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It seems that all Hebrew words that have a vowel under the letter are pronounced with the letter ("consonant") followed by the vowel. The only exception that I can think of is when a patach is underneath a chet at the end of a word such as in the word נֹח. The word is pronounced noach, not nocha.

The vowel sound is pronounced before the consonant. Why is this an exception?

(This question is applicable to Torah reading, so I'm not intending this as a loose question about the Hebrew language.)

DanF
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Essentially there should be no vowel, but for certain guttural consonants (specifically, Hei, Chet, and Ayin) it's hard to end a word like that ("NoH"?), so an extra half-vowel is placed before the final consonant. This is not a full Patach, but a half-vowel (not unlike how a Shva Na' isn't counted as a syllable) known as a "furtive Patach" or "פתח גנובה". In classical texts, the Patach is actually written a bit before the letter to indicate this. From Devarim 29:22 in the Aleppo Codex:

example text from aleppo codex deu 29:22

Kazi bácsi
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Double AA
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  • Also (more recently) in the Koren Tanach https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xpzEy99oDIYC&pg=PR15&lpg=PR15&dq=koren+furtive+patach&source=bl&ots=yD-TALPj-_&sig=Tcl-AcuIU_l588sP6ipYosOvqoM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiM_fDJoo3QAhWSOsAKHbeQBvUQ6AEINzAE#v=onepage&q=koren%20furtive%20patach&f=false – Avrohom Yitzchok Nov 03 '16 at 19:05
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    @AvrohomYitzchok Where do you think Koren got it's typeset from? Does the font in the picture look familiar? – Double AA Nov 03 '16 at 19:11
  • There are two Koren fonts – one for the siddur and one for the Tanach. The siddur font is clearly different to the Aleppo Codex. I could imagine that the Codex inspired the Koren Tanach font - but not more. – Avrohom Yitzchok Nov 05 '16 at 22:16
  • @AvrohomYitzchok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koren_Type#Koren_Bible_Type – Double AA Nov 06 '16 at 00:18
  • Well found! Btw, compare the reish and the daleth in the "Bible Type". – Avrohom Yitzchok Nov 06 '16 at 10:58
  • It's also in the Biblia Hebraica Kittel, Stuttgartensia and Quinta editions, among others. – Argon Nov 08 '16 at 04:57
  • @DoubleAA - sorry to use this as a means to get in touch. My points tally just plummeted today it is currently -70 and continuing to go down? Is there anything I did wrong? – Dov Nov 26 '21 at 14:28
  • @Dov I overrode a number of suggested edits such as this one https://judaism.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/45315 There's a reject reason which the reviewers were apparently unaware of that states "Tag excerpts amounting to, '[tag] is for questions about [tag]' are pointless and usually rejected. Excerpts should describe why and when a tag would be used." If a tag's scope is really self evident then it just doesn't need an excerpt. (That's not the same as with tag wikis like https://judaism.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/45483 where even a wikipedia link alone is helpful.) – Double AA Nov 26 '21 at 14:34
  • @DoubleAA - ok but then if it is a useless function why bother having it if it is self evident? – Dov Nov 26 '21 at 14:43
  • @Dov Not sure what you mean. Excerpts can be very useful when they provide clarifications to people about how or when a possibly misusable tag should be used. See for instance the [tag:hebrew] tag on this question. They can also be used to clarify various jargon terms. Probably other uses too. – Double AA Nov 26 '21 at 14:45
  • I don't really see the difference to be honest... – Dov Nov 26 '21 at 14:50
  • @Dov You don't see a difference between "[tag:weather] Questions pertaining to weather." "[tag:hebrew] Questions pertaining to the Hebrew language, as related to Judaism. See the help center: http://judaism.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic " , or "[tag:shabbat] The seventh day of the week and a day of rest. Also use this tag for questions that apply equally to Yom Tov and Shabbat." The latter two provide non-trivial help and guidance to potential askers about how to use the tag. – Double AA Nov 26 '21 at 14:52
  • Okay but there too it is also reasonably self-evident. I was merely mirroring what I thought was the default text in countless other tags? – Dov Nov 26 '21 at 15:01
  • @Dov I'm not angry at you, chas veshalom! Just trying to explain the situation. "reasonably self-evident" isn't always the same for everyone. Many people have asked hebrew questions without their being related to Judaism for instance. "Questions pertaining to weather" provides literally no help to anyone as far as I can tell. I admit I don't regularly hunt through tag excerpts to weed these out, I have better things to do. I just noticed today a bunch came in recently (not only from you) and wanted to let everyone know the Best Practices. – Double AA Nov 26 '21 at 15:05
  • Okay I understand. It might have been nicer to have shared something on meta explaining this is the practise from now on. It is quite hard to see something that you thought you were doing to improve the MY community user experience result in a dramatic slide of personal points.... – Dov Nov 26 '21 at 15:09
  • @Dov I posted in chat a few minutes ago https://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/59711614#59711614 Also any points you lost were just points that you got from these edits; meaning you are no worse off than if you hadn't done the edits or had they been rejected originally. It's not meant as a punishment. (I don't see this as a change in policy since the reject reason has always been there. It's more that I finally noticed it was happening a bunch and thought to remind people of the policy that many apparently were unaware of.) – Double AA Nov 26 '21 at 15:17
  • @DoubleAA - meanwhile I am no longer to edit further tags as "Too many of your edits were rejected" – Dov Nov 28 '21 at 17:59
  • @Dov Oy! I didn't realize the system would do that automatically. I tried just now to manually override it; can you check if I was successful and let me know? In the worst case the ban should self expire in a week or so from what I understand. – Double AA Nov 28 '21 at 19:29
  • @DoubleAA - Yes it worked thanks. As an aside though, you can now not make the Tag wiki without first putting in the user guidance. Will that not result in further instances of ppl saying something like "questions pertaining to ____" – Dov Nov 28 '21 at 19:46
  • @Dov Good point. The person I spoke to at SE wasn't sure why exactly that limit is there, but they suspected it's to encourage people to focus on the excerpt which is the more important of the two elements. Excerpts get seen by everyone who uses a tag, while wikis are only read occasionally. I agree this policy may be worth reconsidering. – Double AA Dec 01 '21 at 21:14