Yiddish orthography
Yiddish orthography is the writing system used for the Yiddish language. Yiddish is written with the Hebrew script, whose letters are used as the basis of a full vocalic alphabet (unlike the abjad system used for the Hebrew language). Over its history, the spelling rules that govern Yiddish orthography have evolved and been subject to several reforms and standardisations, especially in the 20th century. Nonetheless, there remains variation between different ways of writing Yiddish in the present day.
In Yiddish orthography, letters that are silent or that represent glottal stops in Hebrew are used to represent Yiddish vowels. There are letters that can serve as both vowels and consonants, which are either read based on context or are differentiated by diacritical marks. These diacritics are derived from Hebrew nikkud and are commonly referred to as "nekudot" or "pintalach" (literally 'points', as they are mostly point-like signs). Additional phonetic distinctions between letters that share the same base character are also indicated by either pointing or adjacent placement of otherwise silent base characters. Several Yiddish points are not commonly used in any latter-day Hebrew context; others are used in a manner that is specific to Yiddish orthography. There is significant variation in the way this is applied in literary practice. There are also several differing approaches to the disambiguation of characters that can be used as either vowels or consonants.
Words of Aramaic and Hebrew origin are normally written in the traditional orthography of the source language—i.e., the orthography of these words, which is consonant-based, is generally preserved. All other Yiddish words are represented with phonemic orthography. Both forms can appear in a single word—for example, where a Yiddish affix is applied to a Hebrew stem. Yiddish diacritics may also be applied to words that are otherwise written entirely with traditional orthography.