden). In this case, vowels are written using a small number of matres lectionis (consonants marking vowel locations), and some vowels are not marked at all. Figure 1 shows ways of writing Hebrew vowels in unvocalised text. For each letter there are 3 lines, indicating initial, medial, and final forms. In 3 places no vowel is marked at all.

In vocalised text Hebrew uses a mixture of matres lectionis and combining diacritics to represent vowels. Figure 2 shows ways of writing Hebrew vowels in vocalised text.

Vowel basics

Matres lectionis

In the spelling of Arabic, Hebrew, and other Semitic languages, mater lectionis refers to a consonant that may also indicate the location of a vowel.w

The following consonant letters may indicate the location of a vowel in full spelling text. (They may alternatively indicate the location of a consonant.) In pointed text, when used as matres lectionis, they appear after the niqqud point that indicates the vowel sound.

4

א∅ a e ∅ʔ05D0

ה∅ a ehh05D4

וu ovv̇05D5

יiyy05D9

Click on the characters in the list above for detailed information; here we will just summarise a few key points.

There is a trend in Modern Hebrew towards the use of matres lectionis to indicate vowels that have traditionally gone unwritten, a practice known as full spelling.15 For example, compare the pointed vs full spellings of the following:

אישה  ≡  אִשָּׁה iʃˈa wife, woman

אלוה  ≡  אֱלֹהַּ, אֱלוֹהַּ eˈlo.a a god

Since modern Israeli Hebrew doesn't make vowel length distinctive, the use of matres lectionis doesn't correspond to clear distinctions between vowel length or quality in the way they do in Arabic. They may, however, reflect historical differences that are still maintained in the spelling.

אU+05D0 LETTER ALEF is most commonly found as a glottal stop or vowel carrier for standalone vowels (see Standalone vowels), whereas הU+05D4 LETTER HE is most likely to be found in word-final position (especially after a word that ends with a).

Niqqud points

A series of points, known as niqqud, can be used to give precision about vowel sounds. They are rarely used outside of educational, children's, and religious texts, or for foreign or ambiguous words.

show composition

אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי alef-bet ivri Hebrew alphabet

The Modern Israeli Hebrew orthography we are discussing here uses the following niqqud to represent vowel sounds.

11

ִrareii05B4

ֻrareuu05BB

ֵraree ejē05B5

ֶrareee05B6

ֱrareeĕ05B1

ֹrareoo05B9

ֳrareoŏ05B3

ְraree ∅ᵊ05B0

ָrarea oā05B8

ַrareaa05B7

ֲrareaă05B2

Redundancy arises because the modern orthography retains alternative points that in the past expressed length differences, whereas modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation ignores phonetic length.

Three of the above code points have glyphs that combine the glyph for U+05B0 POINT SHEVA (sh'va) with that of another point. These combinations were used in older Hebrew to indicate particularly short vowel lengths, and the spelling has been retained in modern Hebrew. The Unicode Standard recommends that you use a single, precomposed Unicode code point for each of these combinations. These precomposed characters don't decompose during normalisation.

both

ׇrareoo̱05C7

ֺrareoọ05BA

The two code points just above may be used, mostly in biblical texts or prayer books, to preserve fine typographic differences in usage. For more information, click on the characters.

Standalone vowels

Standalone vowels are vowel sounds that are not preceded by a consonant sound, or are preceded by only a glottal stop. They may appear at the beginning of a word or in the middle of a word after a preceding vowel.

In theory, Hebrew doesn't have any true standalone vowels, since vowels are always preceded by a consonant. However, when that consonant is a glottal stop, the stop is often dropped and in spoken Hebrew a vowel then occurs at the beginning of a word or word-medially after another vowel.

These vowels are always written with a base consonant, which is usually one of אU+05D0 LETTER ALEF or עU+05E2 LETTER AYIN. The alef is by far the most common when word initial.

