Should I say shmei or shmeh?

Some people are medakdek to pronounce their Aramaic "correctly". And they know that there is a mapik heh in Amein Yehei ShemeiH Rabba. Thus,

יְהֵא שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא מְבָרַךְ לְעָלַם וּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָּא יִתְבָּרַךְ

But what they don't realize is that, probably due to the phonological features we are trained on, when they try to say Shmēh with a tzeirei they actually say Shmeh with a segol. Listen carefully the next time you or someone else tries it. If it were a different consonant at the end, e.g. a Resh or a Samech, there would be no problem pronouncing the tzeirei, but a difficult guttural like a Heh triggers a weakening into a segol. And it is quite difficult to overcome.

In which case, one is merely substituting one "error" in pronunciation for another. Except you get to sound all weird or precise (depending on one's perspective).

So, which is better? If you don't pronounce the Heh, you sound like other Jews, and one could argue that the meaning is perfectly clear while the standardization legitimizes the 'incorrect' pronunciation. Meanwhile, if you do pronounce the Heh, you are probably still getting it wrong, but just in a vowel, and while at least making an effort to get it right.

Please weigh in with your thoughts.

Follow-up question: If you focus one getting your ShmeiHs right, are you able to simultaneously focus on the simple meaning of the words, or are you distracted by your phonological precision?

Does Hebrew moznayim, scales, derive from Hebrew ozen, ear?

One of the Torah proofs considered by BrooklynWolf in a recent post:

How does a person keep his/her balance?

Well, according modern science, the ear may hold the answer. "The inner ear includes both the organ of hearing (the cochlea) and a sense organ that is attuned to the effects of both gravity and motion (labyrinth or vestibular apparatus). The balance portion of the inner ear consists of three semi-circular canals and the vestibule." (Wikipedia, Ear)

Since Hebrew is a Holy Language, every word is self descriptive. The word "ear-אוזן" (Ozen) is of the same root as "balance-איזן" (Izun). The linguistic miracle of ancient Hebrew, proves its Divinity.

He points out that this is an instance of begging the question, and that if one does not assume Divine origin, then it might well be simple coincidence. See inside.

I recall where I heard this proof first, at a sheleshudes lecture at Etz Chaim from someone presenting evidence that the Hebrew language was of Divine origin. There were a bunch of similar proofs, about the orthography of ktav Ashurit and the phonology association with Hirschian Hebrew etymology. I did not find it very convincing, but left it alone.

Assuming that Hebrew was the first language, and no words were borrowed from other language, it does make sense that each root would be used to convey one and only one meaning. After all, if one wants to convey a different meaning, there are plenty of other three letter permutations available. I don't believe every three-letter combination is used.

However, before leaping to the conclusion that there was a deep knowledge that the inner ear controls balance which led to the word מאזנים, and izun, I would first look to more straightforward explanations.

The two straightforward explanations are: (1) מאזנים, scales, took its name from a surface similarity to ears which appear like two ears on the side of the face, and izzun as "balance" derived from "scales";

or (2) there is a homonym here, since the Hebrew zayin sometimes corresponds to ancient zayin and sometimes to ancient dhaled. (This middle letter which sounds like the "th" in "either" was mapped in Hebrew to zayin and in Aramaic to daled, which is why we often see this Hebrew - Aramaic switch-off.)

In terms of the former, it turns out that I am not alone in this assumption:

IN STRONG'S:

'azan  a primitive root (rather identical with ''azan' (238)  to broaden out 
the ear (with the hand), i.e. (by implication) to listen:--give (perceive by 
the) ear, hear(-ken). 'azan: through the idea of scales of a balance  as if 
two ears)

In terms of the latter, the difficulty is that in Aramaic, both the word for "ear" and the word for "scales" is written with a daled. (Udneih for his ear; Modana for scale, though there is a variant of moznevan with a zayin in Aramaic.) Perhaps we can claim that there is some error, some transfer from one common word to the other.

