Cantillation is a system of marks, called ta'am (plural: te'amim) in Hebrew and trop in Yiddish. They appear either under, over or next to words in Hebrew Biblical text to convey what I call the "Three P's":
As a system of punctuation, biblical verses are broken into phrases of one or more words, with each word punctuated with a ta'am (trop) mark (in rare instances, two te'amim (trop) marks). Each phrase can be "classified" according to the ta'am that is found on the last word. At the Cantillation Café, ta'am phrases are colored according to these classifications.
Just as every letter and nikud (vowel) has a name in Hebrew, so too, do the te'amim. Using Quizlet, a popular on-line flashcard repository, one can master the names of each ta'am (trop) name before proceeding to learning how to chant the ta'am tunes.
Each color-coded button leads to a set of Quizlet flashcards that show the te'amim that may be found in a biblical phrase ending with the named ta'am.
Click on "English" to study ta'am names in transliteration. Click on " " to study ta'am names in Hebrew.