Begadkefat (also begedkefet) is the name given to a phenomenon of
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language at a pa ...
affecting the non-
emphatic stop consonants of
Biblical Hebrew and
Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
when they are preceded by a vowel and not
geminated. The name is also given to similar cases of spirantization of post-vocalic plosives in other
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
s; for instance, in the
Berber language
The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight,, ber, label=Tuareg Tifinagh, ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, ) are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by Berber commun ...
of
Djerba
Djerba (; ar, جربة, Jirba, ; it, Meninge, Girba), also transliterated as Jerba or Jarbah, is a Tunisian island and the largest island of North Africa at , in the Gulf of Gabès, off the coast of Tunisia. It had a population of 139,544 ...
.
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages ( usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edwar ...
have a similar system.
The name of the phenomenon is made up with these six consonants, mixed with haphazard
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s for the sake of pronunciation: BeGaDKePaT. The Hebrew term (
Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the H ...
) denotes the letters themselves (rather than the phenomenon of spirantization).
Begedkefet spirantization developed sometime during the lifetime of Biblical Hebrew under the influence of Aramaic. Its time of emergence can be found by noting that the Old Aramaic phonemes , disappeared in the 7th century BC. It persisted in Hebrew until the 2nd century CE.
[Dolgopolsky 1999, p. 73.] During this period all six plosive / fricative pairs were
allophonic
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
.
In
Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the H ...
,
Sephardi Hebrew
Sephardi Hebrew (or Sepharadi Hebrew; he, עברית ספרדית, Ivrit S'faradít, lad, Hebreo Sefardíes) is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice. Its phonology was influenced by ...
, and most forms of
Mizrahi Hebrew, three of the six letters, (bet), (kaf) and (pe) each still denote a
stop–
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
variant pair; however, in Modern Hebrew these variants are no longer purely
allophonic
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor '' phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
(see
below). Although
orthographic variants of (gimel), (dalet) and (tav) still exist, these letters' pronunciation always remains acoustically and phonologically indistinguishable.
[In modern Hebrew, the letter gimel modified by the diacritic ]geresh
Geresh ( in Hebrew: or , or medieval ) is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings.
#An apostrophe-like sign (also known colloquially as a ''chupchik'') placed after a letter:
#* as a diacritic that modifies the pronunciation ...
– – is pronounced as the affricate ; this, however, denotes a separate phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
, not connected to the phenomenon of spirantization: compare e.g. (" fleece") ←→ ("jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
"); (" holiday") ←→ ("the Hajj"). Conversely, dalet and tav with a geresh – and – respectively do denote the fricatives and , however never as sounds in Hebrew words or even loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
s, but are rather used exclusively for the hebraization of foreign language texts or the transliteration of foreign names. Also these modern Hebrew variants have nothing to do with the phenomenon of spirantization.
In
Ashkenazi Hebrew
Ashkenazi Hebrew ( he, הגייה אשכנזית, Hagiyya Ashkenazit, yi, אַשכּנזישע הבֿרה, Ashkenazishe Havara) is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for Jewish liturgical use and Torah study by Ash ...
and in
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
borrowings from Ashkenazi Hebrew, without dagesh still denotes a fricative variant (under the influence of
Judeo-German, aka Yiddish) which diverged from Biblical/Mishnaic .
The only extant Hebrew pronunciation tradition to preserve and distinguish all begadkefat letters is
Yemenite Hebrew
Yemenite Hebrew ( ''ʿĪvrīṯ Tēmŏnīṯ''), also referred to as Temani Hebrew, is the pronunciation system for Hebrew traditionally used by Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Hebrew has been studied by language scholars, many of whom believe it to retai ...
; however, in Yemenite Hebrew the sound of
gimel with dagesh is a
voiced palato-alveolar affricate
The voiced palato-alveolar sibilant affricate, voiced post-alveolar affricate or voiced domed postalveolar sibilant affricate, is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The sound is transcribed in the International Phonetic ...
(under the influence of
Judeo-Yemeni Arabic), which diverged from Biblical/Mishnaic .
Orthography
The phenomenon is attributed to the following allophonic consonants:
In
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
writing with niqqud, a dot in the center of one of these letters, called
dagesh
The dagesh () is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud (vowel points). It takes the form of a dot placed inside a Hebrew letter and has the effect of modi ...
