Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 12/26/06, Dr. Raoul Comninos <psalms AT telkomsa.net> wrote:
> I began learning Hebrew using 'The First Hebrew Primer' which
> pronounces Qamets and Pathach in the same way. I then switched to a
> Semlink Course and have noted that Pathach is often (but not always)
> pronounced as 'a' in BAT.

It occured to me that your question above would make sense if you are
confusing patah and qamats.  So, patah is the straight line (a dash/
underline), qamats looks like a small T.  If you follow the guidelines I
posted in the other message, you will see how questions such as the
above don't come up.  The short answer would be, though, that the
instructor is pronouncing the word not according to the Tiberian
pronunciation which is why the patah and qamats (Tiberian vocalization
marks) don't match his pronunciation exactly.  Again, there are other
pronunciation systems available, and no single one is necessarily the
"correct" way but it is best to stick to the Tiberian because it is the
best preserved system.

Yitzhak Sapir