Begadkefat

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שָׁלוֹם
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Begadkefat (also begedkefet) is the phenomenon of lenition affecting the non-emphatic stop consonants of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic when they are preceded by a vowel and not geminated. The name is also given to similar cases of spirantization of post-vocalic plosives in other languages; for instance, in the Berber language of Djerba.[1] Celtic languages have a similar system.

The name of the phenomenon is made up of these six consonants, mixed with haphazard vowels for the sake of pronunciation: BeGaDKePaT. The Hebrew term בֶּגֶ״ד כֶּפֶ״ת (Modern Hebrew /ˌbeɡedˈkefet/) denotes the letters themselves (rather than the phenomenon of spirantization). If a beged-kephat is at the beginning of a word, and is preceded by a word ending in an open syllable, then there is no dagesh. Begedkefet spirantization developed sometime during the lifetime of Biblical Hebrew under the influence of Aramaic.[2] Its time of emergence can be found by noting that the Old Aramaic phonemes /θ/, /ð/ disappeared in the 7th century BC.[3] During this period all six plosive / fricative pairs were allophonic.

In Modern Hebrew, Sephardi Hebrew, and most forms of Mizrahi Hebrew, three of the six letters, ב‎ (bet), כ‎ (kaf) and פ‎ (pe) each still denotes a stop–fricative variant pair; however, in Modern Hebrew these variants are no longer purely allophonic (see below). Although orthographic variants of ג‎ (gimel), ד‎ (dalet) and ת‎ (tav) still exist, these letters' pronunciation always remains acoustically and phonologically indistinguishable.[note 1]

In Ashkenazi Hebrew and in Yiddish borrowings from Ashkenazi Hebrew, ת‎ without dagesh still denotes a fricative variant [s] (under the influence of Judeo-German, aka Yiddish) which diverged from Biblical/Mishnaic [θ].

The only extant Hebrew pronunciation tradition to preserve and distinguish all begadkefat letters is Yemenite Hebrew; however, in Yemenite Hebrew the sound of gimel with dagesh is a voiced palato-alveolar affricate [d͡ʒ] (under the influence of Judeo-Yemeni Arabic), which diverged from Biblical/Mishnaic [ɡ].

  1. ^ See for instance: Werner Vycichl, "Begadkefat im Berberischen", in: James and Theodora Bynon (eds.), Hamito-Semitica, London 1975, pp. 315-317.
  2. ^ Or perhaps Hurrian, but this is unlikely, c.f. Dolgoposky 1999, pp. 72-73.[citation not found]
  3. ^ Dolgopolsky 1999, p. 72.[citation not found]


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