But apparently, there is this distinction in Ugaritic:

In Ugaritic: in  M. Dietrich-O. Loretz- San-Martin, Die keilalphabetischen 
Texte aus Ugarit (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1976), Text (KTU 1.3:IV.lf.) The word 
'udn (pl. 'udnm),is literally "ear,"  see also Caquot, André & Sznycer, 
Maurice. Ugaritic Religion. (State University Groningen; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 
1980.) Pl. VII-X, XVIII, XIX.
...

Meanwhile, in the world of the Ugaritic gods as among humans, the deities 
use balances for weighing. When it has been decided that the moon-god 
yarikhu will marry Nikkalu, the father of the bride places the standard of 
the balance (msb mznm), the mother of the bride places the scales the 
balance (kp mznm),and the sisters take care of the stone weights ('abn 
mznm). [mznm] is the cognate of BH mo'zn # 3976 root of 'zn cf. Arabic 
[MyzAn] balance root of [wzn]. In all three languages Ugaritic  B. Hebrew, 
and Arabic the medial letter is uniformly a zayn

Given that we do have an appearance of the zayin in one variant in Aramaic as well, it seems that this may indeed be the case. If so, we are dealing with a mere case of homonyms and homographs, not some deep insight into the role the inner ear plays in balance. We cannot then use this coincidence to prove the Divinity of the Hebrew language.

The gimel / kaf switch, and the talmid toeh

In parshat Noach, after encountering the root סגר, we encounter the root סכר. In Bereishit 8:

ב וַיִּסָּכְרוּ מַעְיְנֹת תְּהוֹם, וַאֲרֻבֹּת הַשָּׁמָיִם; וַיִּכָּלֵא הַגֶּשֶׁם, מִן-הַשָּׁמָיִם.

2 the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.

And Ibn Ezra says that it is similar to סגר, though of course it is not the same root. Because in Hebrew, certain letters switch, but others do not:

ח, ב]
ויסכרו -
כמו ויסגרו, ואין הכ"ף מתחלפת בגימ"ל, רק הם שתי מלות.
והטעם אחד, כי לא יתחלפו חוץ מאותיות יהו"א וסמ"ך בשי"ן.

Thus, ehevi switch, and samech and sin switch, but no others. He neglected to mention one exception to this general rule, which is that in the hitpael and the like, the tav instead manifests as a tet, due to a phonological rule where it becomes the more emphatic t sound in the context of other emphatic sounds such as the tzadi. Though it cannot simply randomly switch in most contexts, in terms of meaning.

So it is kemo vayisagru, where the similar letters in these roots share similar meanings (see Rav Shamshon Refael Hirsch for a well-developed system of this), but of course they are not the same word.

In other instance, Ibn Ezra speaks of a gimel / kaf alternation with similar meaning, which prompts the sefer Michlol (is this Radak) to declare that Ibn Ezra didn't write a certain peirush, but that an erring student did. And this gives Avi Ezer, supercommentator of Ibn Ezra, license to claim this whenever he feels that Ibn Ezra is out of bounds in arguing against Chazal. (See here.)

In Mishlei 9:3:

ג שָׁלְחָה נַעֲרֹתֶיהָ תִקְרָא-- עַל-גַּפֵּי, מְרֹמֵי קָרֶת.

3 She hath sent forth her maidens, she calleth, upon the highest places of the city:

And Ibn Ezra writes:

ט, ג

שלחה נערותיה תקרא על גפי מרומי קרת -

כמו גבי, כי אותיות בומ"ף מתחלפות.

Note he does not only say kemo, like before, but that the letters bumaf switch off with each other, something he explicitly distances himself from in parshas Noach.

Avi Ezer writes on parshat Bereishit what is pictured to the right, saying to see Michlol, nikud gimel, where he writes that what the Rav wrote on Mishlei "al gapei" is like al gabei, a talmid toeh wrote it, see there.

I don't know which Michlol he refers to. I was not able to find it in Michlol of Radak, but maybe I just did not know how to look.

