Patach

Pataḥ
IPA	[a] or [ä]
Transliteration	a
English approximation	far
Same sound	qamatz
Example
Template:Hebrew
The word for also in Hebrew, gam. The first vowel (the horizontal line) is a pataḥ.
Other Niqqud
Shwa · Hiriq · Tzere · Segol · Pataḥ · Kamatz · Holam · Dagesh · Mappiq · Shuruk · Kubutz · Rafe · Sin/Shin Dot

Pataḥ (Template:Lang-he-n pataḥ, IPA: [paˈtaħ], Biblical Hebrew: paṯaḥ ) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a horizontal line ⟨ Template:Hebrew ⟩ 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 (Template:Lang-he-n   IPA: [ħaˈtaf paˈtaħ], "reduced pataḥ"). The reduced (or ḥaṭaf) niqqud exist for pataḥ, qamatz, and segol which contain a shva next to it.

Pronunciation

The following table contains the pronunciation and transliteration of the different pataḥs in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The pronunciation in IPA is above and the transliteration is below.

The letters Bet ⟨Template:Hebrew⟩ and Het ⟨Template:Hebrew⟩ used in this table are only for demonstration. Any letter can be used.

Symbol	Name	Pronunciation
		Israeli	Ashkenazi	Sephardi	Yemenite	Tiberian	Reconstructed
							Mishnaic	Biblical
Template:Hebrew	Pataḥ	[ä]	[ä]	[ä]	[a]	[a, aː]	?	?
Template:Hebrew, Template:Hebrew	Pataḥ male	[ä]	[ä]	[ä]	[a]	[aː]	?	?
Template:Hebrew	Ḥaṭaf pataḥ	[ä]	[ä]	[ä]	[a]	[a]	?	?

A pataḥ on a letter Template:Hebrew, Template:Hebrew, or Template:Hebrew (that is, Template:Hebrew with a dot (mappiq) in it) at the end of a word is sounded before the letter, and not after. Thus, Template:Hebrew (Noah; properly transliterated as Noaḥ ) is pronounced /no.aχ/ in Modern Hebrew and /no.aħ/ or /no.ʔaħ/ in Biblical Hebrew. This only occurs at the ends of words, only with pataḥ and only with these three letters. This is sometimes called a pataḥ gnuva, or "stolen" pataḥ (more formally, "furtive pataḥ"), since the sound "steals" an imaginary epenthetic consonant to make the extra syllable.

In addition, a letter with a pataḥ or qamatz with a succeeding, articulated yud ⟨Template:Hebrew⟩ makes the diphthong /ai̯/, similar to the diphthong in the English words fine and why.

Vowel length comparison

By adding two vertical dots (shva) the vowel is made very short. However, these vowels lengths are not manifested in Modern Hebrew.

Vowel comparison table
Vowel Length			IPA	Transliteration	English approximation
Long	Short	Very short
Template:Hebrew	Template:Hebrew	Template:Hebrew	[a]	a	spa
Qamatz	Pataḥ	Reduced pataḥ

Unicode encoding

Glyph	Unicode	Name
Template:Hebrew	U+05B7	PATAH
Template:Hebrew	U+05B2	HATAF PATAH

See also

• Niqqud
• Qamatz