![]() Logical Hebrew is the now standard format, which should be used by everyone. Visual Hebrew is the older format, still used on many Israeli sites. There are different ways of displaying Hebrew on the Internet as well, called visual and logical Hebrew. Windows had one kind, Macintosh had another, and each went through different versions that didn’t work even on the same platform. One more point worth making is that fonts in Hebrew were previously available in many formats that didn’t work well together. You might find handwriting fonts that include Nikudot, but I doubt you’d ever see one with Taamim since it’s a printing mark, and not generally handwritten. There are also handwriting fonts, and fonts in alternate Hebrew alphabet forms like Rashi Script (which was not used by Rashi, nor is it really script). Like in English, there are also serif and san-serif fonts – and like English, sans-serif fonts are generally perceived as more modern. Recently, a new English edition of the Talmud has been started called the Koren Talmud Bavli, which is the first Talmud that I’m aware of that includes the full text of the Talmud with Nikudot in the standard Vilna page layout. Considering that Hebrew has the history it does, there are still many uses for fonts with Nikudot (vowels) and Taamim (cantillation marks). The text with Nikudot and Taamim came from the Mechon Mamre web site.Īs you can imagine, designing fonts that take into consideration the proper placement of all of those marks is complicated. The font is called Taamey Frank CLM, part of the free Culmus font collection I mention below. This is a passage from Exodus Chapter 7 – roughly translated as “and the river will swarm with frogs, which will go up and come into your houses”. Nikudot (Vowels) in Blue, Taamim (Cantillation Marks) in Red Here’s an example of Hebrew text with both Nikudot and Taamim: Most modern Hebrew fonts will fall into this category, not only because Israelis don’t use vowels, but because implementing vowels as diacritical marks is a pain in the neck for font designers. That said, if you plan on printing something in Hebrew that is going to be read by someone not fully fluent in Hebrew, including vowels is a good idea.Ĭategory 3 is the largest category of fonts. Vowels are also frequently used in the publication of Hebrew prayer books. Newspapers published for people new to Hebrew (such as immigrants to Israel) use vowels, as it makes it easier to read the Hebrew (one doesn’t need to figure out the word based on context). You won’t, for example, see them in most books or newspapers. In modern Israeli Hebrew, these vowels are usually not used. There are other interpretations of the Taamim, but they are beyond the scope of this post.Ĭategory 2 includes Hebrew vowels, which unlike in English, are not letters, but diacritical marks. Taamim (cantillation marks) are used to show the reader of a passage how to pronounce that passage when reading it aloud in synagogue. So first, I should point out that there are different ways to divide Hebrew fonts, and I’ll take a look at a few.įirst, Hebrew fonts can be divided into three categories:ġ) Fonts that support Nikudot (vowels) and Taamim (cantillation marks – also called Trop in Yiddish)Ģ) Fonts that support Nikudot (vowels) but do not support Taamimģ) Fonts that support neither Nikudot nor TaamimĬategory 1 is essentially only needed when one is reproducing a biblical passage, and not always. Keep in mind I’m not going to explain how to use these fonts on your computer, that’s a whole different topic. Most of the sites I’m going to point out have free fonts, although I’ll also include a few commercial sites. ![]() In this post I’m going to share some places you can find Hebrew fonts. By the way, if you do want to transcribe Yiddish, an interesting tool online is called the Yiddish Typewriter and it lets you enter Yiddish in various forms, and it then outputs it into many more forms (including YIVO transcription, IPA transcription, PDF, Image (GIF, etc.) – it looks quite useful. ![]() Another use is transcribing family letters written in Yiddish (Yiddish uses the Hebrew alphabet). When publishing books on your family history, having the right fonts to publish those transcriptions can be very important. One problem is that I don’t have a lot of Hebrew fonts on my computer, and usually whatever project I’m working on requires something slightly different (requiring me to find an appropriate font).įor genealogists, one use for Hebrew, even for those who do not speak Hebrew, is to transcribe the exact text on Jewish gravestones, which are frequently partially (and sometimes completely) in Hebrew. That said, I occasionally have the need to do some work in Hebrew, which presents some problems. ![]() Even though I live in Israel, my computer operating system runs using English, and almost all the work I do is in English. ![]()
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