Thursday, June 22, 2023

Just do it! ... again

As we have discussed in פרשיות מקץ and ויגש, it is of utmost importance that the word עֲשׂוּ is pronounced with the חטף-פתח and not a קמץ which would change the word from a command to a past tense verb. The same is true, of course, in this week's פרשה in ט"ז:ו.

בעלי קריאה I have heard in the past are very careful to get this right. I also heard extra emphasis put on the פתח in תַלִּינוּ in פסוק י"א. It occurred to me that if mispronounced with a קמץ, the meaning would change there too from the root of תלונה, complaint, to לינה, sleeping.

I know the critics will probably jump on this and say that the דגש would disappear if it were קמץ and therefore it does not change the meaning. However, I have stated my opinion on this before. For a בעל קריאה who is actually careful with the דגש, perhaps that is a valid point. However, for the large majority who are not, the vowel is clearly the more dominant indicator.

5 comments:

ELIE said...

אני מסכים שלמעשה לא מבחינים אם יש דגש או אין, ולכן קריאת תלינו בקמץ עובר ללשון לינה, וכן להיפך.

MG said...

I would agree. If people aren't going to makpid on the dagesh, then this certainly is an error and changes the meaning.
The question in my mind would be if someone in fact did pronounce the dagesh, would that change the meaning? We may have discussed this type of error in the past...not sure if we arrived at a conclusion.

elie said...

לקריאה הספרדית שאינה מבחינה בין קמץ לפתח
ספק אם יש בדגש די כדי ליצור הבחנה
כלומר בדיעבד אם יקרא לשון לינה בהדגשה יתכן שבדיעבד נכשיר אותו

Gavriel said...

Maybe the dikduk is the reason for the כתיב of the קרי/כתיב being תלונו.

Gavriel said...

Should context affect meaning despite mispronunciation? תלינו as sleep would precede reference to the location where the sleeping took place - the עליו wouldn't make sense.