Kamatz

Kamatz katan and Kamatz gadol

The Hebrew of the late centuries BCE and early centuries of the Common Era had a system with five phonemic long vowels /aː eː iː oː uː/ and five short vowels /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 /a/ became [a] (indicated by patach); long /oː/ became [o] (indicated by holam); while /aː/ and /o/ both merged into an in-between sound [ɔ] (similar to the vowel in English "caught" without the cot-caught merger), which was indicated by kamatz.
• In the Babylonian 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 of Modern Hebrew.

The result is that in Modern Hebrew, the vowel written with kamatz 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 kamatz sound of [o], known as kamatz katan (Hebrew: קָמַץ קָטָן, IPA: [kaˈmats kaˈtan], 'little kamatz') occurs in a closed syllable, i.e. one which ends in a consonant marked with a shwa nakh (zero vowel) or with a dagesh ḥazaq (which indicates that the consonant was pronounced geminated, i.e. doubled);
• The kamatz sound of [a], known as kamatz gadol (Hebrew: קָמַץ גָּדוֹל [kaˈmats ɡaˈdol], 'big kamatz') 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 [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 kamatz 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 kamatz katan appearing in open syllables, such as in the plural of שֹׁרֶשׁ ([ˈʃo.ʁɛʃ], 'root'), שׇׁרָשִׁים ([ʃo.ʁa.ˈʃim]).

An example of the kamatz katan is the Modern Hebrew word תׇּכְנִית ([toχˈnit], "program").

According to the standard Hebrew spelling rules as published by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, words which have a kamatz katan in their base form must be written without a vav, hence the standard vowel-less spelling of תׇּכְנִית is תכנית. In practice, however, Modern Hebrew words containing a kamatz katan do add a vav ⟨ו⟩ to indicate the [o] pronunciation; hence the nonstandard (also termed "excessive") spelling תוכנית is common in newspapers and is even used in several dictionaries, for example Rav Milim. Words which in their base form have a ḥolam that changes to kamatz katan in declension retain the vav in vowel-less spelling: the noun חֹפֶשׁ ([ˈχofeʃ], "freedom") is spelled חופש in vowel-less texts; the adjective חָפְשִׁי ([χofˈʃi], "free") is spelled חופשי in vowel-less text, despite the use of kamatz katan, both according to the standard spelling and in common practice.

Some books print the kamatz katan differently, although the way in which they do is not consistent. For example, in siddur Rinat Yisrael the vertical line of kamatz katan 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 kamatz katan is bolder. In the popular niqqud textbook Niqqud halakha le-maase by Nisan Netser, the kamatz katan is printed as an encircled kamatz for didactic purposes.

Unicode defines the code point U+05C7 ׇ HEBREW POINT QAMATS QATAN, although its usage is not required.

Hataf kamatz

Hataf kamatz (Hebrew: חֲטַף קָמַץ, IPA: [χaˈtaf kaˈmats]) is a "reduced kamatz". Like kamatz katan, it is pronounced [o], 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 [o]. This mostly happens with gutturals, for example in אֳרָנִים ([oʁaˈnim], "pines", the plural form of אֹרֶן, [ˈoʁen]), but occasionally also on other letters, for example שֳׁרָשִׁים ([ʃoʁaˈʃim], "roots", another plural of שֹׁרֶשׁ [ˈʃoʁeʃ]); and צִפֳּרִים ([tsipoˈʁim], "birds", the plural of צִפּוֹר ([tsiˈpoʁ]).