Pataḥ | |
ַ | |
IPA | [a] or [ä] |
Transliteration | a |
English approximation | far |
Same sound | qamatz |
Example | |
גַּם | |
The word for also in Hebrew, gam. The first and only vowel (under Gimel, the horizontal line) is a pataḥ. | |
Other Niqqud | |
Shwa · Hiriq · Tzere · Segol · Pataḥ · Kamatz · Holam · Dagesh · Mappiq · Shuruk · Kubutz · Rafe · Sin/Shin Dot |
Pataḥ (Hebrew: פַּתָּח patákh, IPA: [paˈtaħ], Biblical Hebrew: pattā́ḥ) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a horizontal line ⟨ אַ ⟩ underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew, it indicates the phoneme /a/ which is close to the "[a]" sound in the English word far and is transliterated as an a.
In Modern Hebrew, a pataḥ makes the same sound as a qamatz, as does the ḥaṭaf pataḥ (Hebrew: חֲטַף פַּתַח IPA: [ħaˈtˤaf paˈtaħ], "reduced pataḥ"). The reduced (or ḥaṭaf) niqqud exist for pataḥ, qamatz, and segol which contain a shva next to it.
In Yiddish orthography, a pataḥ (called pasekh in Yiddish) has two uses. The combination of pasekh with the letter aleph, אַ, is used to represent the vowel [a]; the combination of pasekh with a digraph consisting of two yods, ײַ, is used to represent the diphthong [aj].