2.3 Nikkudot Vowels: discussion

Vowels come in three types: Long, Short, Reduced | Vowels come in five classes: A, E, I, O, U

• We memorized the Aleph-bet in Lesson 1, but this knowledge is incomplete without vowels
  • Make sure you know the name and know how to write each vowel
  • We also must know the vowel types (Long, Short, Reduced) and classes (A, E, I, O, or U)
  • This will make your grammatical life much more comfortable in the future
• Only gutturals take the “Hateph” vowels
• To make it easier, we can pronounce all three Hateph vowels like the A in Amuse
• Hateph vowels are used because Gutturals reject Vocal Sheva
• We label the reduced O class, “Hateph Qamets Hatuf”
  • Note that other grammars may label this vowel, “Hateph Qamets”
  • Our label, “Hateph Qamets Hatuf,” reminds us that this is the reduced O class, not to be confused with the A class Qamets, even though the symbols are the same
  • A future section will explain the difference between Qamets and Qamets Hatuf
  • For now, remember Qamets is Long A and Qamets Hatuf is Short O