Gershayim

Gershayim is a symbol that looks like two dots on top of each other with a little curve in between them. In some languages, like Hebrew, it is used to show that two letters that belong together should be pronounced as one sound.

Imagine you are playing with letter magnets and you want to spell the word "bookkeeper." You might put each letter on the fridge like this: "b-o-o-k-k-e-e-p-e-r." But wait a minute, the two "k"s and two "e"s should be together to make one sound when you say the word out loud. So, to show this, you can put a little Gershayim symbol above the second "k" and "e" like this: "b-o-o-k-k-״e-e-p-e-r."

Now when someone sees the word "bookkeeper" with the Gershayim symbol, they know to say it as "bookkee-per" with only two sounds instead of "book-ke-e-per" with three sounds. Pretty cool, huh?