At any rate, on parshas Noach, when Ibn Ezra says what he says about ויסכרו, Avi Ezer takes notice. And he says:

"However, in sefer Mishlei the Rav {=Ibn Ezra} wrote upon al gapei: kemo al gabei. And in parshat Miketz, on נצטדק, that the tet is in place of the tav of hitpael. Thus it is clear that the Rav retracted from this, and maintains like the opinion of those medakdekim that letters which come from the same place switch with one another as well. And it is forced to say in all of these that they are two words. And see the beginning of parshat Kedoshim, on the pasuk lo telech rachil. Or else, choose for yourself the words of the Michlol which I brought in Bereishit 1."

What he means by choosing the words of the Michlol is to say that a talmid toeh wrote the words on gapei.

In terms of the tet / tav in hitpael, see Mechokekei Yehuda who cited what I think is a commentary of Ibn Ezra (shita rishona) that includes the tet / tav switchoff as well as tav / heh.

Radak has a similar take on the gimel / kaf switchoff or meaning, in this instance. He writes on Vayiskeru, in parshas Noach what appears to the right -- that with a kaf it is like with a gimel, and gives a parallel in Tehillim 63, where it means to shut up.

And on gapei, in sefer Shorashim, Radak considers the possibility that it is kemo al gabei, since the bet and the peh are from the same place of articulation.

It certainly does seem that Ibn Ezra reversed himself between the two comments, especially when we consider the full quote in Mishlei. While one might be able to argue that he is saying that roots with letters from the same place of articulation bear related meanings, while not being the same word, I am not convinced that his language can sustain such a meaning.

The Plethora of Pehs

A short while back, I asked what pasuk in Pinchas has the letter peh in every word, the possible significance, and whether this phenomenon occurs elsewhere. In the comment section, רשקולניקוב gave some good answers, noting many (all?) places in Tanach where various letters occur in every word in the pasuk. See there.

The particular pasuk presenting plenty of pehs was Bemidbar 26:39:

לט לִשְׁפוּפָם, מִשְׁפַּחַת הַשּׁוּפָמִי; לְחוּפָם, מִשְׁפַּחַת הַחוּפָמִי.

39 of Shephupham, the family of the Shuphamites; of Hupham, the family of the Huphamites.

I wonder whether the occurrence of the same letter is statistically significant. Regardless, here it is caused by a simple phenomenon. There are only three words in the pasuk. One is mishpachat which has a peh, and two are names and their derivatives. Elsewhere we see patterns in naming kids, such as Muppim and Chuppim; and Seva, Savta, and Savtecha. That Shufami and Chufami are similar names, and thus share similar letters, is not impressive. And since mishpachat should occur with names, we get this result.

There is also a mem in every word of this pasuk.

Baal Haturim takes note of this phenomenon and explains that, as these are the families of Binyamin, it is a reference to that fact that he had a peh, a mouth, but did not tell on his brothers about the sale of Yosef. An interesting idea.

But I doubt he came up with this idea just from the prevalence of peh. I claim that quite often that Baal Haturim takes existing ideas already derived by midrashic means and uses gematriot and other textual features to hint at those. But these innovations from Baal Haturim are often not the primary source for this. Even if it is not immediately obvious. Maybe this is the source, but maybe not.

In this instance, we see on the choshen that the last precious stone on the bottom row was the Yashphei. From Shemot 28:20:

כ וְהַטּוּר, הָרְבִיעִי--תַּרְשִׁישׁ וְשֹׁהַם, וְיָשְׁפֵה; מְשֻׁבָּצִים זָהָב יִהְיוּ, בְּמִלּוּאֹתָם.

20 and the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper; they shall be inclosed in gold in their settings.

