[Heb-NACO] FW: FW: pronunciaton of kamats with meteg

Wed Apr 17 17:09:51 EDT 2013

One JTSA faculty reply to Heidi Lerner April 4 inquiry. / Clifford Miller

From: Rabbi Miles B. Cohen [mailto:milesbcohen at verizon.net] Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 5:22 PM

Hi, Cliff,

From a linguistic perspective this kametz cannot be a long vowel (AH). It is the kametz katan vowel that gives rise to the hataf kamets katan that follows. Without the former, you would not have the latter. (Similarly, patah gives rise to the patah-flavored hataf that follows it, and the segol gives rise to the segol-flavored hataf that follows it.)

The meteg on this vowel, which may or may not appear, depending on the manuscript and the particular instance, is not an indicator of accent or vowel length, but, as it almost always is in the Tanakh, an indicator of syllable structure. Here, if it appears, it simply indicates that the syllable is open (the hataf accomplishes the same end).

The confusion dates back to Radak, who didn't get this right. He assumed these kematzim are long vowels. The Sephardic tradition of pronunciation is based entirely on his erroneous understand of the vowels and the meteg.

Siddur Rinnat Yisra'el, Tikkun Simanim, and others asked Sefardic readers how they read those words and marked them accordingly. They reasoned that these are the people who know how Sephardic pronunciation is done. But I have been told by people knowledgeable about such things that in Israel they distinguish between Sephardic pronunciation (אהלו aholo) and Israeli pronunciation (oholo). (Perhaps the announcers on Israeli radio are taught the latter.)

The extraordinarily reliable Horev Tikkun marked them the same way. However, in the introduction they cite Rabbi Mordechai Breuer (master Masorete and reconstructor of the Aleppo Codex) who suggests that those who do not have a tradition to follow Radak should consider following the understanding of the historical linguists, i.e., that this is a kametz katan. In other words,  if you don't have to follow a tradition of making a mistake, why would you?

There is no dispute among the historical linguists. This vowel can only be kametz katan. There is no dispute among the Sephardim. This vowel is kametz gadol. The only question is, as it is in much of Jewish life, who serves as the authority?

I have no trouble with this one. Following Radak's position here leads to all sorts of contradictions and misunderstandings. The linguistic evidence is clear and consistent. In almost all cases, the kametz before hataf kamets is kametz katan. (If you want the exceptions, which also follow all the clear and consistent linguistic rules and patterns, that will have to be another day.)

Happy to help. Kol tuv,
Miles

On 4/10/2013 4:52 PM, Cliff Miller wrote:
Would you care to weigh in on this discussion of Hebrew vowels among catalogers of Hebrew books?
Agree with these two cited sources?

Siddur Rinat Yisrael emphatically treats the accented kametz before Hataf-kametz as AH, as I think do also those liturgies published by Yemeni or MizraHi communities in Israel, in which the 2 Kametz sounds are printed differently.

Recent RA liturgies treat the accented kametz before Hataf kametz as AW.
Possible that Ashkenazi Masoretes are mistaken?

I would very much appreciate your response.
Thank you.
Clifford B Miller, MHL, MLS
Caldwell, NJ
From: heb-naco-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu<mailto:heb-naco-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu> [mailto:heb-naco-bounces at lists.service.ohio-state.edu]
On Behalf Of Biella, Joan Sent: Monday, April 08, 2013 9:39 AM To: 'Hebrew Name Authority Funnel'
Subject: Re: [Heb-NACO] pronunciaton of kamats with meteg

Here are some remarks on metheg by my two favorite Hebrew grammarians.  It's hard for me to transcribe voweled Hebrew script in e-mail, so I've just marked all the vowels with metheg in RED.  I hope you can follow the arguments below.
Joan

Lambdin, T.O.  Introduction to Biblical Hebrew.  New York : Scribers, c1971, pages xxvii-xxviii

Metheg
The metheg is a short perpendicular stroke placed under a consonant and to the left of the vowel sign (if any).  It serves several purposes in the orthography, of which the following are the most important:

1)  Since the vowels ā and ē are regularly replaced by ə in open syllables two or more places before the main stress, their appearance in such positions may be regarded as anomalous.  They are usually marked with metheg:
ānoki    I
bērakhtani         you blessed me

2)  In fact, any long vowel occurring two or more syllables before the main stress may be so marked, although manuscripts are inconsistent in this.  Compare
hōshaʻ  save!
hōshiʻeni           save me!
This usage is particularly important with the vowel qamets, which is a short vowel o in closed, unaccented syllables and a long vowel ā elsewhere.  This metheg is used with qamets = ā in any doubtful position to ensure the correct reading:
yevārekheni      he will bless me (not yevorkheni)

3)  Short vowels before the main stress usually occur in closed syllables.  Whenever the contrary occurs, the vowel may be marked with metheg:
tāʻămod                        she will stand
ohŏlo    his tent
This last example, with qamets = o, would seem to cancel out th eusefulness of metheg for distinguishing between the two values of qamets mentioned above.  Actually, this is not often so, since qamets = ā is very rarely followed by qamets = o in the next syllable, but rather by ă:  e.g. bāḥăru (they chose).

Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar as edited and enlarged by the late E. Kautzsch. 2nd English edition revised by A.E. Cowley. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1966, pages 50-51.

In all these cases the Jewish grammarians regard the Metheg accompanying the Qameṣ as indicating a Qameṣ raḥabh (broad Qameṣ) and therefore read the Qameṣ as ā ; thus pā-ʻŏlo, dā-reban, pā-ʻŏləkha, qā-dāshim.  But neither the origin of these forms, nor the analogous formations in Hebrew and in the cognate languages, nor the transcription of proper names in the LXX [e.g.
Νοομι], allows us to regard this view as correct.

From: heb-naco-bounces+jbie=loc.gov at lists.service.ohio-state.edu<mailto:heb-naco-bounces+jbie=loc.gov at lists.service.ohio-state.edu> [mailto:heb-naco-bounces+jbie=loc.gov at lists.service.ohio-state.edu] On Behalf Of Heidi G Lerner
Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2013 11:37 AM
To: Hebrew Name Authority Funnel
Subject: [Heb-NACO] pronunciaton of kamats with meteg

I am reading Sefer Rut on Shavuot and I have a question on the pronunciation of
נעמי when the 1st kamats under the "נ" has a meteg next to it. Normally נעמי is pronounced "Noʻomi".
However, in Sefer Rut it is very often written with the meteg. Wouldn't that mean that it should be pronounced "Naʻomi"?
To the best of my limited knowledge the meteg can appear with a long vowel in an unaccented syllable.

"Meteg is also sometimes used in Biblical Hebrew to mark a long vowel</wiki/Vowel_length>. While short and long vowels are largely allophonic, they are not always predictable from spelling, e.g. ויראו 'and they saw' vs. ויראו 'and they feared'. Meteg's indication of length also indirectly indicates that a following shva</wiki/Shva> is vocal, as in the previous case. Note that this may distinguish qamatz gadol and qatan, e.g. שמרה 'she guarded' vs. שמרה 'guard (volitive)'."--Wikipedia.

Any confirmation of the correct pronunciation will be appreciated.

Thanks, Heidi

--
Heidi G. Lerner
Hebraica/Judaica Cataloger
Metadata Development Unit
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford, CA 94305-6004
e-mail: lerner at stanford.edu<mailto:lerner at stanford.edu>
ph: 650-725-9953
fax: 650-725-1120

--

Rabbi Miles B. Cohen
miles at milesbcohen.com<mailto:miles at milesbcohen.com>
718-224-6841
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