Kamatz

Qamatz (Hebrew: קָמַץ‎‎) is a Hebrew niqqud (vowel) sign represented by two perpendicular lines (looking like an uppercase T) "ָ" underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew (Sephardi/Israeli), it usually indicates the phoneme /a/ which is the same as the "a" sound in far and is transliterated as an "a" and thus its sound is identical to the sound of pataḥ in modern Hebrew. In some cases it indicates the phoneme /o/, equal to the sound of holam.

Qamatz Qatan and Hataf Qamatz

Qamatz Qatan

A Qamatz Qatan (Hebrew: קָמַץ קָטָן‎‎, "Small Qamatz"), is a qamatz in a closed syllable. A closed syllable is one which ends in a consonant with shwa nakh (zero vowel) or in a consonant with dagesh khazak (essentially two identical consonants, the first of which has shwa nakh). For example, it is used in the word תָּכְנִית (program, pronounced [ˈtoχnit]). It is identical in appearance to the standard qamatz, but is pronounced as [o], rather than [a]. According to the standard Hebrew spelling rules as published by The Academy of the Hebrew Language, words which have a qamatz qatan in their base form must be written without a waw, thus the standard vowel-less spelling of תָּכְנִית is תכנית, although in practice many Hebrew speakers do add a waw and spell it תוכנית. This nonstandard spelling is common in newspapers and is even used in several dictionaries, for example Rav Milim. Words, which in their base form have a holam that changes to qamatz qatan in declination, retain the waw in vowel-less spelling: the noun חֹפֶשׁ (freedom, pronounced [ˈħofeʃ]) is spelled חופש in vowel-less texts; the adjective חָפְשִׁי (free, pronounced [ħofˈʃi]) is spelled חופשי in vowel-less text, despite the use of qamatz qatan, both according to the standard spelling and in common practice.

Some books print the qamatz qatan differently, although it is not consistent. For example, in siddur Rinat Yisrael the vertical line of qamatz qatan is longer. In a book of Psalms used by some Breslov hassidim the qamatz qatan is bolder. In the popular niqqud textbook Niqqud halakha le-maase by Nisan Netser, the qamatz qatan is printed as an encircled qamatz for didactic purposes.

Unicode defines the code point U+05C7 QAMATS QATAN, although the appearance of the character in the code chart is identical to that of U+05B8 QAMATS and its usage is not required.

Hataf Qamatz

Hataf Qamatz (Hebrew: חֲטַף קָמָץ‎) is a "reduced qamatz". Like qamatz qatan, it is pronounced [o], but the rationale for its usage is different: it replaces the shwa on letters which require a shwa according to the grammar, but where the traditional pronunciation is [o]. This mostly happens with gutturals, for example in אֳרָנִים (pines, [oraˈnim], the plural form of אֹרֶן, [ˈoʁen]), but occasionally also on other letters, for example שֳׁרָשִׁים (roots, [ʃoʁaˈʃim], the plural of שֹׁרֶשׁ [ˈʃoʁeʃ]) and צִפֳּרִים (birds, [tsipoˈʁim], the plural of [tsiˈpoʁ]).

Pronunciation and transliteration

The following table contains the pronunciation and transliteration of the different qamatzes in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The transcription in IPA is above and the transliteration is below.

The letters Bet "ב" and Het "ח" used in this table are only for demonstration. Any letter can be used.

Vowel Length comparison

These vowel lengths are not manifested in Modern Hebrew. The short o (Qamatz Qatan) and long a (Qamatz) have the same niqqud. Because of this, the short o (Qamatz Qatan) is usually promoted to a long o (Holam) in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation.

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

Unicode encoding

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.

See also

• Niqqud
• Pataḥ