Kamatz

Qamatz
ָ
IPA	[ä]
Transliteration	a
English approximation	spa
Similar sound	pataḥ
Example
דָּג‎
The word for fish inHebrew,dag.The only vowel (underDalet,the two perpendicular lines) is a qamatz.
OtherNiqqud
Shwa·Hiriq·Tzere·Segol·Pataḥ·Kamatz·Holam·Dagesh·Mappiq·Shuruk·Kubutz·Rafe·Sin/Shin Dot

Kamatzorqamatz(Modern Hebrew:קָמָץ,IPA:[kaˈmats];alternativelyקָמֶץqāmeṣ) is aHebrewniqqud(vowel) sign represented by twoperpendicularlines (looking like anuppercaseT)⟨ָ‎⟩underneath a letter. Inmodern Hebrew,it usually indicates thephoneme/a/which is the "a"sound in the wordspaand istransliteratedasa.In these cases, its sound is identical to the sound ofpataḥinmodern Hebrew.In a minority of cases it indicates the phoneme/o/,equal to the sound ofḥolam.In traditionalAshkenazi Hebrewpronunciation, qamatz is pronounced as the phoneme/ɔ/,which becomes/u/in some contexts in southern Ashkenazi dialects.

Qamatz Qaṭan, Qamatz Gadol, Ḥataf Qamatz

Qamatz Qaṭan vs. Qamatz Gadol

Biblical Hebrew	Tiberian phoneme	Tiberian vowel	Babylonian phoneme	Modern Hebrew
/a/	[a]	Patach	[a]	Patach
/aː/	[ɔ]	Kamatz		Kamatz Gadol
/o/			[o]	Kamatz Katan
/oː/	[o]	Holam		Holam

The Hebrew of the late centuries BCE and early centuries of theCommon Erahad a system with fivephonemiclong vowels/aːeːiːoːuː/and five short vowels/aeiou/.

In the later dialects of the 1st millennium CE, phonemic vowel length disappeared, and instead was automatically determined by the context, with vowels pronounced long inopen syllablesand short in closed ones. However, the previous vowel phonemes merged in various ways that differed from dialect to dialect:

• InTiberian Hebrew,which underliesthe written system of vowels,short/a/became[a](indicated bypataḥ); long/oː/became[o](indicated byḥolam); while/aː/and/o/both merged into an in-between sound[ɔ](similar to the vowel in English "caught" without thecot-caught merger), which was indicated by qamatz.
• In theBabylonian vocalization,however, short and long variants simply merged, with/a/and/aː/becoming [a], while/o/and/oː/became [o]; and this system underlies the pronunciation ofModern Hebrew.

The result is that in Modern Hebrew, the vowel written with qamatz might be pronounced as either [a] or [o], depending on historical origin. It is often said that the two sounds can be distinguished by context:

• The qamatz sound of[o],known asQamatz Qaṭan(Hebrew:קָמַץ קָטָן,IPA:[kaˈmatskaˈtan],"little qamatz" ) occurs in a "closed syllable", i.e. one which ends in a consonant marked with ashwa nakh(zero vowel) or with adagesh ḥazaq(which indicates that the consonant was pronouncedgeminated,i.e. doubled);
• The qamatz sound of[a],known asQamatz Gadol(Hebrew:קָמַץ גָּדוֹל[kaˈmatsɡaˈdol],"big qamatz" ) occurs in an "open syllable", i.e. any other circumstance: one which ends in a consonant followed by a normal vowel, a consonant at the end of a word and with no vowel marking, or a consonant marked with ashwa na(originally pronounced[ə]).

Unfortunately, the two varieties of shwa are written identically, and pronounced identically in Modern Hebrew; as a result, there is no reliable way to distinguish the two varieties of qamatz when followed by a vowel marked with a shwa. (In some cases, Biblical texts are marked with amethegor othercantillationmark that helps to indicate which pronunciation is intended, but this usage is not consistent, and in any case such marks are absent in non-Biblical texts.) It should also be noted that there are examples of qamatz qaṭan appearing in open syllables, such as in the plural ofשֹׁרֶשׁ‎([ˈʃo.ʁɛʃ],"root" ),שׇׁרָשִׁים‎([ʃo.ʁa.ˈʃim]).

An example of theqamatz qatanis the Modern Hebrew wordתׇּכְנִית‎ ([toχˈnit],"program" ).

