Yiddish orthography

Yiddish orthography is the writing system used for the Yiddish language. It includes Yiddish spelling rules and the Hebrew script, which is used as the basis of a full vocalic alphabet. Letters that are silent or glottal stops in the Hebrew language are used as vowels in Yiddish. Other letters that can serve as both vowels and consonants are either read as appropriate to the context in which they appear or are differentiated by diacritical marks derived from the Hebrew nikud, commonly referred to as "points". Additional phonetic distinctions between letters that share the same base character are also indicated by pointing or by the adjacent placement of otherwise silent base characters. Several Yiddish points are not commonly used in any present-day Hebrew context and 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.