This is darshened as Yesh Peh, in a midrash cited by Rabbenu Bachya:

"Binyamin had many contradictory thoughts about the sale of Yosef by his brothers, all of which are reflected in the different colors of the jasper. The reason the gemstone was assigned to the tribe of Binyamin had to do with the founder of that tribe not being able to decide if to tell his father that Yosef was most likely alive, or to keep silent as he could not foresee how Yaakov would react to such information. In the end he controlled himself, stopped himself, and di not reveal what he knw. The yashfeh may be understood as two words, i.e. `yesh peh', "he has a mouth," or words to that effect. The name of that stone alludes to the fact that Binyamin deserved credit for keeping silent about what he knew his brothers had done to his older brother Yosef." (Rabbeinu Bachya - Shemot 28:15)

But there is also in Yalkut Shimoni on Tehillim:

לא רגל על לשונו זה בנימין שידע מכירת יוסף ולא גלה לאביו.

Baal Haturim (above) also noted how Shephupham became the family of HaShuphami, where the first pheh appears to drop out. He explains this as a hint that Binyamin died as a result of the Serpent {which brought death into the world, but not because of his own sin}, for it is stated {in Bereishit 3, regarding the punishment of the snake}:

טו וְאֵיבָה אָשִׁית, בֵּינְךָ וּבֵין הָאִשָּׁה, וּבֵין זַרְעֲךָ, וּבֵין זַרְעָהּ: הוּא יְשׁוּפְךָ רֹאשׁ, וְאַתָּה תְּשׁוּפֶנּוּ עָקֵב. {ס}

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; they shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise their heel.' {S}

and so we are to take the modified word shufam as a reference to yeshufecha rosh, or perhaps better, to the end of the pasuk, which has the snake bruising the heel.

When does Baal Haturim know this factoid from? Well, it is mentioned in Shabbat 55b:

An objection is raised: Four died through the serpent's machinations, viz., Benjamin the son of Jacob, Amram the father of Moses, Jesse the father of David, and Caleb the son of David. Now, all are known by tradition, save Jesse the father of David, in whose case the Writ gives an explicit intimation. For it is written, And Absalom set Amasa over the host instead of Joab. Now Amasa was the son of a man whose name was Ithra the Israelite, that went in to Abigail the daughter of Nahash, sister to Zeruiah Joab's mother. Now, was she the daughter of Nahash? Surely she was the daughter of Jesse, for it is written, and their sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail? Hence it must mean, the daughter of one who died through the machinations of the nahash [serpent].

Soncino has a snarky footnote here, "It may be observed that the Talmud calls this an explicit intimation." But I would point out that surely Baal Haturim's derivation could also be a candidate for "explicit intimation." Perhaps it is further removed. Still, the gemara considers it a tradition rather than derivation. And Baal Haturim finds a hint to support this tradition.

I would like to add an explanation for the disappearance of the pheh on a peshat level. First, we have to realize that we pronounce a pheh differently than in days of old. We pronounce a pheh as a labiodental fricative (labiodental, lips/teeth, with our upper teeth on the bottom lip -- try it and see). But initially, a pheh was a bilabial fricative (with both lips, just like by a peh). It is like whistling but with your lips closer together.

The disappearance of this first pheh might be readily explainable as a phonological phenomenon. The sound immediately after it is the shuruk, an "oo" sounds. Both the vav (w) and the pheh (f) are labials. And so it is very easy to see how the pheh, especially the pheh mentioned above, could be assimilated into the vowel. Try it a few times fast to convince yourself, if you wish, of how that first pheh almost disappears.

Vayikra: Shadal's Theory About the Small Aleph

Shadal has an interesting theory for the small aleph in the first word of parshat Vayikra. The first pasuk reads:

א וַיִּקְרָא, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה; וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֵלָיו, מֵאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד לֵאמֹר.

1 The LORD called unto Moses, and spoke unto him out of the tent of meeting, saying:

His theory, written on Bereishit 27:46, but referenced in his first comment on Vayikra, is as follows, in Hebrew -- I'll summarize in English in a moment.

