<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=ISO-8859-8-i"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Mar 22, 2020, at 10:47 AM, Aharon Gal <<a href="mailto:galsaba@aol.com" class="">galsaba@aol.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=ISO-8859-8-i" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Pleasure to read!<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Some info can be found also here:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><a href="https://hebrew-academy.org.il/2019/08/08/%D7%A8%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%91%D7%92%D7%93%D7%9B%D7%A4%D7%AA-%D7%90%D7%97%D7%A8%D7%99-%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%95%D7%90-%D7%A0%D7%97/" class="">https://hebrew-academy.org.il/2019/08/08/%D7%A8%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%91%D7%92%D7%93%D7%9B%D7%A4%D7%AA-%D7%90%D7%97%D7%A8%D7%99-%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%95%D7%90-%D7%A0%D7%97/</a></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""></div></div><span id="cid:DFD66738-3C77-4B28-9F3E-27713F3C5114"><רפיון בגדכפ_ת אחרי שווא נח - האקדמיה ללשון העברית.pdf></span><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=ISO-8859-8-i" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Mar 22, 2020, at 10:13 AM, Mandel, Seth via Mesorah <<a href="mailto:mesorah@lists.aishdas.org" class="">mesorah@lists.aishdas.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;" class="">Dear R. Danny,</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;" class="">It comes as a shock to most people (as it did to me) that "rules" of grammar are not like laws. Words that do not obey them are not tortured, forced to confess in public for their misdeeds and sentenced (remember despite all the gloom and doom that surrounds us that it is still Ador!).</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;" class="">Rules are meant to describe the 95% of cases that follow them. In all languages that exist there is always that pesky 5% that do not work. Sometimes there are subrules, and sometimes there are just those words that refuse to follow the rules. After a couple of hundred years, they usually succumb to the force of analogy, and then other words sprout up to take their place.</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;" class="">One of the purposes of the Ba'aei Masorah was to preserve all the oddities. Everyone know how to pronounce words like shomayim, and no one needed vowels to show them. But then there are these words that are pronounced one way in this posuq and differently in another, like the famous קוי: in Isaiah 40:31 it is read /qoye/, whereas in Psalms 37:9 it is /qowe/. The Masoretes carefully vocalized it differently, and noted that each form was a hapax legmenon and not like the other.</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;" class="">Nowadays, I remember all the rules I was taught as a boy, and it took me many years to realize that rules are really summaries for how the 95% behave.</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;" class="">It is generally true that after a silent sh/'wa the BG'D KP'T is of the fricative variety (without the dagesh qal), but NOT all the time. Words like מלכי ישראל were always pronounced with a silent sh'wa. And there are hundreds of words like them, versus the tens of thousands that follow "the rules."</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;" class="">פטדה in all mss. is vocalized without a dagesh in the dalet, and in some even specifically has the rafeh sign above the dalet; it belongs to the group that numbers in the hundreds rather than the general rule.</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;" class="">But my compliments to you. Most people cannot handle the idea of two hard dentals following each other. Several times I have been asked how to pronounce ועבדתם and ואבדתם in Q'S or words words like ושפטתי in Exodus 18:16. I usually respond (sometimes with my tongue in cheek, which makes it quite difficult to say the words properly) that the ones in Q'S one must pronounce with great care, and the other with lesser care.</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;" class="">It is a truthful answer, although I know it is not what they are asking. I do not need to argue that if one pronounces the soft BG'D KP'T differently than the hard then there is absolutely no problem in pronouncing the ones in Q'S correctly. Even if one pronounces them hard, one can separate the syllables, as we were taught in elocution class.<br class=""></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class=""><div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;" class=""><br class=""></div><div id="Signature" class=""><div id="divtagdefaultwrapper" dir="ltr" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class=""><div name="divtagdefaultwrapper" style="font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 0px;" class=""><div class="BodyFragment"><font size="2" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class=""><div class="PlainText"><font size="3" face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel</span><br class=""></font><font size="3" face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""></span></font></div></span></font></div></div></div><div class=""><div id="appendonsend" class=""></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></body></html>