Holam

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(Redirected from Holam male)

Holam
סֹ
IPA	ɔ
Transliteration	o
English example	no
Same sound	Vav Shruqa
Holam Example
חֹלֶם
The word holam in Hebrew. The first vowel (the dot above the letter) is a holam itself.
Holam Male Example
חוֹלָם
The word holam in Hebrew in full spelling (with niqqud). Notice the additional Vav "ו". The first vowel (the dot above the Vav) is a holam male itself.
Other Niqqud
Shva · Hiriq · Zeire · Segol · Patach · Kamatz · Holam · Dagesh · Mappiq · Shuruk · Kubutz · Rafe · Sin/Shin Dot

Holam (Hebrew: חוֹלָם‎) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a dot " סֹ " above a letter. In modern Hebrew, it indicates the phoneme /ɔ/ which is the same as the "o" sound in no and is transliterated as an "o". The holam is written above the consonant on the left corner, or slightly to the left of (i.e., after) it at the top.

In Israeli writing a Holam is often promoted to Holam Male (Hebrew: חוֹלַם מָלֵא‎) for the sake of disambiguation. To disambiguate it will often be wrriten with a Vav with a Holam "וֹ" (see ktiv male) and in writing without niqqud, the Holam is omitted leaving only the Vav "ו". The usage of a consonant (in this case Vav) to indicate a vowel comes from mater lectionis.

[edit] Pronounciation

The following table contains the pronunciation and transliteration of the different Holams in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The pronunciation in IPA is above and the transliteration is below.

The letter Bet "ב" used in this table is only for demonstration. Any letter can be used.

Symbol	Name	Pronunciation
		Israeli	Ashkenazi	Sephardi	Yemenite	Tiberian	Reconstructed
		Israeli	Ashkenazi	Sephardi	Yemenite	Tiberian	Mishnaic	Biblical
בֹ	Holam	[ɔ]	[əʊ, ɔj, ɛj, ɐʊ]	[o]	[œ]	[oː]	?	?
בוֹ, בֹה, בֹא	Holam Male	[ɔ]	[əʊ, ɔj, ɛj, ɐʊ]	[o]	[œ]	[oː]	?	?

[edit] Vowel Length comparison

These vowels lengths are not manifested in Modern Hebrew. In addition, the short o is usually promoted to a long o in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation. As well, the short o (kamatz katan) and long a (hataf kamatz) have the same niqqud. As a result, a kamatz katan is usually promoted to holam male in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation.

Vowel Length			IPA	Transliteration	English example
Long	Short	Very Short	IPA	Transliteration	English example
וֹ	ָ	n/a	[ɔ]	o	cone

[edit] Computer encoding

Glyph	Unicode	Name
ֹ	U+05B9	HOLAM (HASER)

In computers, a zero-width non-joiner is used to differentiate between the vowel holam male, and the constant-vowel combination vav+holam haser, with the latter being written as vav, ZWNJ, holam haser.