According to the standardHebrew spellingrules as published by theAcademy of the Hebrew Language,words which have a qamatz qatan in their base form must be written without avav,hence the standard vowel-less spelling ofתָּכְנִית‎ isתכנית‎. In practice, however, Modern Hebrew words containing a qamatz qatan do add avav⟨ו‎⟩to indicate the[o]pronunciation; hence the nonstandard (also termed "excessive" ) spellingתוכנית‎ is common in newspapers and is even used in several dictionaries, for exampleRav Milim.Words which in their base form have aḥolamthat changes toqamatz qaṭanin declension retain thevavin vowel-less spelling: the nounחֹפֶשׁ‎ ([ˈχofeʃ],"freedom" ) is spelledחופש‎ in vowel-less texts; the adjectiveחָפְשִׁי‎ ([χofˈʃi],"free" ) is spelledחופשי‎ in vowel-less text, despite the use of qamatz qatan, both according to the standard spelling and in common practice.

Some books print theqamatz qaṭandifferently, although the way in which they do is not consistent. For example, in siddurRinat Yisraelthe vertical line of qamatz qatan is longer. InSiddur Sim Shalom,the horizontal line is separated from the bottom. In a book ofPsalmsused by someBreslov hassidimthe qamatz qatan is bolder. In the popular niqqud textbookNiqqud halakha le-maasebyNisan Netser,the qamatz qatan is printed as an encircled qamatz for didactic purposes.

Unicodedefines the code pointU+05C7ׇHEBREW POINT QAMATS QATAN,although its usage is not required.

Ḥaṭaf Qamatz

Ḥaṭaf Qamatz(Hebrew:חֲטַף קָמַץ,IPA:[χaˈtafkaˈmats]) is a "reduced qamatz". Like qamatz qatan, it is pronounced[o],but the rationale for its usage is different: it replaces theshvaon letters which require a shva according to the grammar, but where the traditional pronunciation is[o].This mostly happens with gutturals, for example inאֳרָנִים‎ ([oʁaˈnim],"pines", the plural form ofאֹרֶן‎,[ˈoʁen]), but occasionally also on other letters, for exampleשֳׁרָשִׁים‎ ([ʃoʁaˈʃim],"roots", another plural ofשֹׁרֶשׁ‎[ˈʃoʁeʃ]); andצִפֳּרִים‎ ([tsipoˈʁim],"birds", the plural ofצִפּוֹר‎ ([tsiˈpoʁ]).

Pronunciation and transliteration

The following table contains thepronunciationandtransliterationof the different qamatzes in reconstructed historical forms anddialectsusing theInternational Phonetic Alphabet.The transcription in IPA is above and the transliteration is below.

The lettersBet⟨ב‎⟩andHet⟨ח‎⟩used in this table are only for demonstration, any letter can be used.

Symbol	Name	English	Pronunciation
			Modern	Ashkenazi	Sephardi	Yemenite	Tiberian	Reconstructed
								Mishnaic	Biblical
בָ‎	Qamatz Gadol	Big Qamatz	[ä]	[ɔ~u]	[ä]	[ɔ]	[ɔ]	?	[a:]
			a	o,u	a	o	ā	?	ā
בָה‎,בָא‎	Qamatz Male	Full Qamatz	[ä]	[ɔ~u]	[ä]	[ɔ]	[ɔ]	?	[ɐː]
			a	o,u	a	o	â	?	a
בׇ‎	Qamatz Qatan	Little Qamatz	[o̞]	[ɔ]	[o̞]	[ɔ]	[ɔ]	?	[ʊ]
			o	o	o	o	o	?	u
חֳ‎	Hataf Qamatz	Reduced Qamatz	[o̞]	[ɔ]	[o̞]	[ɔ]	[ɔ̆]	?	[ɔ̝]
			o	o	o	o	ŏ	?	u

Vowel length comparison

These vowel lengths are not manifested in Modern Hebrew. The shorto(qamatz qaṭan) and longa(qamatz) have the sameniqqud.Because of this, the shorto(Qamatz Qaṭan) is usually promoted to a longo(holammale) in Israeli writing, written as avav⟨ו‎⟩,for the sake of disambiguation.

By adding two vertical dots (shva) the vowel is made very short.

Vowel comparison table
Vowel length			IPA	Transliteration	English approximation
Long	Short	Very Short
ָ‎	ַ‎	ֲ‎	[a]	a	spa
qamatz	Pataḥ	Reduced pataḥ
וֹ‎	ׇ‎	ֳ‎	[o]	o	core
Ḥolam	Qamatz qaṭan	Reduced qamatz

Unicode encoding

Glyph	Unicode	Name
ָ‎	U+05B8	QAMATS
ֳ‎	U+05B3	HATAF QAMATS
ׇ‎	U+05C7	QAMATS QATAN

Note: the glyph for QAMATS QATAN may appear empty or incorrect if one applies a font that cannot handle the glyph necessary to represent Unicode character U+05C7. Usually this Unicode character isn't used and is substituted with the similar looking QAMATS (U+05B8).