Holam

Holam or cholam (modern, , formerly , ḥōlem) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a dot above the upper left corner of the consonant letter. For example, here the holam appears after the letter mem $\langle\rangle$&lrm;:. In modern Hebrew, it indicates the mid back rounded vowel,, and is transliterated as an o.

The mater lectionis letter which is usually employed with holam is vav, although in a few words, the letters alef or he are used instead of vav. When it is used with a mater lectionis, the holam is called holam male (,, "full holam"), and without it the holam is called holam haser (, , "deficient holam").

Appearance
If a holam is used without a following mater lectionis (vav, alef or he), as in (, "here"), it is written as a dot above at the upper-left corner of the letter after which it is pronounced. Letter-spacing is not supposed to be affected by it, although some buggy computer fonts may add an unneeded space before the next letter.

If vav is used as a mater lectionis, the holam appears above the vav. If the mater lectionis is alef, as in (, "no"), it is supposed to appear above the alef's right hand, although this is not implemented in all computer fonts, and does not always appear even in professionally typeset modern books. This means a holam with alef may, in fact, appear in the same place as a regular holam haser. If the alef itself is not a mater lectionis, but a consonant, the holam appears in its regular place above the upper-left corner of the previous letter, as in (, "epithet").

If a holam haser is written after vav, as in (, "to agonize"), it may appear above the vav, or slightly farther to the left; this varies between different fonts. In some fonts, a holam merges with the shin dot (which appears on the upper-right corner of its letter seat), in words such as (ḥṓšeḵ,, 'darkness') or with the sin dot, as in  (, 'satiation'). (These dots may or may not appear merged on your screen, as that depends on your device's Hebrew font.)

Usage
Holam male is, in general, the most common way to write the sound in modern spelling with niqqud. If a word has Holam male in spelling with niqqud, the mater lectionis letter vav is without any exception retained in spelling without niqqud, both according to the spelling rules of the Academy of the Hebrew Language and in common practice.

The use of holam haser is restricted to certain word patterns, although many common words appear in them. In most cases the Academy's spelling rules mandate that the vav will be written even when the spelling with niqqud does not have it. The normative exceptions from this rule are listed below. The Academy's standard is not followed perfectly by all speakers, and common deviations from it are also noted below.

In Biblical Hebrew the above rules are not followed consistently, and sometimes the vav is omitted or added.

For further complications involving Kamatz katan and Hataf kamatz, see the article Kamatz.

Holam haser which is written as vav in text without niqqud

 * In words, in which the penultimate syllable has the vowel and is stressed (sometimes called segolate):
 * ('diameter')
 * ('radiance', Zohar),
 * ('brightness', Nogah),
 * ('mail'), or.
 * Some people tend to spell some of these words without the vav, e.g. דאר instead of דואר, although the Academy mandates דואר . The tendency is especially strong when the words can be used as personal names.


 * When Kubutz is changed to holam before guttural letters in the passive binyan Pual due to tashlum dagesh (a vowel-change due to the inability of guttural letters to carry a dagesh):
 * ('fancy'),
 * ('was explained'), . Without niqqud: מפואר&lrm;, פורש.
 * In words which have the pattern /CaCoC/ in the singular and become /CəCuCCim/ with Kubutz in the plural, especially names of colors:
 * ('orange'),, pl.
 * ('round'),, pl..
 * When the last letter of the root is guttural, holam haser is preserved due to tashlum dagesh:
 * ('black'),, pl..
 * Without niqqud: כתום&lrm;, כתומים&lrm;, עגול&lrm;, עגולים&lrm;, שחור&lrm;, שחורים&lrm;.
 * A similar pattern, in which the last letter of the root is not doubled in declension, has holam male in the base form, which is preserved in declension:
 * sg. ('big'),, pl..
 * In three words, a holam male is changed to a shuruk in declension:
 * ('place of living'),, pl.
 * ('escape'),, pl. ;
 * ('sweet'),, pl..
 * Similar to the above is the pattern /CəCaCCoC/, with reduplication of the second and third letters of the root:
 * ('crooked'),, pl. . Without niqqud: פתלתול&lrm;, פתלתולים.
 * In the future, infinitive and imperative forms of most verbs in binyan Qal:
 * ('I shall close'),, ('to close'), ,  ('close!'), . Without niqqud: אסגור&lrm;, לסגור&lrm;, סגור.
 * In words, whose roots' second and third letter are the same, in which case in declension the holam changes to Kubutz after which there will be a dagesh:
 * all,, decl.  ('all of her'), root כ־ל־ל&lrm;
 * ('most'),, decl.  ('most of him'), root ר־ב־ב&lrm;
 * ('drum'),, pl. , root ת־פ־פ&lrm;
 * ('stronghold'),, pl. , root ע־ז־ז&lrm;
 * The standard spelling without niqqud for all of them except in construct state is with vav: כול&lrm;, כולה&lrm;, רוב&lrm;, רובו&lrm;, תוף&lrm;, תופים&lrm;, מעוז&lrm;, מעוזים. Despite this, some people occasionally omit the vav in some of those words and spell רב&lrm;, תף etc.


