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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Kamatz katan; Ashkenazi pronunciation; was: Translating

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Kamatz katan; Ashkenazi pronunciation; was: Translating
  • Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 15:12:59 +0100

On 03/10/2006 14:17, leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il wrote:
I think that the real question about the Kamatz katan is not when its
pronounced - the rules are pretty clear, though there are different
customs. The real question is, why the mesoretes used the same symbol for
two different (albeit related) vowels: the long a and the short o. Could it
be that THEY pronounced them both the same? If so, how, as a long a or as a
short o?

It is surely clear from the Masoretic accentuation rules that qamats could be either long or short, as can hiriq and qubuts. But I agree that the distinction may well have been of length only, not of quality. However, it is common in languages for length distinctions to develop over time into quality distinctions. This is especially obvious in English, in which long and short "a" would originally have had the same quality but since the 16th century have had very different qualities (in fact this is true of every simple vowel in English). This is probably the simplest explanation of how the two varieties of qamats came to have different qualities.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter AT qaya.org
Blog: http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/





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