1.5 Six “BeGaD KePHaT” letters - בגד כפת - take a mark called a Dagesh Lene
Figure 1.6: The Begad Kephat Letters
There are two types of Dagesh dots: Dagesh Forte and Dagesh Lene
- Next, we need to learn the six “BeGaD KePhaT” letters15
- The dot in the red and blue letters is called a Dagesh LENE
- The Dagesh Lene is inserted into the middle of the consonant
- The Dagesh Lene affects the pronunciation of these letters
- “hard” if the Dagesh Lene present
- “soft” if not present
- A Dagesh Lene never affects the meaning of the word
- There are many other “dots” in Hebrew with various meanings - not all are Dagesh Lene marks
- The Dagesh Lene ONLY applies to Bet - Gimmel - Dalet - Kaf - Pei - and Tav
- If a dot appears in any other letter, it is NOT a Dagesh Lene
We’ll dig deeper into the Dagesh Lene and its much more notable big brother, the Dagesh Forte, over the next several lessons. Both play a big factor in studying and understanding Hebrew grammar.
Today, only three “BucK uP” letters - בּכּפּ - change pronunciation
- At one time, all six of these letters had different pronunciations, but today in Hebrew as spoken in Israel, only three do16
- These are the letters in blue above בּ כּ פּ:
- ב has a “soft b” sound, in other words, a “v” sound, while בּ has a “hard b” sound, in other words, a “b” sound
- כ sounds like the “ch” in “bach”, while כּ is “k” as in “kangaroo”
- פ is the “ph” (or “f”) in “phone”, while פּ is the “p” in “pulley”
- Since the letters without the Dagesh Lene want to be “lazy” - for example, a weak ‘v’ instead of a strong ‘b’- our mnemonic for these is “BucK uP! You Lazy Letters!”
- בּכּפּ = BKP, which with a little imagination can stand for “BucK uP!”