 * Several common words are spelled with a holam haser in the Bible, but the Academy mandates that they be spelled with holam male in modern Hebrew, among them:
 * ('force'),
 * ('brain'),
 * ('a precious stone', in modern Hebrew 'diamond'),
 * ('very'),
 * &lrm; ('suddenly'),
 * Some people still spell them without vav, but the standard spelling is with vav.
 * The participle of most verbs in binyan Qal is often written with holam haser in the Bible, but always with holam male in modern Hebrew.
 * For example, in the Bible appear both and   ('seer'),, but in modern Hebrew only.

Holam with other matres lectionis

 * The most common occasion for not writing the sound as a vav in text without niqqud is when in text with niqqud the mater lectionis is Alef (א) or He (ה) instead of vav. In the Bible some words are irregularly and inconsistently spelled with ה as a mater lectionis:
 * &lrm; alongside &lrm;, e.g. alongside &lrm; ,  etc.
 * but the number of these irregularities was brought to minimum in modern Hebrew.
 * In the future forms of several verbs whose roots' first letter is Alef:
 * ('you shall eat'),, root א־כ־ל&lrm;, without niqqud תאכל.
 * The prefix of the first person singular is itself Alef and in spelling with niqqud only one Alef is written: ('I shall say'),, root א־מ־ר, and in spelling without niqqud a vav is added: אומר . This always happens in the roots א־ב־ד ('perish'), א־ב־י ('wish'), א־כ־ל ('eat'), א־מ־ר ('say'), א־פ־י ('bake') and less consistently in the roots א־ה־ב ('love'), א־ח־ז ('hold'), א־ס־ף ('collect'), א־ת־י ('come'). In the root א־מ־ר a holam male with vav is used in the infinitive in Mishnaic and modern Hebrew:
 * &lrm;.
 * In the infinitive form of a small number of verbs whose roots' last letter is Alef: ('upon becoming full'),, root מ־ל־א&lrm;.
 * In the following words the mater lectionis is always Alef (א&lrm;):
 * ('this' fem.),
 * ('no'),
 * ('scales'),, without niqqud מאזניים&lrm;
 * ('wineskin'),
 * ('sheep' or 'goats'),
 * ('head'),
 * ('left'),
 * In the following words the mater lectionis is always He (ה&lrm;):
 * ('such'),
 * ('here'),
 * ('where?'),
 * In the absolute infinitive form of verbs which end in He: ( 'to be'). This form is common in the Bible, but in modern Hebrew it is not productive and it is preserved only in fossilized sayings. For example, a common opening for fairy tales,  ('there once was'),  is written היה היה without niqqud.

Holam without vav in personal names
Some examples of usage of holam without vav in personal names:
 * The names Pharaoh, Moshe (&lrm;) and Shlomo (&lrm;) are never written with vav. Shilo is sometimes written with vav in the Bible, but always with He in modern Hebrew. The adjectives &lrm;,  are written with vav and with a nun in the suffix.
 * The name Aharon is spelled with holam haser in the Bible. In modern Hebrew both אהרן and אהרון are used.
 * The name Noah is spelled with holam haser in the Bible, but it is sometimes written with the vav in the Mishna and in modern Hebrew.
 * Several other names of places and people are spelled with holam and Alef in the Bible include Yoshiyahu (, Josiah), Dor (, in modern Hebrew ) and No Amon (, the Hebrew name of Thebes).
 * The word ('priest'),  is spelled with holam haser in the Bible. It is a common Jewish last name, Cohen. The Academy mandates holam male for the noun, but allows the omission of vav for spelling the personal name.
 * Some personal names, such as Ohad, Zohar and Nogah , are sometimes spelled without vav in modern writing without niqqud, although this varies from person to person.
 * God's name Adonai is written with holam haser to distinguish it from the word "Lord"  used for humans. When the Tetragrammaton is written with niqqud, it follows that of Adonai, so it is written with holam haser, too. For religious reasons writing Adonai and the Tetragrammaton is avoided in modern religious texts except in direct quotes from the Bible. They rarely appear in secular modern Hebrew texts and their spelling there is inconsistent.
 * The name Elohim is written with holam haser in the Bible, although its singular form Eloah  is usually written with holam male. In modern Hebrew Elohim is a common word for "God" and it is usually spelled with the vav, which is also the Academy's recommendation.

Pronunciation
The following table contains the pronunciation and transliteration of the different holams in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet.

The letters Pe $\langle\rangle$ and Tsade $\langle\rangle$ are used in this table only for demonstration. Any letter can be used.

Vowel length comparison
These vowel 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 (qamatz qaṭan) and long a (qamatz) have the same niqqud. As a result, a qamatz qaṭan is usually promoted to Holam male in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation.

Computer encoding
In computers there are three ways to distinguish the vowel ḥolam male and the consonant-vowel combination vav + ḥolam ḥaser. For example, in the pair (, the plural of, matza) and  (, the plural of  mitzva):
 * 1) By using the zero-width non-joiner after the vav and before the holam:
 * 2) By using the Unicode character U+05BA HEBREW POINT HOLAM HASER FOR VAV:.
 * 3) By the precomposed character, U+FB4B (HTML Entity (decimal) &amp;#64331;):