thegameiam ([info]thegameiam) wrote,
@ 2006-09-30 21:34:00
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Entry tags:grammar, religion

more grammar!
I warned you it was coming:

het and hey behave the same way when ending words: a patakh under either is recited before the consonant instead of after as usual. The hey will ususally have a dagesh in it in this case, indicating emphasis.

Examples: The father of Shem & Aver is noah, not noha. In Hallel (psalm 114), The phrase is Elo-ak Ya-akov not Elo-ka Ya-akov.

That situation doesn't happen a whole heck of a lot - nothing like the kamatz katon - but it's in obvious enough places (generally in the middle of a responsive prayer) that it's VERY clear if the ba'al tefilah (prayer leader) doesn't know the rule.

Here's a rule which is far more often observed in its breach: in a traditional siddur, The last letters of the first and last words of the sh'ma prayer are larger - they're an ayin and a dalet - this spells eid (witness). They're larger to serve as a visual cue for a profound concept: by saying the sh'ma we are serving as a witness for the oneness of God, which is an intrinsic article of faith.

Anyway, there is a custom of elongatating the dalet at the end of ehad, as a way of adding emphasis to the witnessing. Most people end up saying something like ehaaaaaaaaaDuh. However, the dalet doesn't have a vowel under it, and doesn't have a dagesh - so both extending the kamatz under the het, and pronouncing a hard "d" are wrong. Rather, what's supposed to be extended is the dalet itself - and a dalet without a dagesh is ideally pronounced as something like "dh" - slightly softer than the typical hard "d" in other cases, and a dalet without a dagesh shouldn't be pronounced as one which is harder than one which does have a dagesh. Most modern Hebrew speakers don't differentiate between the consonants with dageshim, but that's the wrong place for the emPHASis. Regarding the kamatz: that's just on the wrong letter - so what people are saying there is perhaps ah (brother) which would of course be a heretical term if applied to God.

So what's right? ehadhhh. (think dh &asymp th &asymp j)

more to come...


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[info]bachrach44
2006-10-03 05:10 pm UTC (link)
Bottom line is that it's hard to enlongate the dalet, so people simply enlongate the vowel sound. The shift in emphasis is also just a result of enlongating the 'a' sound, and I've never heard anyone say ah.

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[info]thegameiam
2006-10-03 09:31 pm UTC (link)
It's true - it IS hard to do it right. Elongating it wrong isn't better than not elongating it, however...

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[info]bachrach44
2006-10-04 01:22 am UTC (link)
Define "wrong". Like many of our traditions, people tend to sometimes overexagerate certain minutia in our religion. The origin of this tradition is from the gemara (brakhot 13b, and yes, I had to look it up). An amora who I had never heard of before (not that that means a whole lot), said that one who elongates the word ehad has his days enlongated. Another amora comments that one should dwell on the dalet, and then rav Ashi (the most prominent of the 3 amoraim in this little story), reminds people not to slur over the het. The gemara then relates a story where R. Chiya bar abba seems ot imply that the enlongation is not necesarry.

Rashi maintains that one should not enlongate the word at all, although it appears that most other rishonim disagree with him. (Note: this was far from a thorough search). The kitzur shulchan aruch actually says to enlongate the chet, and only enlongate the dalet "slightly".

So what do we have here - no one said it was a law, and I know of no one who would say that if you don't enlongate the word, or enlongate the wrong syllable, you haven't fulfilled the mitzvah. As far as I can tell, the main purpose of the enlongation is to give you a chance to concentrate on hashem's dominion over the world, and that purpose should be served regardless of where you enlongate it.

Incidentally - the kitzur shulchan aruch does seem to agree with your first point very strongly - he says that some people enlongate the word so much that they mispronounce it (in fact, he even gives your example as a mistake that the "common people" make).

Since I'm probably rambling aimlessly right now, let me summarize my point by saying this: If you can't enlongate the dalet (which most of us can't), then it's probably better to enlongate the vowel under the het than do nothing, as long as you don't mispronounce the word.

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[info]thegameiam
2006-10-04 02:12 am UTC (link)
Your conclusion isn't supported by the arguments you quoted:

the only source suggesting the idea of elongating the het is the Kitzur Shulhan Arukh, and it specifically states that it's better not to elongatate any part of the word than mispronounce it (17:3). ibid, 17:4, includes the section about how important it is to properly pronounce the presence or absence of a dagesh. (I just verified in Sarah's old Ganzfried & Goldin translation - the bat mitzvah gift which keeps on giving - and when I looked the perek up in my copy of the whole shulhan arukh, that discussion passes pretty much without comment by any of the other commentators (no Rema, no Magen Avraham, etc...)

So I'd define "wrong" is elongating something other than the dalet, which is the same as mispronouncing the word.

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which shulchan aruch now?
[info]bachrach44
2006-10-04 01:36 am UTC (link)
As a side note, the shulchan aruch harav apparently gives instructions on how to enlongate a dalet, however I can't find it online (and I certainly don't own a copy), so I'm still curious how one does that.

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Re: which shulchan aruch now?
[info]thegameiam
2006-10-04 01:40 am UTC (link)
A dalet sans dagesh is "dh" which is similar to the English "th" as in "the" not as in "through." mix a d with a j, and you're pretty close...

In Hebrew it's pronounced as in ehad. (sorry, couldn't resist ;)

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