Patach
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| ַ | |
| IPA | a |
| Transliteration | a |
| English example | far |
| Same sound | kamatz |
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| גַּם | |
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Patach (Hebrew: פַּתַח pataḥ) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a horizontal line "ַ" underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew, it indicates the phoneme /a/ which is the same as the "a" sound in far and is transliterated as a "a".
In Modern Hebrew, a patach makes the same sound as a kamatz, as does the Hataf Patach (Hebrew: חֲטַף פַּתַח "Reduced Patach"). The reduced (or hataf) niqqud exist for patach, kamatz, and segol which contain a shva next to it.
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[edit] Pronounciation
The following table contains the pronunciation and transliteration of the different patachs in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The pronunciation in IPA is above and the transliteration is below.
The letters Bet "ב" and Het "ח" used in this table are only for demonstration. Any letter can be used.
| Symbol | Name | Pronunciation | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Israeli | Ashkenazi | Sephardi | Yemenite | Tiberian | Reconstructed | |||
| Mishnaic | Biblical | |||||||
| בַ | Patach | [a] | [a] | [a] | ? | [a, aː] | ? | ? |
| בַה, בַא | Patach Male | [a] | ? | ? | ? | [aː] | ? | ? |
| חֲ | Hataf Patach | [a] | ? | ? | ? | [a] | ? | ? |
A patach on a letter ח at the end of a word is sounded before the letter, and not behind. Thus, נֹחַ (Noah) is pronounced /no-ax/. This only occurs at the ends of words and only with patach and ח, ע, and הּ (that is, ה with a dot (mappiq) in it). This is sometimes called a patach g'nuvah, or "stolen" patach (more formally, "furtive patach"), since the sound "steals" an imaginary epenthetic consonant to make the extra syllable.
In addition, a letter with a patach or kamatz with a succeeding yud makes the "ai" sound such as in fine or why.
[edit] Vowel Length comparison
By adding two vertical dots (sh'va) the vowel is made very short. However, these vowels lengths are not manifested in Modern Hebrew.
| Vowel comparison table | |||||
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| Vowel Length | IPA | Transliteration | English example |
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| Long | Short | Very Short | |||
| ָ | ַ | ֲ | [a] | a | spa |
| Kamatz | Patach | Reduced Patach | |||
[edit] Unicode encoding
| Glyph | Unicode | Name |
|---|---|---|
| ַ | U+05B7 | PATAH |
| ֲ | U+05B2 | HATEF PATAH |
[edit] See also
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