| colspan="2" |Qamatz
|-
| colspan="2" align="center" style="background:white;height:100px"|ָ> | colspan="2" |Example
|-
| colspan="2" align="center" style="background:white;height:50px"|דָּג
|-
| colspan="2" style="width:250px;background:white" | The word for fish in Hebrew

Hebrew 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...

, dag. The first vowel (the two perpendicular lines) is a qamatz.> | colspan="2" |Other Niqqud>

IPA	a
Transliteration Romanization of Hebrew Hebrew uses the Hebrew alphabet with optional vowel points. The romanization of Hebrew is the use of the Latin alphabet to transliterate Hebrew words....	a
English example	far
Same sound	pataḥ

Qamatz is a Hebrew

Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, or more historically, the Assyrian script, is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two...

 niqqud (vowel

Vowel

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...

) sign represented by two perpendicular

Perpendicular

In geometry, two lines or planes are considered perpendicular to each other if they form congruent adjacent angles . The term may be used as a noun or adjective...

 lines (looking like an uppercase T

T

T is the 20th letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used consonant and the second most common letter in the English language.- History :Taw was the last letter of the Western Semitic and Hebrew alphabets...

) "ָ" underneath a letter. 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....

 (Sephardi/Israeli), it usually indicates the phoneme

Phoneme

In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....

 /a/ which is the same as the "a" sound in far and is transliterated

Romanization of Hebrew

Hebrew uses the Hebrew alphabet with optional vowel points. The romanization of Hebrew is the use of the Latin alphabet to transliterate Hebrew words....

 as an "a" and thus its sound is identical to the sound of pataḥ 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....

. In some cases it indicates the phoneme /o/, equal to the sound of holam.

Qamatz Qatan

A Qamatz Qatan , is a qamatz in a closed syllable. A closed syllable is one which ends in a consonant with shwa nakh

Shva

Shva or, in Biblical Hebrew, Sh'wa is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign written as two vertical dots "ְ" underneath a letter. In Modern Hebrew, it indicates either the phoneme or the complete absence of a vowel , whereas in Hebrew prescriptive linguistics, four grammatical entities are differentiated:...

 (zero vowel) or in a consonant with dagesh khazak (essentially two identical consonants, the first of which has shwa nakh). For example, it is used in the word תָּכְנִית (program, pronounced ˈtoχnit). It is identical in appearance to the standard qamatz, but is pronounced as o, rather than a. According to the standard Hebrew spelling

Hebrew spelling

There are several systems of Hebrew spelling that are used. The Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters, all of which are primarily consonants. This is because the Hebrew script is an abjad, that is, its letters indicate consonant, not vowels, nor syllables...

 rules as published by The Academy of the Hebrew Language, words which have a qamatz qatan in their base form must be written without a waw

Waw (letter)

Waw is the sixth letter of the Northwest Semitic family of scripts, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic ....

, thus the standard vowel-less spelling of תָּכְנִית is תכנית, although in practice many Hebrew speakers do add a waw and spell it תוכנית. This nonstandard spelling is common in newspapers and is even used in several dictionaries, for example Rav Milim. Words, which in their base form have a holam that changes to qamatz qatan in declination, retain the waw in vowel-less spelling: the noun חֹפֶשׁ (freedom, pronounced ˈħofeʃ) is spelled חופש in vowel-less texts; the adjective חָפְשִׁי (free, pronounced ħofˈʃi) is spelled חופשי in vowel-less text, despite the use of qamatz qatan, both according to the standard spelling and in common practice.

Some books print the qamatz qatan differently, although it is not consistent. For example, in siddur Rinat Yisrael

Rinat Yisrael

Rinat Yisrael is a siddur written in Hebrew only, popular among many Modern Orthodox Jews in Israel, and used by some in the Diaspora as well. It was first published in 1970 by the Moreshet Publishing Company, and edited by Dr...

 the vertical line of qamatz qatan is longer. In a book of Psalms

Psalms

The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...

 used by some Breslov hassidim

Breslov (Hasidic dynasty)

Breslov is a branch of Hasidic Judaism founded by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov a great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, founder of Hasidism...

 the qamatz qatan is bolder. In the popular niqqud textbook Niqqud halakha le-maase by Nisan Netser, the qamatz qatan is printed as an encircled qamatz for didactic purposes.

Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

 defines the code point U+05C7 QAMATS QATAN, although the appearance of the character in the code chart is identical to that of U+05B8 QAMATS and its usage is not required.

