Gershayim
Gershayim, also occasionally grashayim, can refer to either of two distinct typographical marks in the Hebrew language. The name means "double geresh".
Punctuation mark
Gershayim most commonly refers to the punctuation mark. It is always written before the last letter of the non-inflected form of a word or numeral. It is used in the following ways:- To indicate Hebrew abbreviations. For example: דּוּ״חַ, דּוּ״חוֹת, "report" represents דין וחשבון; and מ״כ, מַ״כִּית, "squad commander" represents מפקד כיתה.
- To indicate a multi-digit Hebrew numerals. For example: י״ח represents 18.
- To indicate the names of Hebrew letters, differentiating them from any homographs. Compare הוּא שִׂרְטֵט עַיִן "he sketched an eye" with "he sketched an ayin".
- To indicate Hebrew word roots. For example: the root of תַּשְׁבֵּצִים "crossword puzzles" is שב״צ ; the root of לְהַטּוֹת "to tilt, to conjugate" is ; and the root of הִסְתַּנְכְּרְנוּת "being synchronized" is סנכר״נ.
- In older texts, to indicate the transliteration of a foreign word. This use corresponds to the English language's use of italic type. For example, in printed works of Rashi, the town of Rashi's birth, Troyes, is spelled.
Cantillation mark
Gershayim is a disjunctive cantillation accent in the Hebrew Bible: ◌֞. It is placed above the stressed syllable, as in, in Genesis 22:3.Computer encoding
Most keyboards do not have a key for the gershayim punctuation; as a result, a quotation mark is often substituted for it. The cantillation accent however is generally not typed, as it plays a completely different role and can occur in the middle of words, or marked using a different interlinear notation if needed.| Appearance | Code points | Name |
| ״ | U+05F4 | Hebrew Punctuation Gershayim |
| ֞ | U+059E | Hebrew Accent Gershayim |