Hebrew Accent Qadma

It signals continuation within a longer reading phrase. Qadma is one of the Hebrew Bible’s cantillation signs, called taamim in Hebrew: marks that guide a passage’s phrasing when read aloud. In the Tiberian tradition—a way of recording that reading—Qadma is conjunctive: it serves a following disjunctive accent, especially Geresh, which marks a break. Qadma itself does not mark a full pause.

The written Tiberian system developed gradually. Tiberian Masoretes, Jewish scribes who preserved the Hebrew Bible’s text and reading tradition, completed its accent notation by the end of the ninth or beginning of the tenth century CE. Long before that written notation, Dead Sea Scrolls used spaces or line breaks for related divisions of sense; these are earlier ways of marking phrasing, not an earlier form of the Qadma glyph. Babylonian and Palestinian traditions are related systems for recording Hebrew Bible reading, not other names for this sign.

Is Qadma the same as Pashta?

No. Their similar strokes are distinguished by placement. Qadma sits over the stressed syllable; Pashta attaches at the end of the word. When a word’s stress is not on its final syllable, Pashta may also appear over the stressed syllable, where it can look exactly like Qadma.

The Qadma/Azla naming split depends on the chart and accent system. Ashkenazi charts call this sign Qadma; some Sephardi charts call it Azla, while their Qadma may name Pashta (֙). In the special cantillation system for Psalms, Proverbs, and Job, this same glyph is also called Azla.

How do I type Qadma?

Insert it after the Hebrew letter it belongs to. Qadma is a nonspacing combining mark: it belongs to a Hebrew base letter, while the font determines where it is drawn. On its own, it is not useful notation.