אֵזוֹר eˈzoʁ region, zone

אוֹתְיוֹם otˈjom immediately

עֵץ et͡s tree

עוֹלָם oˈlam the world, Earth

בעיה be.aˈja problem

גַּבְרִיאֵל ɡavʁiˈɛl Gabriel

Vowel absence

In pointed text, U+05B0 POINT SHEVA may be used to express an absence of vowel between two consonants. However, in various contexts the sh'va may indicate that the consonant is followed by a short, epenthetic vowel e.

אגרוף  ≡  אֶגְרוֹף eɡˈʁof fist

בהמות  ≡  בְּהֵמוֹת beheˈmot behemoth

A word-final consonant typically doesn't take a diacritic. (See Finals.)

אַנְגְּלִית anɡˈlit English

בָּחוּר baˈχur guy, boy

Vowel sounds to characters

Basic consonants

These are the basic consonant letters used in modern Hebrew.

22

אʔ ∅ ∅ʔ05D0

עʔ ∅ ʔ̇05E2

   

טttt05D8

תttṫ05EA

דddd05D3

קkkk05E7

גɡgg05D2

   

צt͡stsʦ05E6

   

פf pff05E4

בv bvv05D1

וv wvv̇05D5

שs ʃs shṡ05E9

סsss05E1

זzzz05D6

חχẖχ05D7

כx kkhx05DB

רʁrʁ05E8

הh ∅hh05D4

   

מmmm05DE

נnnn05E0

   

לlll05DC

יjyy05D9

Repertoire extensions

Methods used to modify the sound of a consonant. See also Cantillation & other marks.

Dagesh

U+05BC POINT DAGESH OR MAPIQ is used in pointed text with 3 consonant letters (and one final form) to indicate that they map to 'hard' sounds. This is similar to the distinction made in Syriac. Dagesh is the only diacritic to appear inside a consonant. Below, the hard sounds are shown to the left, and the normal to the right.

8

פּp05E4
05BC

בּb05D1
05BC

כּk05DB
05BC

ךּk05DA
05BC

פf05E4

בv05D1

כx05DB

ךx05DA

Dagesh can also be found alongside other letters, without any sound change, due to preservation of archaic spelling. The pairs t–θ, d–ð and ɡ–ɣ were lost over time, leaving:

3

תּttṫˑ05EA
05BC

דּdddˑ05D3
05BC

גּɡggˑ05D2
05BC

See also Consonant length.

Shin & sin dots

both

שׁʃshṡᶴ05E9
05C1

שׂssṡˢ05E9
05C2

שU+05E9 LETTER SHIN represents two phonemes: ʃ and s. If it is necessary to indicate which is intended, one of two diacritics (used only with this character) are used: U+05C2 POINT SIN DOT and U+05C1 POINT SHIN DOT. They look identical, but the side to which they are positioned makes the difference.

שקל  ≡  שֶׁקֶל ˈʃɛkɛl shekel

משוש  ≡  מָשׂוֹשׂ maˈsos rejoicing

Geresh

Certain consonants are extended to represent non-native sounds by use of a following ׳U+05F3 PUNCTUATION GERESH.

This first set is used in loanwords and slang that are part of the everyday Hebrew colloquial vocabulary.15

5

ג׳loand͡ʒǧg´05D2
05F3

ז׳loanʒžz´05D6
05F3

צ׳loant͡ʃčʦ´05E6
05F3

ו׳ wwv̇´05D5
05F3

וו w v̇v̇05D5
05D5

The graphemes ו׳ and וו are alternative ways of writing the same thing.

A second set is only used to transliterate foreign sounds, especially Arabic.15

5

ד׳loanð d´05D3
05F3

ת׳loanθ ṫ´05EA
05F3

ח׳loanχ x´05D7
05F3

ר׳loanʁ ʁ´05E8
05F3

ע׳loanʁ ʔ̇´05E2
05F3

Onsets

Consonant clusters in syllable onsets are simply written using a sequence of consonant letters in full spelling text, and apply ְU+05B0 POINT SHEVA in pointed text.

ברכה  ≡  בְּרָכָה bʁaˈχa congratulation

גבול  ≡  גְּבוּל ɡvul boundary

Finals

Five letters have special word-final forms, called sofit. They are encoded as separate code points in Unicode, and appear as separate keys on a keyboard, so no special processing is needed to display or store them (unlike Arabic).

