4

In the daily berakhah for having shoes, שעשה לי כל צרכי, why is the letter kaf pointed with a dagesh kal? I.e., why is the word pronounced tzorki rather than tzorkhi? My sense is that similar forms of the word are pronounced with a soft khaf, e.g., צרכי ציבור.

WAF
  • 23,730
  • 4
  • 46
  • 138
paquda
  • 4,901
  • 20
  • 32
  • 3
    You can shift the question onto Tana"ch, if the dagesh was fossilized from Divrei Hayamim (cf. #5 here). – WAF Jan 09 '17 at 19:21
  • Thanks for that source, @WAF. It has a full answer to my question, I think. – paquda Jan 09 '17 at 19:27
  • 1
    The credit for my awareness of that sidur belongs to @DoubleAA linking it in an answer. – WAF Jan 09 '17 at 19:57
  • 2
    כל האומר דבר בשם אומרו מביא גאולה לעולם – kouty Jan 10 '17 at 04:21
  • 1
    What is the source of vocalization of צרכי ציבור? – Argon Jan 15 '17 at 02:44
  • @Argon, I guess, for me, the source would be the mi she-berakh after yekum purkan. also, probably, hearing that phrase in Israeli Hebrew. It's also in a mishnah in Avot, but of course the mishnah doesn't come with nikkud. – paquda Jan 15 '17 at 03:14
  • I can find it in the siddur but not in the Mishnah. Do you know where I could find it there? – Argon Jan 15 '17 at 16:00
  • @Argon, sorry, I made a mistake about that (the phrase there is כל העמלים עם הצבור). – paquda Jan 15 '17 at 17:43
  • Looks like there's a Tosefta that mentions the phrase, in Brakhot chapter 1: אמר ר' יהודה פעם אחת הייתי מהלך אחר ר' עקיבא ואחר ר' אלעזר בן עזריה והגיע זמן קרית שמע, כמדומה אני שנתיאשו מלקרות מפני שהן עסוקין בצורכי ציבור, קריתי ושניתי, ואחר כך התחילו הן וכבר נראית חמה על ראש ההרים – paquda Jan 15 '17 at 17:48
  • some old versions of the blessing are in plural: kol tzerachai. – Double AA Feb 16 '17 at 18:26
  • @DoubleAA, yes, I think that might have been very common. I think that's also common in today's eidot ha-mizrah versions. – paquda Feb 16 '17 at 18:47
  • @Argon, I came across another source for vocalization of צרכי-- the very short version of prayer, to be recited in emergencies, צרכי עמך ישראל מרובים ודעתם קצרה -- which is provided vocalized is some siddurim. – paquda Mar 15 '17 at 17:04
  • A manuscript of וארץ איכף לאלוהיי ואתחנן אשיר עוזו רגעיי וארנן written before 1089 has the line: "צָרְכֵי הַזֶּבַח כְּדַת הִשְׁלִים וּמִלָּא" and "צָרְכִּי יוֹם חֲסַרְתִּיו וְחֹק טֶרֶף מְזוֹנַי". – Argon Mar 16 '17 at 01:05
  • I'm not sure that צרכי ציבור is a valid proof. One is a first person possessive object ("my needs"), with a chirik under the kaf, and one is a plural possessive subject ("needs of"), with a tzeirei under the kaf. Perhaps that alone explains the difference. Likewise for צרכי עמך ישראל - it's of the second category. – DonielF May 14 '17 at 13:10
  • Pretty sure that the policy is that questions about Tanach Hebrew are on-topic, contrary to close voters' belief. – DonielF May 14 '17 at 18:00

3 Answers3

2

The vowel symbol kametz is a single symbol which covers two sounds, namely the kametz gadol (which is the usual kametz, in most places we encounter is) and the kametz katon, which is a cholam which is reduced to a kametz katon when the stress shifts to later in the word. The kametz gadol is a long vowel (tenuah gedolah) and the kametz katon is a short vowel (tenuah katanah).

In general, the rule is that a long vowel appears in an open syllable (that is, consonant vowel) and a short vowel appears in a closed syllable (consonant vowel consonant). A sheva nach will close a syllable, and the letters bgdkft, after such a sheva, will be the plosive (hard) kind, with a dagesh, rather that the fricative (soft) kind, without the dagesh.

So, for instance, in the word כָּתְבוּ the kametz under the kaf is a kametz gadol, a long vowel, so the sheva under the thav is a sheva na (moving sheva), and the bhet is fricative. This is the usual case, which you would expect.

Certain times, the kametz is the kametz katon. For example, in chochma, or ozni. Many cases we know it to be a kametz katon on the basis of the full form, which has a cholam. In such cases of a short vowel, the syllable needs to be closed, and so the sheva is a sheva nach, and so the bgdkft letter afterwards has a dagesh.

