Common
Mater lectionis
Letters to indicate vowels in some Semitic languages
Mater lectionis
A mater lectionis ( MAY-tər LEK-tee-OH-niss, MAH-tər -; Latin for 'mother of reading', pl. matres lectionis MAH-trayss -; original Hebrew: אֵם קְרִיאָה, romanized: ʾēm qərîʾāh) is any consonant letter that is 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 yud י, with the latter two in particular being more often vowels than they are consonants. In Arabic, the matres lectionis (though they are much less often referred to thus) are ʾalif ا, wāw و and yāʾ ي. The original value of the matres lectionis corresponds closely to what are called in modern linguistics glides or semivowels.
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