5

ץt͡stsʦ̽05E5

ףf pff̽05E3

ךx kkhx̽05DA

םmmm̽05DD

ןnnn̽05DF

Foreign words and names may sometimes use the normal forms at the end of a word, rather than the sofit form. In those cases, use the non-final code points.

Consonants that are not followed by a vowel are normally written with ְU+05B0 POINT SHEVA in pointed text, but not when they are word-final.

בִּגְלַל biˈɡlal because

אֶגְזוֹז eɡˈzoz exhaust pipe

אָקוֹרְד aˈkoʁd chord (music)

Observation: One exception appears to be ךְU+05DA LETTER FINAL KAF + U+05B0 POINT SHEVA.

בֶּרֶךְ ˈbɛʁɛχ knee

רַךְ ʁaχ soft

Consonant clusters

As with onsets, consonant clusters are simply written using a sequence of consonant letters in full spelling text, and are marked by ְU+05B0 POINT SHEVA in pointed text. The offglide of a diphthong is written in the same way.

גמבה  ≡  גַּמְבָּה ˈɡamba bell pepper

בייגל  ≡  בֵּיְגֶּל ˈbej.ɡel bagel

Consonant length

From Wikipedia: gemination is not adhered to in modern Hebrew and is only used in careful pronunciation, such as reading of scriptures in a synagogue service, recitations of biblical or traditional texts or on ceremonious occasions, and then only by very precise readers.

In pre-Modern Hebrew, gemination was indicated using ּU+05BC POINT DAGESH OR MAPIQ.

Consonant sounds to characters

Cantillation & other marks

In Biblical and older Hebrew texts, many additional diacritics are attached to the base character alongside the niqqud. Nearly all of the following additional marks in the Hebrew Unicode block are cantillation marks, used to indicate how to chant ritual readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services.

35

֑unused0591

֒unused0592

֓unused0593

֔unused0594

֕unused0595

֖unused0596

֗unused0597

֘unused0598

֙unused0599

֚unused059A

֛unused059B

֜unused059C

֝unused059D

֞unused059E

֟unused059F

֠unused05A0

֡unused05A1

֢unused05A2

֣unused05A3

֤unused05A4

֥unused05A5

֦unused05A6

֧unused05A7

֨unused05A8

֩unused05A9

֪unused05AA

֫unused05AB

֬unused05AC

֭unused05AD

֮unused05AE

֯unused05AF

ֽunused05BD

ֿunused05BF

ׄunused05C4

ׅunused05C5

Formatting characters

Hebrew text makes use of a set of invisible formatting characters, especially in plain text, most of which are used to manage text direction. Descriptions of these characters can be found in the following section:

• Managing text direction

Currency

₪¤20AA

The denomination is generally expressed by the following abbreviation10, which stands for שקל חדש ˈʃɛkɛl χaˈdaʃ new shekel:

ש״ח ʃaχ new shekel

₪U+20AA NEW SHEQEL SIGN may also be used. It is displayed to the left of the amount, with no separation or with a thin space, eg.

₪12,000

Observation: Wikipedia says that this requires the sheqel sign to be typed after the amount, however, the opposite is the case for all major browsers.10

Managing text direction

Unicode provides a set of 10 formatting characters that can be used to control the direction of text when displayed. These characters have no visual form in the rendered text, however text editing applications may have a way to show their location.

U+202B RIGHT-TO-LEFT EMBEDDING (RLE), U+202A LEFT-TO-RIGHT EMBEDDING (LRE), and U+202C POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTING (PDF) are in widespread use to set the base direction for an inline range of characters. RLE/LRE come at the start, and PDF at the end of a range of characters for which the base direction is to be set.

More recently, the Unicode Standard added a set of characters which do the same thing but also isolate the content from surrounding characters, in order to avoid spillover effects. They are U+2067 RIGHT-TO-LEFT ISOLATE (RLI), U+2066 LEFT-TO-RIGHT ISOLATE (LRI), and U+2069 POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATE (PDI). The Unicode Standard recommends that these be used instead.

