B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

I was looking at a lot of quotes with the word "voice" קול and I noticed that the letter ו is usually written out, but not when a prefix or a suffix or anything like that is added to the word. I did not find any quote with the word spelled קל used by itself.
On the other hand, the word "generation" דור seems to be spelled without the letter ו in middle, even if the word is used by itself without any prefixes or suffixes or whatever is added to the word. Am I imagining things or is there an explanation?

I don't expect there to be any reason, but maybe ducky knows something. Biblical Hebrew just tends to use far fewer matres lectionis than we might expect. For example, it is normal to write ישפט for what we would write as ישפוט. That's just how things are done in the Bible (as opposed to later Hebrew).

It might be because קל is a word on its own, whereas דור is not a word on its own. That might reduce the likelihood that it would be written defectively.

I just noticed that the word myrrh מור is written by itself with or without the letter ו. The word מר could be read as bitterness, I think, for example in 1 Samuel 15:32, so it could be mixed up with the word "myrrh."

1 Samuel 15:32
יֹּ֣אמֶר שְׁמוּאֵ֗ל הַגִּ֤ישׁוּ אֵלַי֙ אֶת־אֲגַג֙ מֶ֣לֶךְ עֲמָלֵ֔ק וַיֵּ֣לֶךְ אֵלָ֔יו אֲגַ֖ג מַעֲדַנֹּ֑ת וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֲגָ֔ג אָכֵ֖ן סָ֥ר מַר־הַמָּֽוֶת׃ ס

I just searched for דור in Isa. Out of 19 instances in Isa, 2 are without the waw: Isa 41:4 and 51:9.
Then looked at these 2 verses in DSS 1QIsaA. In both cases the missing waw is there in DSS.
DSS, at least 1QIsaA, usually has the missing waw's in the text. I do not know why.

Hi,

I don't see any difference (basically) in the style of these two words' spellings.

both דור and קול are usually written with W when they stand independent.
and the W is dropped when the world gets another vowel, and especially, if another W is added to the word.

**
As for the DSS, there is nothing to look there since they always spelled the words using vowel letters, so even if they saw a word that is written without a vowel letter, they add it intentionally.