מו ] ותאמר רבקה אל יצחק קצתי בחיי : הקו"ף זעירה ; נ"ל כי היה מנהג הסופרים בימי קדם כשהיתה תבה מתחלת באותה האות שהתבה הקודמת מסיימת, היו משמיטין אחת מהאותיות הדומות ואולי היו מציינין האות ההיא באיזה סימן להודיע שהיא עומדת במקום שתיים ; ואחר זמן הוסיפו בין שתי התבות האות החסרה, ולהיות המקום צר כתבו אותה זעירה, וכיוצא בזה ויקרא אל משה ( ויקרא א' א' ). והנה מהמנהג להשמיט אחת מהדומות נמשכו כה וכה קצת טעויות, קצתם נתקנו אח"כ על ידי כתיב וקרי, וקצתם לא נתקנו, כגון ( שמואל ב ה' ב' ) והמבי את ישראל , במקום והמביא, ( ירמיה ל"ט ט"ז ) הנני מבי את דברי , במקום מביא, ( מלכים ב' י"ג ו' ) החטי את ישראל , ( ירמיה ל"ב ל"ה ) החטי את יהודה , במקום החטיא, (שם כ"ג י"ד) לבלתי שבו , (שם כ"ז י"ח) לבלתי באו , במקום ישבו יבאו, ( ישעיה מ"ה כ"ד ) עדיו יבא ויבושו, ( יחזקאל כ' ל"ח ) ואל אדמת ישראל לא יבא וידעתם , במקום יבאו, ( ד"ה א' י"ז י"א ) כי מלאו ימיך , משפטו כי ימלאו ( שמואל א' י"ט ט' ) ודוד מנגן ביד ויבקש , צ"ל בידו, ועוד זולת אלה.

That is, when a word begins with the same letter the previous word ended with, the scribes used just a single letter, perhaps using some designated sign to indicate the doubled letter. Then, as time went on, they started putting the missing letter back in. But of course, there was little space to insert the letter, so they had to write it small. And this then became convention rather that what it was initially, motivated by the constraints of space.

Thus, for Vayikra, the words are וַיִּקְרָא אֶל. They originally left the first aleph out. Then, when they started putting it in, the made the aleph small to squeeze it in. And he offers another example of the small letter, from Bereishit 27:46, in Toledot:

מו וַתֹּאמֶר רִבְקָה, אֶל-יִצְחָק, קַצְתִּי בְחַיַּי, מִפְּנֵי בְּנוֹת חֵת; אִם-לֹקֵחַ יַעֲקֹב אִשָּׁה מִבְּנוֹת-חֵת כָּאֵלֶּה, מִבְּנוֹת הָאָרֶץ--לָמָּה לִּי, חַיִּים.

46 And Rebekah said to Isaac: 'I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob take a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these, of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?'

The kuf of katzti is small because it follows the word Yitzchak. But perhaps one need to assume this happened at a time when there was no inter-word gap. Firstly, that would make more sense for them to leave out one of the repeated letters. Secondly, in this case in Bereishit, it is the second kuf which is small. So I think we would have to posit no word gap, and the scribe inserted the second letter wherever it could most easily fit.

But what will Shadal do about small letters which do not fit this pattern. He might have to posit a second cause. I am thinking of Bereishit 23:2, in Chayyei Sarah:

ב וַתָּמָת שָׂרָה, בְּקִרְיַת אַרְבַּע הִוא חֶבְרוֹן--בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן; וַיָּבֹא, אַבְרָהָם, לִסְפֹּד לְשָׂרָה, וְלִבְכֹּתָהּ.

2 And Sarah died in Kiriatharba--the same is Hebron--in the land of Canaan; and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.

with the small kaf. Shadal has commentary on that pasuk, but he offers no explanation of the small kaf. Perhaps we could claim that the kaf looked like the preceding bet and so the scribe accidentally omitted it (as opposed to deliberately as Shadal claims for other cases), and then went back and fixed his error by inserting a small kaf, which would fit into that space?