There is also U+2068 FIRST STRONG ISOLATE (FSI), used initially to set the base direction according to the first recognised strongly-directional character.

U+200F RIGHT-TO-LEFT MARK (RLM) and U+200E LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK (LRM) are invisible characters with strong directional properties that are also sometimes used to produce the correct ordering of text.

For more information about how to use these formatting characters see How to use Unicode controls for bidi text. Note, however, that when writing HTML you should generally use markup rather than these control codes. For information about that, see Creating HTML Pages in Arabic, Hebrew and Other Right-to-left Scripts.

Expressions & sequences

A sequence of numbers, for example a range separated by hyphens, generally runs left to right in Hebrew (unlike Arabic).

Font styles

Hebrew has a number of different writing styles.

The standard, 'square script' is derived from Aramaic. There are serif and sans-serif fonts.

The STAM style is used for sacred texts such as the Torah. Certain letters have decorative tags above.4

The rashi style is used for commentaries on sacred texts. Letters have a more rounded, almost cursive style.4

Hebrew also has a 'cursive' style, which means 'handwriting' style. Letters are not normally joined. Cursive fonts are only used as display fonts. Many glyphs look very different from the standard letter forms.

Before the Babylonian exile (from which the square script derives), Hebrew was written with different shapes, which are similar to those used for Samaritan.

Context-based shaping & positioning

Are special glyph forms needed, depending on the context in which a character is used? Do glyphs interact in some circumstances? Are there requirements to position diacritics or other items specially, depending on context? Does the script have multiple diacritics competing for the same location relative to the base?

In Hebrew several characters have a different shape at the end of a word, but each shape variant has it's own code point and keyboard key, so there is no need for rendering rules to choose the correct glyph.

This example shows מU+05DE LETTER MEM and םU+05DD LETTER FINAL MEM (on the left).

Multiple diacritics for one base character are common where the various types of diacritic are mixed.

Combinations of U+05B0 POINT SHEVA with other vowel diacritics are represented by single, non-decomposable code points, eg. U+05B1 POINT HATAF SEGOL.

In NFC normalised text, a dagesh or shin/sin dot always follows the vowel diacritic. It may be necessary to reorder the diacritics for some applications, eg. for transcriptions that map a consonant+dagesh to a single letter.

The diacritic U+05B9 POINT HOLAM illustrates how positioning can be context-sensitive. Figure 12 shows 3 examples.

Letterform slopes, weights, & italics

Are italicisation, bolding, oblique, etc relevant? Do italic fonts lean in the right direction? Is synthesised italicisation problematic? Are there other problems relating to bolding or italicisation - perhaps relating to generalised assumptions of applicability?

Bold text is used as one way to highlight or emphasise text. The degree of bolding is often quite light. Bold-italic is typically only used for large display text.3

Italics may also be used, however its use is not abundant, and many of the italic faces in fonts are designed for display use, rather than to accompany a regular font.3

There are different preferences for the direction of the slant for italicised Hebrew text. The choice as to which is preferred appears to be down to the individual, and is a question of whether the slant matches the direction of the Hebrew text, or embedded Latin text.3

Word boundaries

Are words separated by spaces, or other characters? Are there special requirements when double-clicking on the text? Are words hyphenated?

The concept of 'word' is difficult to define in any language (see What is a word?). Here, a word is a vaguely-defined, but recognisable semantic unit that is typically smaller than a phrase and may comprise one or more syllables.

Words are separated by spaces.

Hyphens.־U+05BE PUNCTUATION MAQAF is the proper punctuation for representing hyphens between compounds,7.

תל־אביב tel (ʔ)a.ˈviv Tel Aviv

However, it is less common online because it is not always easily available on keyboards. Therefore, - U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS is often substituted, even though the position of that character is too low when displayed.7

The Unicode Standard indicates that lines should not break on either side of the maqaf.g

Graphemes

Phrase & section boundaries

What characters are used to indicate the boundaries of phrases, sentences, and sections?

