Sephardi Hebrew Pronunciation
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Sephardi Hebrew Pronunciation
Sephardi Hebrew (or Sepharadi Hebrew; he, עברית ספרדית, Ivrit S'faradít, lad, Hebreo Sefardíes) is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice. Its phonology was influenced by contact languages such as Spanish, Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino), Arabic, Portuguese and Modern Greek. Phonology There is some variation between the various forms of Sephardi Hebrew, but the following generalisations may be made: *The stress tends to fall on the last syllable wherever that is the case in Biblical Hebrew. *The letter ע (`ayin) is realized as a sound, but the specific sound varies between communities. One pronunciation associated with the Hebrew of Western Sephardim (Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Northern Europe and their descendants) is a velar nasal () sound, as in English ''singing'', but other Sephardim of the Balkans, Anatolia, North Africa, and the Levant maintain the pharyngeal sound of Yemenite Hebrew or Arabic of thei ...
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Biblical Hebrew Language
Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of the Jordan River and east of the Mediterranean Sea. The term "Hebrew" (''ivrit'') was not used for the language in the Bible, which was referred to as (''sefat kena'an'', i.e. language of Canaan) or (''Yehudit'', i.e. Judaean), but the name was used in Ancient Greek and Mishnaic Hebrew texts. The Hebrew language is attested in inscriptions from about the 10th century BCE, and spoken Hebrew persisted through and beyond the Second Temple period, which ended in the siege of Jerusalem (70 CE). It eventually developed into Mishnaic Hebrew, spoken up until the fifth century CE. Biblical Hebrew as recorded in the Hebrew Bible reflects various stages of the Hebrew language in its consonantal skeleton, as well as a vocalization sys ...
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Vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (length). They are usually voiced and are closely involved in prosodic variation such as tone, intonation and stress. The word ''vowel'' comes from the Latin word , meaning "vocal" (i.e. relating to the voice). In English, the word ''vowel'' is commonly used to refer both to vowel sounds and to the written symbols that represent them (a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y). Definition There are two complementary definitions of vowel, one phonetic and the other phonological. *In the phonetic definition, a vowel is a sound, such as the English "ah" or "oh" , produced with an open vocal tract; it is median (the air escapes along the middle of the tongue), oral (at least some of the airflow must escape through the mouth), frictionless and continuant ...
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Beth (letter)
Bet, Beth, Beh, or Vet is the second letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Bēt , Hebrew Bēt , Aramaic Bēth , Syriac Bēṯ , and Arabic . Its sound value is the voiced bilabial stop ⟨b⟩ or the voiced labiodental fricative ⟨v⟩. The letter's name means "house" in various Semitic languages (Arabic '' bayt'', Akkadian '' bītu, bētu'', Hebrew: '' bayiṯ'', Phoenician '' bt'' etc.; ultimately all from Proto-Semitic '' *bayt-''), and appears to derive from an Egyptian hieroglyph of a house by acrophony. O1 The Phoenician letter gave rise to, among others, the Greek beta ( Β, β), Latin B (B, b) and Cyrillic Be ( Б, б) and Ve ( В, в). Origin The name ''bet'' is derived from the West Semitic word for "house" (as in Hebrew ''bayt'' בַּיִת), and the shape of the letter derives from a Proto-Sinaitic glyph that may have been based on the Egyptian hieroglyph '' Pr'' O1 which depicts a house. Arabic The Arabic letter is named ' (). It is ...
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Aleph (letter)
Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician , Hebrew , Aramaic , Syriac , Arabic ʾ and North Arabian 𐪑. It also appears as South Arabian 𐩱 and Ge'ez . These letters are believed to have derived from an Egyptian hieroglyph depicting an ox's head to describe the initial sound of ''*ʾalp'', the West Semitic word for ox (compare Biblical Hebrew ''ʾelef'', "ox"). The Phoenician variant gave rise to the Greek alpha (), being re-interpreted to express not the glottal consonant but the accompanying vowel, and hence the Latin A and Cyrillic А. Phonetically, ''aleph'' originally represented the onset of a vowel at the glottis. In Semitic languages, this functions as a prosthetic weak consonant, allowing roots with only two true consonants to be conjugated in the manner of a standard three consonant Semitic root. In most Hebrew dialects as well as Syriac, the ''aleph'' is an absence of a true consonan ...
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King James Version
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of King James VI and I. The List of books of the King James Version, 80 books of the King James Version include 39 books of the Old Testament, an Intertestamental period, intertestamental section containing 14 books of what Protestantism, Protestants consider the Biblical apocrypha#King James Version, Apocrypha, and the 27 books of the New Testament. Noted for its "majesty of style", the King James Version has been described as one of the most important books in English culture and a driving force in the shaping of the English-speaking world. The KJV was first printed by John Norton and Robert Barker (printer), Robert Barker, who both held the post of the King's Printer, and was the third translation into Englis ...
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Hebrew Language
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved throughout history as the main liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period) and Samaritanism. Hebrew is the only Canaanite language still spoken today, and serves as the only truly successful example of a dead language that has been revived. It is also one of only two Northwest Semitic languages still in use, with the other being Aramaic. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as '' Lashon Hakodesh'' (, ) since an ...
