Kamatz Explained

Qamatz		-	ָ
IPA	pronounced as /link/
Transliteration	a
English approximation	spa
Similar sound
Example		-			-
Other Niqqud

Kamatz or qamatz (Hebrew: label=[[Modern Hebrew]]|קָמָץ, pronounced as /he/; alternatively Hebrew: קָמֶץ) is a Hebrew niqqud (vowel) sign represented by two perpendicular lines (looking like an uppercase T) underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew, it usually indicates the phoneme pronounced as /link/ which is the "a" sound in the word spa and is transliterated as a. In these cases, its sound is identical to the sound of in modern Hebrew. In a minority of cases it indicates the phoneme pronounced as /link/, equal to the sound of . In traditional Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation, qamatz is pronounced as the phoneme pronounced as /link/, which becomes pronounced as /link/ 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
pronounced as //a//	pronounced as /[a]/	Patach	pronounced as /[a]/	Patach
pronounced as //aː//	pronounced as /[ɔ]/	Kamatz		Kamatz Gadol
pronounced as //o//			pronounced as /[o]/	Kamatz Katan
pronounced as //oː//	pronounced as /[o]/	Holam		Holam

The Hebrew of the late centuries BCE and early centuries of the Common Era had a system with five phonemic long vowels pronounced as //aː eː iː oː uː// and five short vowels pronounced as //a e i o u//.

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 in open syllables and short in closed ones. However, the previous vowel phonemes merged in various ways that differed from dialect to dialect:

• In Tiberian Hebrew, which underlies the written system of vowels, short pronounced as //a// became pronounced as /[a]/ (indicated by ); long pronounced as //oː// became pronounced as /[o]/ (indicated by ); while pronounced as //aː// and pronounced as //o// both merged into an in-between sound pronounced as /[ɔ]/ (similar to the vowel in English "caught" without the cot-caught merger), which was indicated by qamatz.
• In the Babylonian vocalization, however, short and long variants simply merged, with pronounced as //a// and pronounced as //aː// becoming [a], while pronounced as //o// and pronounced as //oː// became [o]; and this system underlies the pronunciation of Modern 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 pronounced as /[o]/, known as (Hebrew: קָמַץ קָטָן, pronounced as /he/, "little qamatz") occurs in a "closed syllable", i.e. one which ends in a consonant marked with a shwa nakh (zero vowel) or with a (which indicates that the consonant was pronounced geminated, i.e. doubled);
• The qamatz sound of pronounced as /[a]/, known as (Hebrew: קָמַץ גָּדוֹל pronounced as /he/, "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 a shwa na (originally pronounced pronounced as /[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 a metheg or other cantillation mark 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 of (pronounced as /he/, "root"), (pronounced as /he/).

An example of the qamatz qatan is the Modern Hebrew word (pronounced as /he/, "program").

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 vav, hence the standard vowel-less spelling of is . In practice, however, Modern Hebrew words containing a qamatz qatan do add a vav to indicate the pronounced as /[o]/ pronunciation; hence the nonstandard (also termed "excessive") spelling is common in newspapers and is even used in several dictionaries, for example Rav Milim. Words which in their base form have a that changes to in declension retain the vav in vowel-less spelling: the noun (pronounced as /he/, "freedom") is spelled in vowel-less texts; the adjective (pronounced as /he/, "free") is spelled in vowel-less text, despite the use of qamatz qatan, both according to the standard spelling and in common practice.

Some books print the differently, although the way in which they do is not consistent. For example, in siddur Rinat Yisrael the vertical line of qamatz qatan is longer. In Siddur Sim Shalom, the horizontal line is separated from the bottom. 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, although its usage is not required.

Ḥaṭaf Qamatz

(Hebrew: חֲטַף קָמַץ|, pronounced as /he/) is a "reduced qamatz". Like qamatz qatan, it is pronounced pronounced as /link/, but the rationale for its usage is different: it replaces the shva on letters which require a shva according to the grammar, but where the traditional pronunciation is pronounced as /link/. This mostly happens with gutturals, for example in (pronounced as /he/, "pines", the plural form of, pronounced as /he/), but occasionally also on other letters, for example (pronounced as /he/, "roots", another plural of pronounced as /he/); and (pronounced as /he/, "birds", the plural of (pronounced as /he/).

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 and Het used in this table are only for demonstration, any letter can be used.

Symbol	Name	English	Pronunciation
			Modern	Ashkenazi	Sephardi	Yemenite	Tiberian	Reconstructed
									Biblical
	Qamatz Gadol	Big Qamatz	pronounced as /[ä]/	pronounced as /[ɔ~u]/	pronounced as /[ä]/	pronounced as /[ɔ]/	pronounced as /[ɔ]/	?	pronounced as /[a:]/
a			o,u	a	o	ā	?	ā
,	Qamatz Male	Full Qamatz	pronounced as /[ä]/	pronounced as /[ɔ~u]/	pronounced as /[ä]/	pronounced as /[ɔ]/	pronounced as /[ɔ]/	?
a			o,u	a	o	â	?	a
	Qamatz Qatan	Little Qamatz	pronounced as /[o̞]/	pronounced as /[ɔ]/	pronounced as /[o̞]/	pronounced as /[ɔ]/	pronounced as /[ɔ]/	?	pronounced as /[ʊ]/
o			o	o	o	o	?	u
	Hataf Qamatz	Reduced Qamatz	pronounced as /[o̞]/	pronounced as /[ɔ]/	pronounced as /[o̞]/	pronounced as /[ɔ]/	pronounced as /[ɔ̆]/	?
o			o	o	o	ŏ	?	u

Vowel length comparison

These vowel lengths are not manifested in Modern Hebrew. The short o and long a (qamatz) have the same niqqud. Because of this, the short o is usually promoted to a long o in Israeli writing, written as a vav, 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
			pronounced as /link/	a	spa
qamatz	Pataḥ	Reduced pataḥ
			pronounced as /link/	o	core
		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).