6

,002C

;003B

:003A

.002E

?003F

!0021

Hebrew uses ASCII punctuation for the most part. Full stops, question marks, exclamation marks, and commas are used as in English. There are 6 additional punctuation characters in the Hebrew Unicode block.

Note that the direction of the question mark (?) is the same as in English, and not reversed like for Arabic. The same is true for the comma ( , ).

Biblical & liturgical usage. ׀ is used as a word separator.7

Prayer books and similar use ׃ as a full stop.7

Bracketed text

both

(0028

)0029

Hebrew commonly uses ASCII parentheses to insert parenthetical information into text.

	start	end
standard	)U+0029 RIGHT PARENTHESIS	(U+0028 LEFT PARENTHESIS

Hebrew uses the same parentheses as English, and uses (U+0028 LEFT PARENTHESIS] at the start (right) and )U+0029 RIGHT PARENTHESIS] at the end (left).7 These are mirrored characters in Unicode, so the glyph for each character is automatically reversed in RTL text.

For example, click on the following to see the component characters.

(סוגריים)

The first character in memory is the paren on the right. The consequence of this is that, when writing Hebrew, the parentheses should be used as if they were named U+0028 START PARENTHESIS and U+0028 END PARENTHESIS, respectively.

Quotations & citations

What characters are used to indicate quotations? Do quotations within quotations use different characters? What characters are used to indicate dialogue? Are the same mechanisms used to cite words, or for scare quotes, etc? What about citing book or article names?

3

”201D

”201D

’2019

Hebrew texts use quotation marks around quotations. Note, however, that these are not paired. Of course, due to keyboard design, quotations may also be surrounded by ASCII double and single quote marks.

In principle, for modern quotations, ”U+201D RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK is used at the start and at the end.

”ישראל” Israel

Nested quotations use different quote marks, which would typically be ’U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK.1

However, in practice, Hebrew texts often use " U+0022 QUOTATION MARK and ' U+0027 APOSTROPHE.

Up to around 1970 Hebrew used „U+201E DOUBLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK instead for the initial quotation mark, ie. „ישראל”but this changed, partly due to inadequate keyboard designs.10

Emphasis

How are emphasis and highlighting achieved? If lines are drawn alongside, over or through the text, do they need to be a special distance from the text itself? Is it important to skip characters when underlining, etc? How do things change for vertically set text?

Increased tracking is a common way to express emphasis in Hebrew.

Aternatives include the use of a different typeface, and/or underlining.3

Abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition

What characters are used to indicate abbreviation, ellipsis & repetition?

both

״05F4

׳05F3

Acronyms and abbreviations are indicated by placing ״U+05F4 PUNCTUATION GERSHAYIM before the last character.

אונסכ״ו uˈnes.ko UNESCO

סופ״ש soˈfaʃ weekend

׳U+05F3 PUNCTUATION GERESH may also be used to indicate an abbreviation,8 eg. גברת gvéret madam, lady is abbreviated as גב׳ gvéret Mrs.

Due to keyboard inadequacies, these are often replaced by ASCII single and double quote characters, even though in general they are visually too high. 

Line breaking & hyphenation

Are there special rules about the way text wraps when it hits the end of a line? Does line-breaking wrap whole 'words' at a time, or characters, or something else (such as syllables in Tibetan and Javanese)? What characters should not appear at the end or start of a line, and what should be done to prevent that? Is hyphenation used, or something else? What rules are used? What difficulties exist?

Lines are normally broken at word boundaries.

Breaking between Latin words

When a line break occurs in the middle of an embedded left-to-right sequence, the items in that sequence need to be rearranged visually so that it isn't necessary to read lines from top to bottom.

Figure 15 shows how two Latin words are apparently reordered in the flow of text to accommodate this rule. Of course, the rearragement is only that of the visual glyphs: nothing affects the order of the characters in memory.

Text spacing

This section looks at ways in which spacing is applied between characters over and above that which is introduced during justification. For example, does the orthography create emphasis or other effects by spacing out the words, letters or syllables in a word? (For justification related spacing, see Text alignment & justification, above).

Increased tracking is a common way to express emphasis in Hebrew.

