Gershayim
Gershayim, also occasionally grashayim, is two distinct typographical marks in the Hebrew language. The name literally means "double geresh".
Punctuation mark
Gershayim most commonly refers to the punctuation mark. It is always written before the last letter of the non-inflected form of a word or numeral. It is used in the following ways:- To indicate an acronym. For example: , , "report" represents ; and , , "squad commander" represents.
- To indicate a multi-digit Hebrew numeral. For example: represents 18.
- To indicate the names of Hebrew letters, differentiating them from any homographs. Compare "he sketched an eye" with "he sketched an ayin".
- To indicate Hebrew word roots. For example: the root of "crossword puzzles" is ; the root of "to tilt, to conjugate" is ; and the root of "becoming synchronized" is .
- In older texts, to indicate the transliteration of a foreign word. This use corresponds to English's use of italics. For example: in printed works of Rashi, the town of Rashi's birth, Troyes, is spelled.
Cantillation mark
Computer encoding
Most keyboards do not have a key for the gershayim. As a result, a quotation mark is often substituted for it.Appearance | Code Points | Name |
״ | U+05F4 | HEBREW PUNCTUATION GERSHAYIM |
֞ | U+059E | HEBREW ACCENT GERSHAYIM |