This does not answer your question about tzorchei tzibbur. Assuming the spelling is indeed with a kametz katon vs. a cholam, I would suppose that this is a result of the weirdness of sheva merachef, which is inconsistent. (See here, about birkat vs. birchat, after the short vowel of chirik chaser.)

josh waxman
  • 20,700
  • 44
  • 86
  • The cholam is always a tenua gedola, and the Kamats katan is a Tenua ketana. I am confused – kouty Feb 12 '17 at 16:53
  • what is the confusion? Indeed, the cholam is always a tenua gedolah. But the kamatz katan is always a tenua ketana, as opposed to the kamatz gadol, which is always a tenua gedola. Did I say otherwise? – josh waxman Feb 12 '17 at 17:08
  • I don't understand how it can be both holam and tenua ketana – kouty Feb 12 '17 at 17:12
  • 1
    A kamatz gadol is NOT a cholam. It is a reduced vowel which originated in a cholam before reduction. This resulting reduced vowel is a short vowel. See e.g. here where a tzeirei (a long vowel) is "reduced" to a sheva, or depending on context, sometimes segol or chirik, as short vowels. https://books.google.com/books?id=OOkNAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA92&ots=1DBtwKGfYp&dq=tzere%20segol%20reduction%20hebrew&pg=PA92#v=onepage&q&f=false – josh waxman Feb 12 '17 at 17:25
  • OK thanks. BTW I asked myself if in ashkenazic keria we have a specific sound for kamats katan – kouty Feb 12 '17 at 17:30
  • I'm not sure, but I tend to pronounce it as midway between a cholam (as in the word "road") and kametz gadol (as in "bud"). It sounds kind of like the non-diphthong 'o' in Tajiki. – josh waxman Feb 13 '17 at 01:20
1

The word is "tzarki" rather than "tzarchi" because the kaf begins a syllable. And the rule is that the "beged kefes" letters (beis, gimmel, dalet, kaf, pey and sav) have a dagesh when they begin a syllable. It seems to me that this rule is widely known, but in my 15 minute search in a beis medrash, I could find no great source. Here's what I did find. (1) ArtScroll's publication of Rashi's commentary on the Chumash, at Numbers 7:89, footnote 10. The author of that footnote gave no source. (2) A Wikipedia article to be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagesh

Chaim
  • 2,225
  • 7
  • 14
  • 2
    Hi Chaim. What about the Kaf in Tzorchei Tzibbur? Doesn't that also begin a syllable? – Double AA Jan 13 '17 at 01:48
  • Double AA, responding to your last question. Words of that form - like tzorech, qodesh, melech - have a unique plural form i.e., tzorachim, not tzorkim; melachim, not malkim. (Note that it's actually malKin in Aramaic, but not Hebrew.) In the semichut form, the /a/ phoneme gets reduced. However, the underlying vowel phoneme is still there and hence it's pronounced rafe (since beged kefet consonants are rafe after a vowel). Similarly, the masculine imperative form for "write" is /kotob/ [kethov]. When an object is added to the word, it becomes kotvenu, not kotbenu, since the vowel phoneme is st – pandichef Jun 02 '19 at 15:37
1

When I got home I looked in the books I've got there. A Grammar For Biblical Hebrew by C.L. Seow contains the following pages 4 to 5. My understanding of his analysis is that in the word Tzarki, the Kaf is medial and preceded by a consonant (that is, a Reish with a Sheva). Therefore, following rule 4.b.iii, the Kaf is a stop; and then following rule 5, it takes a Dagesh.

enter image description here

Introduction to Hebrew by Moshe Greenberg contains the page 13 attached. It comes out pretty much the same.

enter image description here

I also found instructions at the front of a Tikkun that were bewildering in their complexity, so I will not even try to summarize or apply.

I am not too familiar with the subject; I just happened to find a few sources. I don't know if complete explanation of the Dagesh is really possible, and I had not thought about Tzarchei Tzibor last night when looking at the books, only this morning when you posed the question. Just off the cuff I would say that perhaps the change in the vowel FOLLOWING the Kaf is relevant; and perhaps there's no strong explanation.

In Exodus 15:11, the song Mi Chamocha... Mi Kamocha, the first Kaf has no Dagesh, and the second has a Dagesh, although they appear in exactly the same phrase. I really don't know if that's explicable, 'tho I see now that there's a Mi Yodeya question on this last point from 2014.

-Chaim

Chaim
  • 2,225
  • 7
  • 14
  • Chaim, the question already mentioned צרכי ציבור. He's asking why they are different. This wasn't just my addition. – Double AA Jan 13 '17 at 13:29
  • You're right. I overlooked the last two words of the original post. Greenberg's last complete paragraph seems to mean that Kaf should have a Dagesh if it follows a consonant; or if the Kaf has a mobile Sheva and follows a vowel; or if the Kaf is Long and follows a vowel. Otherwise (if it is a short Kaf with no mobile Sheva following a vowel) is should have no Dagesh. So he seemingly would put the Dagesh in the Kaf each time. – Chaim Jan 13 '17 at 15:24
  • @Chaim, thank you for the answer and for the scans. It does look like that's the rule, and the form tzorkhi is to expected. – paquda Jan 15 '17 at 02:57