Shadal supports his theory by noting a bunch of cases where the last letter is omitted from the first word, but that is fixed by the krei over the written text. But that others were not fixed. And he gives a whole bunch of examples (it should be stressed, in Neviim, as opposed to Torah) which he argues they accidentally did not put in that omitted letter. See each of his examples in turn. Very good evidence of this phenomenon in play.

However, I should note that we should examine krei and ketiv in general, and see if these alternations in this context of duplicated letters is more common that these same alternations when there is no duplicated letter.

Also, it seems that all of his examples involve the letters ehevi, that is, aleph heh vav and yud. Either missing at the end of the word, or at the beginning. Perhaps what is it play is not this scribal practice of doubling. Rather, in terms of final vowel letters (matres lectiones), way back when they did not use them. So perhaps ויקרא was written as ויקר without the final yud because of the nature of the aleph usually as an em hakriya, and so perhaps it is here. (In this case, it is a root letter, and I would guess that the Yemenites would make sure to pronounce the aleph, and mark it as a mapik aleph). And so for many of his examples.

Of course, other examples have the ehevi letter missing in the beginning of the word, where it functions as a consonant, and so should certainly be present. Perhaps we could argue that particularly by vowels, since people will continue speaking, and will not stop at the end of the word like they would by a consonant, such is more likely to happen. (Perhaps if one scribe read and the next recorded.) Or just perhaps we could say once again that there was no word boundary, as well as frequent omission of ehevi letters at the end of the words, and so the ehevi letter in these cases was sometimes doubled correctly in the new text, sometimes attached to the end of the first word, and sometimes attached to the beginning of the second word.

Alternate spellings are also possible. For example, he notes החטי without the aleph. But this is in fact the consistent spelling in the Yerushalmi! And indeed the famous gematria of egoz as gematria chet was predicated on that local spelling, which was without the aleph. Perhaps the same for מבי, and so on.

Shadal says he has other examples, that he is not providing. I suspect that they are also the "vowel" letters, though we can only speculate. (Unless he made a larger list someplace else.) If so, this fact should be incorporated into his theory, and the theory should account for this peculiarity. But he based this on a pasuk where the duplication -- or rather the small letter -- was not ehevi, but rather a kuf.

BeKisa, BeKoso, BeKaaso

Someone asked me the other day to trace down the statement that a man's nature is revealed in three things: BeKisa, BeKoso, BeKaaso -- in how he spends, how he behaves when drunk, when angry.

It is in Eruvin 65b:
א"ר אילעאי בשלשה דברים אדם ניכר בכוסו ובכיסו ובכעסו ואמרי ליה אף בשחקו
"three things betray a man: his purse, his cup, and his temper"

Rabbi Ilai is a third generation Amora from Eretz Yisrael.

The last part attracted my attention the most. ואמרי ליה אף בשחקו. First off, what is this ואמרי ליה ? Is it not usually veAmri lah, rather than leih? Indeed, this is the text Rabbenu Chananel seems to have. But secondly, veAmri lah usually connotes a girsological variant. But saying this is somewhat difficult, for he explicitly states that a man is judged in three things. Perhaps leih is right, and it refers to the Chachamim who add a 4th?

The last word --בשחקו , or in Rabbenu Chananel's version, בשוחקו. "Mirth" is fitting paired with anger. But it is also interesting phonologically speaking. Each of the three entries in the list sounds similar. It stands to reason that the third should sound similar as well. Of course, it is an addition to the list, so it need not be exactly similar, but somewhat similar would be nice.

Rabbi Illai is from Eretz Yisrael, and they relaxed their gutturals, so the ע in כעסו is fine. And perhaps the chet in שחקו as well.

What about the other letters? Well, the sin corresponds to the samech, and the kuf corresponds to the kaf. The positions of these two are switched, but there is still the sound similarity.

But then, the kaf is really a khaf, in each of the three examples! That is, it occurs after a sheva na or a sheva merachef, so we should not expect a dagesh kal in it to specify the plosive rather than fricative. Perhaps we can say it is still close enough. Or perhaps this could give evidence on a specific pronunciation of the letter in that context at the time. Or perhaps not. Just idle speculation here.

zOchreinu lechaim?

