Mater lectionis
A mater lectionis ( Latin for reading mother ; Hebrew אם קריאה; Arabic أم قراءة, DMG Umm Qirāʾa ), also called Fulcrum , littera quiescens or quiescibilis , is a letter in the Semitic consonant scripts that indicates the pronunciation of a vowel . For example, in Hebrew the vav is used to denote o or u , the iodine for e or i ; other final long vowels are often represented using He .
If a word appears in Hebrew with mater lectionis, then one speaks of plene spelling , but the word can also appear without mater lectionis, then one speaks of defective spelling. Both spellings are possible and equivalent, the meaning of the word, the pronunciation or the weighting does not change. There are also words that generally only appear in plene spelling. When Hebrew was no longer a commonly spoken language, the matres lectionis were no longer sufficient for correct pronunciation. Various forms of puncturing were developed that could represent the vowels and their length more precisely. The development of punctuation found its conclusion in the Masoretic text , so that this more often prefers the defective spelling, especially with short vowels, compared to the older Scrolls of the Dead Sea .
In Arabic , Vav , Ya , Alif and Ta marbuta are used as Matres lectionis.