# Question about Kaf Sofit



## SirAutismo

Hello everyone! I have just started learning Hebrew and I am very confused about something.
I see that the final form of the letter Kaf sometimes has two dots inside of it, but they never make a sound.

What is the meaning behind this?

Thank you very much!


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## Drink

Those two dots are called shva. The shva is one of the vowel marks, but it marks either the absence of a vowel or a schwa vowel. Normally the shva is not written on the last letter of a word (with a few exceptions), but the kaf sofit is the only letter where the shva is always written at the end of the word. I think the explanation for this is purely aesthetic. Hope that answers your question.


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## SirAutismo

Drink said:


> Those two dots are called shva. The shva is one of the vowel marks, but it marks either the absence of a vowel or a schwa vowel. Normally the shva is not written on the last letter of a word (with a few exceptions), but the kaf sofit is the only letter where the shva is always written at the end of the word. I think the explanation for this is purely aesthetic. Hope that answers your question.



Thank you very much, that makes sense!


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## Albert Schlef

Drink said:


> I think the explanation for this is purely aesthetic



I think it's used to distinguish, for example, בֵּיתְךָ from בֵּיתֵךְ ("your house", addressed to male, then female). Also to distinguish normal from pasual forms in the bible.


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## Drink

Albert Schlef said:


> I think it's used to distinguish, for example, בֵּיתְךָ from בֵּיתֵךְ ("your house", addressed to male, then female). Also to distinguish normal from pasual forms in the bible.



You could just as well distinguish them without the shva: בֵּיתְךָ and בֵּיתֵך. It's not as though the shva is written when other vowels are not.

Secondly, we do not include a shva in other cases where we have a similar distinction: הָיִיתָ and הָיִית. Yet, words without this distinction do have a shva in the ך, as in מֶלֶךְ.

Another point to consider is that in some Yiddish printings, where there is no distinction at all in pronunciation of the final khaf, will put a single dot in it (ךּ), for example: איךּ ליין אַ בוךּ "ikh leyn a bukh". Additionally, in Arabic a little aesthetic swirl is put in the equivalent letter ك as well, when it is at the end of a word.

Considering all of the above, it seems that the reason is purely aesthetic and not for any other purpose.


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## Albert Schlef

(You made some good points. They're not outright convincing, but I'll have to sleep on it.)



Drink said:


> Additionally, in Arabic a little aesthetic swirl is put in the equivalent letter ك as well, when it is at the end of a word.



Isn't the purpose of the swirl to distinguish ك from ل?


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## Drink

Albert Schlef said:


> Isn't the purpose of the swirl to distinguish ك from ل?



Hmm. Maybe. But then why doesn't د have a swirl to distinguish it from ر?

Also, it you've ever looked at Arabic calligraphy, there are swirls like that all over the place just to fill up space. It's very confusing because when reading it you have to be careful to distinguish the parts of letters, the vowels, and the meaningless swirls.


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## Albert Schlef

Drink said:


> Hmm. Maybe.


"Maybe"? Drop the swirl and you're in trouble.



Drink said:


> But then why doesn't د have a swirl to distinguish it from ر?


Because they don't at all look similar.



Drink said:


> Also, it you've ever looked at Arabic calligraphy, there are swirls like that all over the place just to fill up space.


(Right. But ك's swirl probably isn't for aesthetics. Interestingly, I asked about those swirls yesterday (my question was merged into existing thread I didn't know existed).)


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## Drink

Albert Schlef said:


> "Maybe"? Drop the swirl and you're in trouble.



Why are you in trouble? They still look pretty different. They're about as different as ف and ق without the dots. In fact, for this reason, some styles of writing do not put dots on ف and ق at the end of a word.



Albert Schlef said:


> Because they don't at all look similar.



That is objectively not true. The letters د and ر are confused all the time and are known for this. Besides, I'd say the differences between them are roughly equivalent to the differences between ك and ل (not counting the swirl).



Albert Schlef said:


> (Right. But ك's swirl probably isn't for aesthetics. Interestingly, I asked about those swirls yesterday (my question was merged into existing thread I didn't know existed).)



How do you know? This raises the question: Why a swirl, rather than a dot? The swirls are generally used to fill up empty space. The dots are generally used to distinguish letters. This leads me to suspect that the reason is not originally for the purpose of distinguishing the letters.


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