I'm late

[Ali Smith]

שלום!

I wanted to say, "Sorry I'm late." How would I say "I'm late."? Is it ikharti or ekharti?

אני מצטער שאחרתי.

אני מודה לכם מאוד

 

[Drink]

It's ikharti.

Also, it's typically spelled איחרתי.

 

[Ali Smith]

Thanks. However, I have heard at least one native speaker pronounce it ekharti. And that's what I would expect, too, because the verb is II-guttural, just like מאן me'en (to refuse).

 

[Drink]

As I've mentioned before, the guttural rules depend on the letter. The ח as the middle root letter in pi'el does not cause the i to become e.

In colloquial Hebrew, there is a general tendency of pretonic i becoming e.

People will say "lo ekhpat li" instead of "lo ikhpat li", or "lo (h)espik li" instead of "lo hispik li". I'd guess ekharti is the same phenomenon.

 

[amikama]

אני מצטער שאיחרתי is OK, but סליחה על האיחור is more common.

 

[Ali Smith]

Thank you! However, Gesenius clearly states that the vowel on the א is צֵירֵי‎, not חִירִיק‎ (see attachment). But one should not be surprised because modern Hebrew isn't the same as biblical.

What I find really strange, however, is that אחרו ("They were late.") has a סֶגּוֹל‎ under the א and a חֲטַף סֶגּוֹל‎ under the ח. I would have expected a צֵירֵי‎ under the the א and a חֲטַף פַּתַח‎ under the ח. After all, that's the pattern מאנו ("They refused.") follows.

 

[Drink]

You'll find all sorts of exceptional forms in Biblical Hebrew. When those are the only ones attested, then that's what Gesenius will give as the normal forms. But due to the small sample size, it's impossible to say that these forms are the Biblical Hebrew forms of the words. Rather, these are simply the forms that happen to occur in the two instances that this verb is found in the suffix conjugation.

In Modern Hebrew it's much more normalized.