Begadkefat
Encyclopedia
Begadkefat is the name given to a phenomenon of spirantization affecting most plosive consonant
s of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic 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
s, for instance, in the Berber language
of Djerba
.
The phenomenon is attributed to the following consonants:
The name of the phenomenon is made up with these 6 consonants, mixed with haphazard vowels for the sake of pronunciation: BeGaDKePaT. The Hebrew term בֶּגֶ״ד כֶּפֶ״ת (Modern Heb. pronun. /ˌbeɡedˈkefet/) 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 θ, ð disappeared in the 7th century BC. It persisted in Hebrew until the 2nd century CE. During this period all six plosive / fricative pairs were allophonic
.
In Modern Hebrew
three of the six letters, ב (bet), כ (kaf) and פ (pe), each still denote a plosive – fricative variant pair; these variants are, however, no longer purely allophonic
(see below). Although orthographic
variants of ג (gimel), ד (dalet) and ת (tav) still exist, these letters' pronunciation always remains acoustically and phonologically indistinguishableIn modern Hebrew, the letter gimel modified by the diacritic geresh
– ג׳ – is pronounced as the affricate dʒ; this, however, denotes a separate phoneme
, not connected to the phenomenon of spirantization: compare e.g. גז /ɡez/ ("fleece
") ←→ ג׳ז /dʒez/ ("jazz
"); חג /χaɡ/ ("holiday
") ←→ חג׳ /χadʒ/ ("the Hajj
"). Conversely, dalet and tav with a geresh – ד׳ and ת׳ – respectively do denote the fricatives ð and θ, however never as sounds in Hebrew words or even loanword
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 Yiddish, also ת (tav) can denote a fricative variant, which is s.
writing with niqqud
, a dot in the center of one of these letters, called dagesh ( ּ ), marks the plosive articulation:
A line (similar to a macron
) placed above it, called "rafe" ( ֿ ), marks in Yiddish (and rarely in Hebrew) the fricative articulation.
, as demonstrated in inflection
s of many roots in which the roots' meaning is retained despite variation of begedkefet letters' manner of articulation
, e.g.,
however in Israeli Hebrew plosive and fricative variants of and פ are sometimes distinct phonemes, compare e.g.:
and consider, e.g.:
This phonemic divergence might be due to a number of factors, amongst others:
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic when they are preceded by a vowel and not geminated
Gemination
In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
. The name is also given to similar cases of spirantization of post-vocalic plosives in other language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s, for instance, in the Berber language
Berber languages
The Berber languages are a family of languages indigenous to North Africa, spoken from Siwa Oasis in Egypt to Morocco , and south to the countries of the Sahara Desert...
of Djerba
Djerba
Djerba , also transliterated as Jerba or Jarbah, is, at 514 km², the largest island of North Africa, located in the Gulf of Gabes, off the coast of Tunisia.-Description:...
.
The phenomenon is attributed to the following consonants:
| letter Letter (alphabet) A letter is a grapheme in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Letters compose phonemes and each phoneme represents a phone in the spoken form of the language.... | plosive | fricative | fricative pronunciation Pronunciation Pronunciation refers to the way a word or a language is spoken, or the manner in which someone utters a word. If one is said to have "correct pronunciation", then it refers to both within a particular dialect.... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| beth Bet (letter) Bet, Beth, Beh, or Vet is the second letter of many Semitic abjads, including Arabic alphabet , Aramaic, Hebrew , Phoenician and Syriac... |
("ב") | b | becomes | v or β |
English v Voiced labiodental fricative The voiced labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is v.... or Spanish "soft b" Voiced bilabial fricative -See also:* List of phonetics topics... |
| gimel | ("ג") | ɡ | becomes | ɣ | Greek "gamma" Voiced velar fricative The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in various spoken languages. It is not found in English today, but did exist in Old English... |
| daleth | ("ד") | d | becomes | ð | English "th" as in "this" Voiced dental fricative The voiced dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound, eth, is . The symbol was taken from the Old English letter eth, which could stand for either a voiced or unvoiced... |
| kaph Kaph Kaph is the eleventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Kaf , Arabic alphabet , Persian alphabet... |
("כ") | k | becomes | x ~ χ | German "hard ch" as in "Bach" |
| pe Pe (letter) Pe is the seventeenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Pei and Persian, Arabic .... |
("פ") | p | becomes | f or ɸ |
English f Voiceless labiodental fricative The voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .-Features:Features of the voiceless labiodental fricative:... or Spanish "v" after "h" Voiceless bilabial fricative -See also:* List of phonetics topics... |
| taw Taw Taw may refer to:* Taw , the twenty-second letter in many Semitic alphabets* Taw , the collection of all cardinal numbers* the shooter marble in a game of marbles* The River Taw in Devon, England* a method to produce white leather... |
("ת") | t | becomes | θ | English "th" as in "think" Voiceless dental fricative The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in thing. Though rather rare as a phoneme in the world's inventory of languages, it is encountered in some of the most widespread and influential... |
The name of the phenomenon is made up with these 6 consonants, mixed with haphazard vowels for the sake of pronunciation: BeGaDKePaT. The Hebrew term בֶּגֶ״ד כֶּפֶ״ת (Modern Heb. pronun. /ˌbeɡedˈkefet/) 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 θ, ð disappeared in the 7th century BC. It persisted in Hebrew until the 2nd century CE. During this period all six plosive / fricative pairs were allophonic
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
.
In Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew , also known as Israeli Hebrew or Modern Israeli Hebrew, is the language spoken in Israel and in some Jewish communities worldwide, from the early 20th century to the present....
three of the six letters, ב (bet), כ (kaf) and פ (pe), each still denote a plosive – fricative variant pair; these variants are, however, no longer purely allophonic
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
(see below). Although orthographic
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
variants of ג (gimel), ד (dalet) and ת (tav) still exist, these letters' pronunciation always remains acoustically and phonologically indistinguishableIn modern Hebrew, the letter gimel modified by the diacritic geresh
Geresh
Geresh is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings.#An apostrophe-like sign placed after a letter :...
– ג׳ – is pronounced as the affricate dʒ; this, however, denotes a separate phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
, not connected to the phenomenon of spirantization: compare e.g. גז /ɡez/ ("fleece
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
") ←→ ג׳ז /dʒez/ ("jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
"); חג /χaɡ/ ("holiday
Holiday
A Holiday is a day designated as having special significance for which individuals, a government, or a religious group have deemed that observance is warranted. It is generally an official or unofficial observance of religious, national, or cultural significance, often accompanied by celebrations...
") ←→ חג׳ /χadʒ/ ("the Hajj
Hajj
The Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is one of the largest pilgrimages in the world, and is the fifth pillar of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so...
"). Conversely, dalet and tav with a geresh – ד׳ and ת׳ – respectively do denote the fricatives ð and θ, however never as sounds in Hebrew words or even loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
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 Yiddish, also ת (tav) can denote a fricative variant, which is s.
Orthography
In HebrewHebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
writing with niqqud
Ktiv menuqad
Ktiv menuqad is text in Hebrew supplemented with niqqud diacritics. In modern Israeli orthography niqqud is seldom used, except in specialised texts such as dictionaries, poetry, or texts for children or for new immigrants....
, a dot in the center of one of these letters, called dagesh ( ּ ), 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 menuqadKtiv menuqadKtiv menuqad is text in Hebrew supplemented with niqqud diacritics. In modern Israeli orthography niqqud is seldom used, except in specialised texts such as dictionaries, poetry, or texts for children or for new immigrants....
, the dagesh qal is marked also in the three begedkefet letters which can no longer denote a fricative variant – ג (ɡ), ד (d) and ת (t) – conserving the masoreticMasoretesThe Masoretes were groups of mostly Karaite scribes and scholars working between the 7th and 11th centuries, based primarily in present-day Israel in the cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem, as well as in Iraq...
niqqud tradition.), - when the sound is – or was historically – geminatedGeminationIn phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
(in which case it is termed "", 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
Macron
A macron, from the Greek , meaning "long", is a diacritic placed above a vowel . It was originally used to mark a long or heavy syllable in Greco-Roman metrics, but now marks a long vowel...
) placed above it, called "rafe" ( ֿ ), marks in Yiddish (and rarely in Hebrew) the fricative articulation.
In Modern Hebrew
As mentioned above, the fricative variants of ɡ, d and t no longer exist in modern Hebrew; the three remaining pairs b~v, k~χ, and p~f sometimes still behave allophonicallyAllophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
, as demonstrated in inflection
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
s of many roots in which the roots' meaning is retained despite variation of begedkefet letters' manner of articulation
Manner of articulation
In linguistics, manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs are involved in making a sound. Often the concept is only used for the production of consonants, even though the movement of the articulars will also greatly alter the resonant properties of the...
