B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

I'm wondering where are examples of a kamatz katan in the bible.. when done with israeli pronunciation..

Gen 1:21 has כָּל-נֶפֶשׁ

Ashkenaezi pronunciation says Kol Nefesh 'cos in ashkenazi every kamatz is oh.

Sephardi pronunciation would say Kol Nefesh, 'cos it's a kamatz on a closed unaccented syllable. (I'm aware they say Kal Nidrei for the name of the Yom Kippur service)

How does Modern Israeli hebrew pronunciation say it. Kol surely?

And what's the israeli rule for it?

(actually maybe this is in the wrong section and should be in the beginner section.. not in the classical section)

Modern is like Sephardi (except for one or two cases).

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The Qamats is not an original Semitic vowel.
And it had its own vowel.

It was evolved from an "a" sound, and/or from an "o/u" sound.

So basically there is no Qamats Gadol and Qamats Qatan.
When the MT wrote Qamats - it sounded the same in every place.

This Qamats sound was pronounced in Tiberia, and it is also in the Babylonian Mt.

But in other places, (also in Israel itself) the tradition of speech was different.
And so, people didn't pronounce the Qamats in its sound
but they pronounced it according to the vowel it was developed from.
So a Qamats that was derived from an "a" sound was pronounced as "a" (aka Qamats Gadol)
and Qamats that was derived from an "o/u" sound was pronounced as "o" (aka Qamats Qatan)

And that tradition of speaking is what lead to the "Sephardi accent" and also to the Modern Hebrew.

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So the rules of Modern Hebrew are just like yo known in the Sephardi one expect that Modern Hebrew would still pronounce Qamats as "o" even if the syllable is open (if the origin of the Qamats is "u/o").

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As for the "Kol Nidre".
It is an Aramaic prayer - not Hebrew.

Anyway, Some do pronounce it as "kal" since there is a claim that in Aramaic, every Qamats is "a" (as no Qamats Qatan at all).
In my opinion, it is a mistake that was made because of the relationship between Hebrew's vowel and the Aramaic vowels.

(By the way, There Are cases, in the Bible, when the Sephardi reads the כל as "a").

Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and modern Israeli Hebrew. None of these pronounce the Qamatz as the pointing seems to reflect historically. From the fact that in Sephardic the qamatz dropped to a patach /ɑ/, and in Ashkenazi it moved up into an /o/, is clear evidence that the qamatz was pronounced more like a /ɔ/ or an /ɒ/, or possibly as open as /a/. The masoretic tradition points to the presence of two a vowel sounds. Compare Canadian French (two a sounds) to Belgian French (one a sound.

It is not really an "a" sound
It is something between "a" and "o"
like the "o" in the name "Bob", or the "o" in the word "Hot".

ducky wrote: ↑Fri Feb 12, 2021 9:07 am Modern is like Sephardi (except for one or two cases).

Can you give examples of those one or two cases? (from the bible)

And the Modern Israeli rule?

ducky wrote: ↑Sat Feb 13, 2021 4:40 am It is not really an "a" sound
It is something between "a" and "o"
like the "o" in the name "Bob", or the "o" in the word "Hot".

Saying it's pronounced like the 'o' in bob, is completely meaningless, because the way an american says "bob" is different from the way an English person says "bob". So if you are going to say something like that, then you have to also state what pronunciation you are talking about. Are you talking about English pronunciation or American pronunciation.

And what on earth is meant by " something between 'a' and 'o' like the 'o' in the name 'Bob' "

Think about it. The "o" in "Bob" is an "o", not between an "a" and an "o".

I don't know if maybe you are trying to say is that the kamatz katan is pronounced like the modern israeli pronunciation of the cholam vowel? i.e. the "o" like the "o" in the british pronunciation of "bob", and not the "o" in boat. (Both are "o" but different types of "o")

Anyhow this has nothing to do with the question I asked!

Hi Ralph,

As for the pronunciation,
Just see what Johnathan wrote above (he used IPA signs)
The assumption that the Qamats was pronounced as ɔ.

But as I said in my first comment, most communities didn't follow the Tiberian accent, and they had their own accent.

And they didn't have the Qamats in their accent.
But they had "a" and they had "o".
So when there was a Qamats Qatan, the old other books (non-Tiberian) had Holam.
And that is the tradition of speech that led to the Sephardi and later to the Modern.

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So the basic thing to understand is that the Tiberian MT vowels (which is the one that is represented in the bibles) are not the ones that are represented in the speech.
What is represented in the speech is another old vowel-system that had 5 vowels (and not 7 like Tiberian).
And even after all communities accepted the Tiberian way as the most dignified one, and put it in their books, they still didn't change the way they talk.

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As for the differences between Modern and Sephardi...
I said that in my first comment here
Modern pronounces the Qamats according to its origin.
So if the Qamats is from an "a" sound, it would be "a".
If the Qamats is from an "u" sound, it would be "o"

The Sephardi is the same, except when the is a Qamats in an open syllable, they would pronounce it as "a", even if this Qamats's origin is from "u".

For example, the name נעמי and the word קדשים
Modern says: No'omi and Qodashim
since the Qamats is based on an old "u" sound even though the syllable is open.

Sephardi says: Na'omi and Qadashim
Since the syllable is open even though the Qamats is based on an old "u" sound.

So to sum it.
Qamats Gadol = "a"
Qamats Qatan = "o"
In modern and Sephardi.

In Tiberian (also in Babylonian MT) - the Qamats represent one sound ɔ - always
But the Tradition of speech of the Sephardi (and later Modern) followed another accent which had only 5 vowels (and that is why we don't pronounce Qamats like the Tiberian, and also not the Segol).

ducky wrote: ↑Sat Feb 13, 2021 8:32 am Hi Ralph,

For example, the name נעמי and the word קדשים
Modern says: No'omi and Qodashim
since the Qamats is based on an old "u" sound even though the syllable is open.

קדשים Ex 29:37 קָדָשִׁים

נעמי Ex Ruth 1:2 נָעֳמִי

Thanks, so

What's the rule for determining it in modern israeli pronunciation?

I have heard that in [modern] israeli hebrew pronunciation determining of kamatz katan is meant to be a reconstruction of how it would have been.

so ok.. so it's based on if the sound was an old "u".

But how do you know if the sound was an old "u"?

And by the way, when you say "u"(for kamatz katan), do you mean like the British pronunciation of clock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPMC-5ZQwd4

קדשים is normally pointed with ḥataf-kamats: קֳדָשִׁים. It is based on that pointing that we read it as kodashim.

Jason Hare wrote: ↑Tue Feb 16, 2021 5:28 pm קדשים is normally pointed with ḥataf-kamats: קֳדָשִׁים.....

I see you are showing it with a hataph kamatz. I don't see that at all in Tanach. Please give a chapter and verse reference for where in Tanach it has it pointed like that.

From what I can tell I only see it occurring with Kamatz and Meteg or Kamatz and no meteg. But no Hataph Kamatz
https://tanach.us/Server.html?Ex29:37-29:37 קָֽדָשִׁ֔ים
https://tanach.us/Server.html?Ezek43:12-43:12 קָדָשִׁ֔ים

You can get Kuhdoshim https://tanach.us/Server.html?Num5:17-5:17 קְדֹשִׁ֖ים So, the letters with a simple shva on the kuf. But no compound shva. I don't see what you claim.