Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Greg wrote:

"BTW  Matres Lectionis are letters waw, he and yodh placed into the 
Hebrew text to act as "semi-vowels" or at least as markers to help in 
the reading of the consonatal text.  It's latin for Mothers of 
Reading."

Well, it makes a big difference whether these are "semi-vowels" or 
simply markers. As I understand it these Matres Lectionis are not to 
be pronounced as any sort of consonant, semi-vowel, diphthong, 
off-glide or whatever one might call it; they merely help to indicate 
the presence of a vowel.

Thus tsere-yod is pronounced exactly like tsere, full holem exactly 
like holem, and word final qamets-he exactly like qamets. None of the 
forms with matres lectionis is pronounced as a diphthong. Qamets-waw 
and qamets-yod might be considered diphthongs, for the waw and yod are 
pronounced as semi-vowels, but these are not then matres lectionis.

With I and U sounds the presence of the mater is also tied up with the 
length issue. As I understand it, in the Masoretic Text hireq-yod is 
always long, but hireq alone is more commonly short, also waw-tsureq 
is almost always long, but qibbuts is usually short. (Compare Arabic 
which uses a vowel letter analogous to a mater lectionis for long 
vowels but not for short vowels). However, unpointed texts regularly 
use yod and waw for short I and U vowels respectively.

Is there any disagreement with what I have written?

Peter Kirk