Column #90. Contents of this weekly column are (mostly) based on the sefer: EIM LAMIKRA HASHALEIM, by R' Nissan Sharoni, Ashdod, a guide to correct pronunciation of Hebrew, specifically in davening and Torah reading. Here's another reader's email that will make the bulk of this week's TBDATR column. Thank you Yoel for your continued interest in this column and your helpful and insightful comments. YL writes... R. Pinhas (that's me, Phil), shalom uv'racha! You have noticed, of course, that in both cases the root concerned is BET-ALEF, i.e., the root of the verbs "to come" and "to bring", LAVO and LE-HAVI, and (probably) the original root of the noun NAVI ("prophet") and the verbs derived from it ("to prophesy"). This root is probably responsible for a majority of words in Tanach with an ALEF in a non-initial position (either medial or final). In final position an ALEF is always silent (as opposed to its pronunciation in initial position, when it is pronounced like a Cockney would pronounce "bottle", i.e., bo'l). That is what is called a "glottal stop" in linguistic parlance. In medial position the ALEF is rarely silent (see what happened to MELACHA, ROSH, TSON, B'REISHIT); in all other cases it is supposed to be pronounced like that glottal stop. However, when it appears between vowels, it often tends to be transformed into a glide, especially a "Y". So TAVI-U tends to be pronounced TAVIYU. Since the dot in an ALEF is certainly not a DAGESH CHAZAK (the ALEF is not supposed to be doubled), nor is it a DAGESH KAL (an ALEF does not have two mutually supplementary pronunciations, like BET/VET or GIMEL/GHIMEL etc.). We must thus assume it is being used in a special manner. I for one can well imagine that back when the vowel pointing was introduced (1300 years ago, more or less) people tended to misread such words as VAYAVI-U as VAYAVIYU. And the MEDAKDEKIM put in that dot to remind them that it was VAYAVI-U etc. The two examples we have of this may well have been the very beginning of the trend which the MEDAKDEKIM tried to nip in the bud, so to speak. Thanks again, YL, for your feedback. I'm not on the level to "buy" your theory or reject it. I think it is a suggestion with merit. I wonder, however, why we find only these two examples in all of Tanach. The word VAYAVI-U occurs 25 times in Tanach and there are 6 TAVI-Us. And there are probably other words that have the same pronunciational pitfall, yet only these two ALEFs have dots. On the other hand, we do find a dot having other uses besides DAGESH CHAZAK which doubles the letter, DAGESH KAL which indicates which sound the letter with two sounds is to have, and a MAPIK which tells us to sound the HEI that would otherwise be silent. There is a dot in the LAMED of LEIMOR in the oft repeated pasuk VAYDABEIR HASHEM EL MOSHE LEIMOR. The dot doesn't do what the "regular" DAGESHes do. It has another function. I think it draws an emphasis to the whole word within the sentence. MEM and NUN also have a dot (I'm not even calling it a DAGESH) some- times when they are the first letter of a word. E.g. ANA HASHEM HOSHI'A NA. So the dot in these two ALEFs can also have another function. Could be like an asterisk in English have different uses. (Thank you MW for these tidbits of dikduk knowledge which we shared at a 7-Brachot earlier this evening.) Let's say that the jury is still out on these rare dotted-ALEFs. Readers are invited to join in the information-sharing on this issue (and others). [The Parshat No'ach Homepage]
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