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Mizrahi Hebrew
Mizrahi Hebrew, or Eastern Hebrew, refers to any of the pronunciation systems for Biblical Hebrew used liturgically by Mizrahi Jews: Jews from Arab countries or east of them and with a background of Arabic, Persian or other languages of Asia. As such, Mizrahi Hebrew is actually a blanket term for many dialects. Sephardi Hebrew is not considered one of these, even if it has been spoken in the Middle East and North Africa. The Sephardim were expellees from Spain and settled among the Mizrahim, but in countries such as Syria and Morocco, there was a fairly high degree of convergence between the Sephardi and the local pronunciations of Hebrew. Yemenite Hebrew is also considered quite separate, as it has a wholly different system for the pronunciation of vowels. The same terms are sometimes used for the pronunciation of Modern Hebrew by Jews of Mizrahi origins. It is generally a compromise between Modern Standard Hebrew and the traditional liturgical pronunciation as described in this ...
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Kol Nidre
Kol Nidre (also known as Kol Nidrey or Kol Nidrei; Aramaic: ''kāl niḏrē'') is a Hebrew and Aramaic declaration which is recited in the synagogue before the beginning of the evening service on every Yom Kippur ("Day of Atonement"). Strictly speaking, it is not a prayer, even though it is commonly spoken of as if it is a prayer. This declaration and its ceremonial accompaniment have been charged with emotional undertones since the medieval period, creating a dramatic introduction to Yom Kippur on what is often dubbed "Kol Nidrei night", with the entire Yom Kippur evening service popularly called ''Kol Nidrei''. ''Kol Nidrei'' is written in a mixture of Aramaic and Hebrew. Its name is taken from its opening words, words which mean "all vows". The formula proactively annuls any personal or religious oaths or prohibitions which are made between oneself and God for the next year, so as to preemptively avoid the sin of breaking vows which are made to God but are not or cannot be u ...
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Spelling Pronunciation
A spelling pronunciation is the pronunciation of a word according to its spelling when this differs from a longstanding standard or traditional pronunciation. Words that are spelled with letters that were never pronounced or that were not pronounced for many generations or even hundreds of years have increasingly been pronounced as written, especially since the arrival of mandatory schooling and universal literacy. Examples of words with silent letters that have begun to be often or sometimes pronounced include ''often'', ''Wednesday'', ''island'', and ''knife''. In addition, words traditionally pronounced with vowel reduction, reduced vowels or syncope (phonetics), omitted consonants (e.g. ''cupboard'', ''Worcester''), may be subject to a spelling pronunciation. If a word's spelling was standardized prior to sound changes that produced its traditional pronunciation, a spelling pronunciation may reflect an even older pronunciation. This is often the case with compound words (e.g. ...
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Kamatz
Kamatz or qamatz ( he, label=Modern Hebrew, קָמָץ, ; alternatively ) 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 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 ' in modern Hebrew. In a minority of cases it indicates the phoneme , equal to the sound of '. Qamatz Qaṭan, Qamatz Gadol, Ḥataf Qamatz Qamatz Qaṭan vs. Qamatz Gadol The Hebrew of the late centuries BCE and early centuries of the Common Era had a system with five phonemic long vowels and five short vowels . In the later dialects of the 1st millennium CE, phonemic vowel length disappeared, and instead was automatically determined by the context, with vowels pronounced long in open syllables and short in closed ones. However, the previous vowel phonemes merged in various ways that differed fr ...
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Shibboleth
A shibboleth (; hbo, , šībbōleṯ) is any custom or tradition, usually a choice of phrasing or even a single word, that distinguishes one group of people from another. Shibboleths have been used throughout history in many societies as passwords, simple ways of self-identification, signaling loyalty and affinity, maintaining traditional segregation, or protecting from real or perceived threats. Origin The term originates from the Hebrew word (), which means the part of a plant containing grain, such as the head of a stalk of wheat or rye; or less commonly (but arguably more appropriately) "flood, torrent". The modern use derives from an account in the Hebrew Bible, in which pronunciation of this word was used to distinguish Ephraimites, whose dialect used a differently sounding first consonant. The difference concerns the Hebrew letter ''shin'', which is now pronounced as (as in '' shoe''). In the Book of Judges, chapter 12, after the inhabitants of Gilead under the comma ...
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Kamats Gadol
Kamatz or qamatz ( he, label=Modern Hebrew, קָמָץ, ; alternatively ) 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 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 ' in modern Hebrew. In a minority of cases it indicates the phoneme , equal to the sound of '. Qamatz Qaṭan, Qamatz Gadol, Ḥataf Qamatz Qamatz Qaṭan vs. Qamatz Gadol The Hebrew of the late centuries BCE and early centuries of the Common Era had a system with five phonemic long vowels and five short vowels . In the later dialects of the 1st millennium CE, phonemic vowel length disappeared, and instead was automatically determined by the context, with vowels pronounced long in open syllables and short in closed ones. However, the previous vowel phonemes merged in various ways that differed fr ...
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