Note:This article currently only concerns the use of the dagesh in modern, Israeli Hebrew.

The dagesh (דגש) is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It is part of the system of niqqud (vowel points), and was added to Hebrew orthography at the same time. An identical point with a different phonetic function (within the same system) is called Mapiq.

The dagesh is a dot which is drawn inside a Hebrew letter to modify its sound.

It is possible to add Dagesh Hazzak to almost any letter. It makes up for a missing letter.

The following letters cannot have a dagesh: aleph א &he ה & chet ח & ayin נ & resh ר.

Dagesh Kal is for the letters bet ב, kaf כ & ך, pe פ & ף gimel ג, dalet ד, tav ת.
The effect of the dagesh on the above letters is to turn a fricative sound into its equivalent plosive:

• The letter bet sounds like v without and b with dagesh.
• The letter kaf sounds like kh without and k with dagesh.
• The letter pe sounds like f without and p with dagesh.

The dagesh is completely optional in modern, Israeli Hebrew and is usually not used. This might help explain why the names of the letters reflect the sound with the dagesh even though there is no dagesh present.

In computer typography there are two ways to use a dagesh with Hebrew text. Here are Unicode examples:

• Combining characters :

bet + dagesh: בּ בּ
kaf + dagesh: כּ כּ
pe  + dagesh: פּ פּ

• Precomposed characters:

bet with dagesh: בּ בּ
kaf with dagesh: כּ כּ
pe  with dagesh: פּ פּ

Some fonts, character sets, encodings, and OSes may support neither, one, or both methods.

Sources

• Lonely Planet (Hebrew phrasebook)
• alanwood.com Hebrew
• alanwood.com Alphabetic presentation