In the previous post, I cited Magen Avraham. The part I did not discuss stated that kasveinu and zachreinu are with a chataf kametz, apparently citing the Levush:

זכרנו כתבנו בחטף קמ"ץ, בזכרנו לא יאמר לחיים טובי' רק לחיים עד וכתו' לחיים טובים כל וכו' (לבוש

Now, the vowel on the next letter in both cases is a sheva, so he could not mean a chataf kametz as in modern terminology, for that would form two shevas in a row in the beginning of a word. Rather, the designation is to what we call kametz katon, which is a reduced cholam, as to opposed to the usual kametz gadol. (Thus zoch... as opposed to zach.)

I guess this is because "remember us for life" is present tense, so the apparent kametz is reduced from the cholam of zocheir due to shift of stress. (Help requested on this syntactic and phonological analysis.)

The thing is, I checked my Siddur Shilo and they have a horizontal line over the chaf of zachreinu. Thus, they claim it should be pronounced zachereinu. They have similar notation for chathemeinu and katheveinu in Avinu Malkeinu. But, since a kametz katan is a short syllable, we should not expect a sheva na in the next letter. They would thus seem to be reading it as a kametz gadol.

I have not checked what Artscroll does here. Is there an alternative grammatical analysis? Does the Polish pronunciation actually make a distinction between the long and short kametz?

Update: I checked Artscroll and they do it right, with no sheva na.

Deviating From Dikduk To Avoid Negative Omens On Rosh Hashana

A great Magen Avraham in hilchot rosh haShana, in סימן תקפב ס"ק ד ד

אין מחזירין - ואפי' רצה להחזיר אסור בת"ה סי' קמ"ד ועי' סי' ק"ז (ד"מ), זכרנו כתבנו בחטף קמ"ץ, בזכרנו לא יאמר לחיים טובי' רק לחיים עד וכתו' לחיים טובים כל וכו' (לבוש) אבל י"א שגם בוכתוב א"א טובי' עד בספר (מט"מ), לחיים הלמ"ד בשב"א ולא בפת"ח דלא לשתמע לא חיים ודוקא בר"ה קפדי' אבל בכל השנ' אומרים השכיבנו לחיים בפת"ח תחת הלמ"ד ע"פ דקדוק דכשהשב"א באה בתחיל' התיב' באותיות שאינן אח"הע קורין בפת"ח (ב"ח מט"מ) ועמ"ש סי' ח', שהשלטן בקמץ תחת שי"ן שני, ואין לומ' באהב' מקרא קדש רק יום תרועה מקרא קדש, ודברך אמת ואין לומר מלכנו, וכופלין לעילא בכל הקדישים שאומרים (כ"ז במנהגים
ולבוש וב"ח

Thus, the word lechaim should be pronounced with a sheva under the lamed and not with a patach, even though in general, such as in Hashkiveinu, we say it with a patach, according to the rules of dikduk that when the sheva occurs at the beginning of a word on letters that are not gutturals, we read it with a patach. (Based on the Bach.)

The reason for avoiding the grammatically correct patach sound here is that it should not sound like lo chaim, such that it is almost as if we are saying (chas veshalom) "remember us not for life." Thus, he would have us stray from dikduk in order to not give rise to an improper implication, but particularly on Rosh Hashana.

The particular dikduk at issue, though, is one with which I am unfamiliar. It might help to note that the Magen Avraham was Rabbi Avraham Abele Gombiner, a 17th century Polish rabbi, so he is noting Polish (Galician) pronunciation patterns of Hebrew. The Bach, to whom he refers for the dikduk, is Rav Yoel Sirkis, 1561-1640, and also a Polish rabbi.