Hataf Qamatz

Hataf Qamatz is a "reduced qamatz". Like qamatz qatan, it is pronounced o, but the rationale for its usage is different: it replaces the shwa

Shva

Shva or, in Biblical Hebrew, Sh'wa is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign written as two vertical dots "ְ" underneath a letter. In Modern Hebrew, it indicates either the phoneme or the complete absence of a vowel , whereas in Hebrew prescriptive linguistics, four grammatical entities are differentiated:...

 on letters which require a shwa according to the grammar, but where the traditional pronunciation is o. This mostly happens with gutturals, for example in אֳרָנִים (pines, oraˈnim, the plural form of אֹרֶן, ˈoʁen), but occasionally also on other letters, for example שֳׁרָשִׁים (roots, ʃoʁaˈʃim, the plural of שֹׁרֶשׁ ˈʃoʁeʃ) and צִפֳּרִים (birds, tsipoˈʁim, the plural of tsiˈpoʁ).

Pronunciation and transliteration

The following table contains the 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....

 and transliteration

Transliteration

Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...

 of the different qamatzes in reconstructed historical forms and dialect

Dialect

The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...

s using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The transcription in IPA is above and the transliteration is below.

The letters Bet "ב" and Het

Heth (letter)

' or ' is the reconstructed name of the eighth letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician , Syriac , Hebrew ḥēth , Arabic , and Berber .Heth originally represented a voiceless fricative, either pharyngeal , or...

 "ח" used in this table are only for demonstration. Any letter can be used.

Symbol	Name	English		| Pronunciation
				| Israeli		| Ashkenazi Ashkenazi Hebrew Ashkenazi Hebrew , is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Ashkenazi Jewish practice. Its phonology was influenced by languages with which it came into contact, such as Yiddish, German, and various Slavic languages...		| Sephardi Sephardi Hebrew language Sephardi Hebrew is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice...		| Yemenite Yemenite Hebrew language Yemenite Hebrew , also referred to as Temani Hebrew , is the pronunciation system for Biblical and liturgical Hebrew traditionally used by Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Jews brought their language to Israel through immigration. Their first organized immigration to the region began in 1882.It is believed...		| Tiberian Tiberian Hebrew Tiberian Hebrew is the extinct canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh and related documents in the Roman Empire. This traditional medieval pronunciation was committed to writing by Masoretic scholars based in the Jewish community of Tiberias , in the form of the Tiberian vocalization...		| Reconstructed
			Mishnaic		Biblical
ָ	Qamatz Gadol	Big Qamatz	[a]	ô	[?]	[o]	[ɔː]	?	?
			a	o/aw	?	o	ā	?	?
ָה, ָ	Qamatz Male	Full Qamatz	[a]	ô	[?]	[o]	[ɔː]	?	?
			a	o	?	o	â	?	?
ָ	Qamatz Qatan	Small Qamatz	[o]	ô	[?]	[o]	[ɔ]	?	?
			o	o	?	o	o	?	?
	Hataf Qamatz	Reduced Qamatz	[o]	ô	?	[o]	[ɔ̆]	?	?
			o	o	?	o	ŏ	?	?

Vowel Length comparison

These vowel lengths are not manifested in Modern Hebrew. The short o (Qamatz Qatan) and long a (Qamatz) have the same niqqud. Because of this, the short o (Qamatz Qatan) is usually promoted to a long o (Holam) in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation.

By adding two vertical dots (shwa

Shva

Shva or, in Biblical Hebrew, Sh'wa is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign written as two vertical dots "ְ" underneath a letter. In Modern Hebrew, it indicates either the phoneme or the complete absence of a vowel , whereas in Hebrew prescriptive linguistics, four grammatical entities are differentiated:...

) the vowel is made very short.

	| Vowel comparison table
	| Vowel Length Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...				| IPA		| Transliteration Transliteration Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...		| English example
Long	Short	Very Short
			[a]	a	spa
qamatz	Pataḥ	Reduced Pataḥ
			[o]	o	cone
Holam	Qamatz Qatan	Reduced Qamatz

Unicode encoding

|ָ>

Glyph	Unicode	Name
U+05B8	QAMATS
ֳ	U+05B3	HATEF QAMATS
ׇ	U+05C7	QAMATS QATAN

Note: the glyph for QAMATS QATAN may appear empty or incorrect if one applies a font that cannot handle the glyph necessary to represent Unicode character U+05C7.