Aramaic Vowels For those who have learned or are learning Hebrew, a few points: Aramaic has the same vowels, but words shared by Hebrew and Aramaic are often pointed differently in Aramaic. We’ll hit the explanations for this later. Aramaic has the same compound shewas as Hebrew, but the compound shewas can go under other letters besides gutturals in Aramaic (Hebrew uses them only under gutturals).

בָ

Vowel name: qamets ָ sound: a as in father transliteration: ā

בַ

Vowel name: patach ַ sound: a as in “cat” transliteration: a

בֲ

Vowel name: chatef-patach ֲ sound: a as in “cat” also basically indistinguishable from patach transliteration: ă (superscripted)

בֶ

Vowel name: seghol ֶ sound: e as in “bet” transliteration: e

בֵ

Vowel name: tsere ֵ sound: ey as in “grey” transliteration: ē

בֱ

Vowel name: chatef-seghol ֱ sound: e as in “bet” basically indistinguishable from seghol transliteration: ĕ (superscripted)

בִ

Vowel name: chireq ִ sound: i as in “hit” transliteration: i

בִי

Vowel name: chireq-yodh ִי sound: long i (“ee”) as in “machine” transliteration: ı̂

בֹ

Vowel name: cholem sound: o as in “hole” transliteration: ō

בוֹ

Vowel name: cholem-waw sound: o as in “hole” transliteration: ô

בֻ

Vowel name: qibbuts ֻ sound: u as in “hut” transliteration: u

בוּ

Vowel name: shureq sound: long u as in “mule” transliteration: û

בָ

Vowel name: qamets-chatuf ָ sound: o as in “odd” same sign as qamets (a) transliteration: o

בֳ

Vowel name: chatef-qamets ֳ sound: o as in “odd” indistinguishable from qamets-chatuf transliteration: ŏ (superscripted)

From Mark Futato, Beginning Hebrew VOWEL CHART From Mark Futato, Beginning Hebrew