Baselines, line height, etc.

Does the script have special requirements for baseline alignment between mixed scripts and in general? Is line height special for this script? Are there other aspects that affect line spacing, or positioning of items vertically within a line?

Hebrew uses the so-called 'alphabetic' baseline, which is the same as for Latin and many other scripts.

The Hebrew characters are commonly slightly taller than the Latin x-height. Figure 17 shows ascenders and descenders for Hebrew letters in the Noto Serif fonts. In this font combination the maximum height of the Hebrew letters reaches slightly higher than the Latin extenders.

Counters, lists, etc.

Are there list or other counter styles in use? If so, what is the format used? Do counters need to be upright in vertical text? Are there other aspects related to counters and lists that need to be addressed?

You can experiment with counter styles using the Counter styles converter. Patterns for using these styles in CSS can be found in Ready-made Counter Styles, and we use the names of those patterns here to refer to the various styles.

The Hebrew orthography uses an additive style, in addition to numeric decimal style based on ASCII digits.

Additive

The hebrew additive style uses the letters shown below. It is specified for a range between 1 and 10,999. This system manually specifies the values for 19-15 to force the correct display of 15 and 16, which are commonly rewritten to avoid a close resemblance to the Tetragrammaton. Implementations may, and some do, implement this manually to a higher range.

37

י׳ 1000005D9
05F3

ט׳ 900005D8
05F3

ח׳loan800005D7
05F3

ז׳loan700005D6
05F3

ו׳ 600005D5
05F3

ה׳ 500005D4
05F3

ד׳loan400005D3
05F3

ג׳loan300005D2
05F3

ב׳ 200005D1
05F3

א׳ 100005D0
05F3

ת 40005EA

ש 30005E9

ר 20005E8

ק 10005E7

צ 9005E6

פ 8005E4

ע 7005E2

ס 6005E1

נ 5005E0

מ 4005DE

ל 3005DC

כ 2005DB

יט 1905D9
05D8

יח 1805D9
05D7

יז 1705D9
05D6

טז 1605D8
05D6

טו 1505D8
05D5

י 1005D9

ט 905D8

ח 805D7

ז 705D6

ו 605D5

ה 505D4

ד 405D3

ג 305D2

ב 205D1

א 105D0

Examples:

12

א105D0

ב205D1

ג305D2

ד405D3

יא1105D9
05D0

כב2205DB
05D1

לג3305DC
05D2

מד4405DE
05D3

קיא11105E7
05D9
05D0

רכב22205E8
05DB
05D1

שלג33305E9
05DC
05D2

תמד44405EA
05DE
05D3

Styling initials

Does the script use special styling of the initial letter of a line or paragraph, such as for drop caps or similar? How about the size relationship between the large letter and the lines alongide? where does the large letter anchor relative to the lines alongside? is it normal to include initial quote marks in the large letter? is the large letter really a syllable? Are dropped, sunken, and raised types found? etc.

It is possible to find the first letter in a paragraph styled so that it is larger and sits alongside several lines of the continuing paragraph text.

Observation: The glyph in Figure 19 rises above the normal top line of most Hebrew characters. It also rises above the top line of the adjacent glyphs when positioned alongside them. The bottom of the glyph is aligned with the bottom of the glyphs on the 3rd line down.

Boxed initials can also be found, such as the one in Figure 20. Here, the initial letter is centred horizontally and vertically inside the space created by the box. The box extends from the top line of the first line of text to the baseline of the 6th line.

General page layout & progression

How are the main text area and ancilliary areas positioned and defined? Are there any special requirements here, such as dimensions in characters for the Japanese kihon hanmen? The book cover for scripts that are read right-to-left scripts is on the right of the spine, rather than the left. When content can flow vertically and to the left or right, how to specify the location of objects, text, etc. relative to the flow? Do tables and grid layouts work as expected? How do columns work in vertical text? Can you mix block of vertical and horizontal text? Does text scroll in a different direction?

Hebrew books, magazines, etc., are bound on the right-hand side, and pages progress from right to left.

Columns are vertical but run right-to-left across the page.