( ּ ), marks the plosive articulation:
* at the beginning of a word or after a consonant (in which cases it is termed "dagesh qal"
[In modern Hebrew ktiv menuqad, the dagesh qal is marked also in the three begedkefet letters which can no longer denote a fricative variant – (), () and () – conserving the masoretic ]niqqud
In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in the ...
tradition.),
* when the sound is – or was historically –
geminated (in which case it is termed "dagesh ẖazaq", a mark for historical gemination in most other consonants of the language as well), and
* in some modern Hebrew words independently of these conditions (see below).
A line (similar to a
macron) placed above it, called "
rafe
In Hebrew orthography the rafe or raphe ( he, רָפֶה, , meaning "weak, limp") is a diacritic (), a subtle horizontal overbar placed above certain letters to indicate that they are to be pronounced as fricatives.
It originated with the Ti ...
"
( ֿ ), marks in Yiddish (and rarely in Hebrew) the fricative articulation.
In Modern Hebrew
As mentioned above, the fricative variants of , and no longer exist in modern Hebrew. (However, Hebrew ''does'' have the
guttural R
Guttural R is the phenomenon whereby a rhotic consonant (an "R-like" sound) is produced in the back of the vocal tract (usually with the uvula) rather than in the front portion thereof and thus as a guttural consonant. Speakers of languages w ...
consonant which is the voiced counterpart of and sounds similar to
Mizrahi Hebrew's fricative variant of ḡimel as well as
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
's غ ġayn, both of which are . Modern Hebrew ר resh can still sporadically be found standing in for this phoneme, for example in the Hebrew rendering of
Raleb (Ghaleb) Majadele's name.) The three remaining pairs ~, ~, and ~ still sometimes
alternate, as demonstrated in
inflection
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...
s of many
roots in which the roots' meaning is retained despite variation of begedkefet letters'
manner of articulation, e.g.,
however, in Modern Hebrew, stop and fricative variants of , and are distinct phonemes, and there are
minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate ...
s:
and consider, e.g.:
This phonemic divergence is due to a number of factors, amongst others:
*due to loss of consonant gemination in modern Hebrew, which formerly distinguished the stop members of the pairs from the fricatives when intervocalic – e.g. in the
inflection
In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...
s:
:
*due to the introduction, through
foreign borrowings, of:
:syllable-initial (e.g. "fabricated"),
:non-syllable-initial (e.g. "hypnotized")
:non-syllable-initial (e.g. "fabricated"), ג׳וֹבּ "job", "cubic meter", "pub").
Even aside from borrowings or lost gemination, common Israeli pronunciation sometimes violates the original
phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
principle "stop variant after a consonant; fricative after a vowel", although this principle is still
prescribed as standard by the
Academy of the Hebrew Language, e.g.:
* The words (
ferry) and (
refugee absorption camps), whose respective prescribed pronunciation is
and , are commonly pronounced and , replacing the consonant () with a vowel (
), but still preferring the stop variant to its fricative counterpoint .
* Similarly, the words (
Aliyah Bet
''Aliyah Bet'' ( he, עלייה ב', " Aliyah 'B'" – bet being the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet) was the code name given to illegal immigration by Jews, most of whom were refugees escaping from Nazi Germany, and later Holocau ...
, called the Ha'apala which designates the covert Jewish immigration to British Palestine, 1934-1948) and (the immigrants of this immigration), whose respective prescribed pronunciation is and , are commonly pronounced and , again replacing the consonant () with the vowel (
), but still preferring the stop to the fricative .
* Conversely, words like (to deny) or (paintbrush), whose respective prescribed pronunciation is and , are commonly pronounced and , preferring the stop to the fricative , although following vowels (respectively
and ), due to the shifting of the original semitic pronunciation of the letter (
heth
Heth, sometimes written Chet, but more accurately Ḥet, is the eighth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Ḥēt 𐤇 , Hebrew Ḥēth , Aramaic Ḥēth , Syriac Ḥēṯ ܚ, Arabic Ḥā' , and Maltese Ħ, ħ.
Heth origin ...
) from to , rendering it identical to common Israeli pronunciation of the fricative variant of the letter .
Notes
References
External links
* , ,
{{Hebrew language
Phonology
Linguistic morphology
Hebrew language
Aramaic languages