Mater lectionis
Letters to indicate vowels in some Semitic languages / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Matres lectionis (from Latin "mothers of reading", singular form: mater lectionis, from Hebrew: אֵם קְרִיאָה 'em kri'a) are consonants that are used to indicate a vowel, primarily in the writing of Semitic languages such as Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac. The letters that do this in Hebrew are aleph א, he ה, vav ו and yod י, and in Arabic, the matres lectionis (though they are much less often referred to thus) are ʾalif ا, wāw و and yāʾ ي. The 'yod and waw in particular are more often vowels than they are consonants.
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The original value of the matres lectionis corresponds closely to what is called in modern linguistics glides or semivowels.[1]