, e.g.,
| in verb Verb A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive... s: |
||
| בוא ← תבוא | /bo/ → /taˈvo/ | ("come" (imperative Imperative mood The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :... ) → "you will come"), |
| שבר ← נשבר | /ʃaˈvar/ → /niʃˈbar/ | ("broke" (transitive Transitive verb In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:... ) → "broke" (intransitive Intransitive verb In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb that has no object. This differs from a transitive verb, which takes one or more objects. Both classes of verb are related to the concept of the transitivity of a verb.... ), |
| כתב ← יכתוב | /kaˈtav/ → /jiχ'ˈtov/ | ("he wrote" → "he will write"), |
| זכר ← יזכור | /zaˈχar/ → /jizˈkor/ | ("he remembered" → "he will remember"), |
| פנית ← לפנות | /paˈnit/ → /lif'ˈnot/ | ("you (f.) turned" → "to turn"), |
| שפטת ← לשפוט | /ʃaˈfatet/ → /liʃˈpot/ | ("you (f.) judged" → "to judge "), |
| or in noun Noun In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of... s: |
||
| ערב ← ערביים | /ˈerev/ → /arˈbajim/ | ("evening" → "twilight"), |
| מלך ← מלכה | /ˈmeleχ/ → /malˈka/ | ("king" → "queen"), |
| אלף ← אלפית | /ˈelef/ → /alˈpit/ | ("a thousand" → "a thousandth"), |
however in Israeli Hebrew plosive and fricative variants of and פ are sometimes distinct phonemes, compare e.g.:
| אִפֵּר – אִפֵר | /iˈper/ – /iˈfer/ | ("applied make up" – "tipped ash"), |
| פִּסְפֵּס – פִסְפֵס | /pisˈpes/ – /fisˈfes/ | ("striped" – "missed"), |
| הִתְחַבֵּר – הִתְחַבֵר | /hitχaˈber/ – /hitχaˈver/ | ("connected" – "made friends (with)"), |
| הִשְׁתַּבֵּץ – הִשְׁתַּבֵץ | /hiʃtaˈbets/ – /hiʃtaˈvets/ | ("got integrated" – "was shocked"), |
and consider, e.g.:
| לככב "to star", whose common pronunciation /lekaˈχev/ preserves the manner of articulation Manner of articulation In linguistics, manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs are involved in making a sound. Often the concept is only used for the production of consonants, even though the movement of the articulars will also greatly alter the resonant properties of the... of each kaf Kaph Kaph is the eleventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Kaf , Arabic alphabet , Persian alphabet... in the word it is derived Derivation (linguistics) In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine... from: כּוֹכָב /koˈχav/ "a star" (first plosive Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... , then fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants 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 the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... ), as opposed to the prescribed Linguistic prescription In linguistics, prescription denotes normative practices on such aspects of language use as spelling, grammar, pronunciation, and syntax. It includes judgments on what usages are socially proper and politically correct... pronunciation /leχaˈkev/, which regards the variation in pronunciation of kaf Kaph Kaph is the eleventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Kaf , Arabic alphabet , Persian alphabet... χ ←→ k as allophonic and determines its manner of articulation according to historical phonological principles; or: |
|
| similarly, לרכל "to gossip", whose prescribed pronunciation /leraˈkel/ is rejected, commonly pronunced /leraˈχel/, preserving the fricative manner of articulation in related nouns (e.g. רכילות /reχiˈlut/ "gossip", רכלן /raχˈlan/ "gossiper"). |
This phonemic divergence might be 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 inflectionInflectionIn grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
s:קפץ ← קיפץ /kaˈfats/ → /kiˈpets/, historically /kip'ˈpets/ ("jumped" → "hopped"), שבר ← שיבר /ʃaˈvar/ → /ʃiˈber/, historically /ʃib'ˈber/ ("broke" → "shattered"), שכן ← שיכן /ʃaˈχan/ → /ʃiˈken/, historically /ʃik'ˈken/ ("resided" → "housed"), - due to the introduction, through foreign borrowingsLoanwordA loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
, of:
- syllable-initial f (e.g. פברק /fibˈrek/ "fabricated"),
- non-syllable-initial p (e.g. הפנט /hip'ˈnet/ "hypnotized")
- non-syllable-initial b (e.g. ג׳וֹבּ /dʒob/ "job", קוּבּ /kub/ "cubic meter", פָּאבּ /pab/ "pub").