I am also unsure if he is talking about whether, even in written text, there would be a patach where he claims, or whether it would be written as sheva but just pronounced as patach. After all, in describing it, he writes לחיים הלמ"ד בשב"א ולא בפת"ח דלא לשתמע לא חיים ודוקא בר"ה קפדי' אבל בכל השנ' אומרים השכיבנו לחיים בפת"ח תחת הלמ"ד ע"פ דקדוק, which has strong connotations of the actual vowel under the letter. But he might just be using this as an indication of pronunciation. The end portion, where he cited the principle of dikduk at play, seems to make it clear that there is an actual sheva underneath the letter, but that it is just being pronounced as patach. Thus, ע"פ דקדוק דכשהשב"א באה בתחיל' התיב' באותיות שאינן אח"הע קורין בפת"ח.

I would offer the following interpretation, and welcome further insights in the comment section:

He is not speaking of an actual patach being written in. Indeed, in many cases we have transformation of sheva to full patach. This is due to influence of a chataf patach under the guttural which follows. Since a chataf patach counts as a sheva na, and we cannot have two sheva nas in a row, we upgrade the sheva in the first letter to a full vowel, and specifically the full version of the chataf in the next letter. lechaim is not a good example of this because there is a full patach under the chet, and not a chataf patach. Furthermore, the grammatical principle being cited is one which appears to exist in all letters, regardless of context.

Rather, I believe that he is speaking of a different rule. In some communities, they pronounce (or pronounced) all sheva nas as if they were chataf patachs. And we already know that consistently across the board, a sheva na under a guttural is pronounced as a chataf patach. The grammatical, phonological principle of the Bach appears to be that of course, a sheva under a guttural in the beginning of a word would be pronounced as a patach (that is, as a chataf patach, but who says they make a distinction in vowel length). The chiddush is that for all other letters besides gutturals, even though if a sheva na appeared under it in the rest of the word it would be pronounced in its normal way, as a sheva na, in this particular context of being in the beginning of the word, it is also pronounced as patach (or chataf patach). A slightly variant explanation is that they indeed pronounce chataf patachs, but would only pronounce it under a guttural, while under any other letter it will be a full patach.

It would be illuminating to see the full list of grammatical rules of the Bach, such that we could make a better determination.

Not that this matters to us, since we (or at least I) do not pronounce this as a patach or chataf patach.

Shaleshudes and Tisha Bav

We last discussed Shivasar B'Tammuz. Two more interesting words, pronounced in one way but often written in their more formal, correct form, are Shaleshudes and Tisha Bav.

This makes some sense. Even in Yiddish, where the pronunciation differed, the original Hebrew spelling was maintained. Then again, there it was maintaining the original spelling in the original alphabet. Once we more to a transliteration system, such as where we desire to write the words in English characters, we might expect that the words will be written as they sound. Yet at the same time there is sometimes knowledge that they are not "correct," in the etymological sense of capturing the original Hebrew as carefully pronounced.

Tisha Bav exhibits the same phenomenon as Shivasar B'Tammuz of eliminating ayin and glottal stop. Thus, the ayin in Tish'a was not pronounced as an ayin but as the same as aleph. Then, preceding the vowel "a," it simply dropped, such that we have Tisha, with emphasis on the first syllable. In the word Be-`Av, there was the aleph as glottal stop in the word `Av, and that elides. Along with that, the shva na under the bet also disappears, such that we get Bav. We don't delete the sheva na in B'Tammuz or B'Teiveis because it is a consonant rather than glottal stop which follows (namely, T).

Shaleshudes actually has a fair amount of attestation via Google search. (There are other, similar, spellings as well.) That particular spelling yields 174 hits. Meanwhile, "Shalosh Sedudot" yields 3300 hits. We can guess what is happening here. The es ending is common for "ot" -- ות endings. Thus, you can search for Sukkes and get a bunch of hits for Succoth. Similarly, the first e in Shaleshudes also parallels the o. And when placing two similar sibilants together, the result is assimilation of one into the other. Perhaps one can argue that is how Yissachar developed (from Yesh Sechar), with the one of the two sibilants assimilating into the other.