Kamatz

Kamatz or qamatz (Modern Hebrew: קָמָץ, IPA: [kaˈmats]; alternatively קָמֶץ qāmeṣ) is a Hebrew niqqud (vowel) sign represented by two perpendicular lines (looking like an uppercase T) ⟨ ָ ⟩ underneath a letter. In modern Hebrew, it usually indicates the phoneme /a/ which is the "a" sound in the word spa and is transliterated as a. In these cases, its sound is identical to the sound of pataḥ in modern Hebrew. In a minority of cases it indicates the phoneme /o/, equal to the sound of ḥolam. In traditional Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation, kamatz is pronounced as the phoneme /ɔ/, which becomes /u/ in some contexts in southern Ashkenazi dialects. For this reason, the equivalent phoneme in Yiddish (/ɔ/ in some dialects, /u/ in others) is spelled with an aleph marked with a kamatz ⟨אָ⟩, in Yiddish orthography.