Sephardi Hebrew (or Sepharadi Hebrew; he, עברית ספרדית, Ivrit S'faradít, lad, Hebreo Sefardíes) is the pronunciation system for
Biblical Hebrew
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 ...
favored for liturgical use by
Sephardi
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), ...
Jewish practice. Its
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
was influenced by contact languages such as
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
,
Judaeo-Spanish
Judaeo-Spanish or Judeo-Spanish (autonym , Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew script: , Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: ), also known as Ladino, is a Romance languages, Romance language derived from Old Spanish language, Old Spanish. Originally spoken in Spain ...
(Ladino),
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
and
Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
.
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
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
wherever that is the case in
Biblical Hebrew
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 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, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the i ...
(Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Northern Europe and their descendants) is a
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
() sound, as in English ''singing'', but other Sephardim of the Balkans, Anatolia, North Africa, and the Levant maintain the pharyngeal sound of
Yemenite Hebrew
Yemenite Hebrew ( ''ʿĪvrīṯ Tēmŏnīṯ''), also referred to as Temani Hebrew, is the pronunciation system for Hebrew traditionally used by Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Hebrew has been studied by language scholars, many of whom believe it to retai ...
or
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
of their regional coreligionists.
*/r/ is invariably alveolar trill or tap (like Spanish r), rather than uvular (the r common to several German and Yiddish dialects, or better known as the French r).
*/t/ and /d/ are more often realized as
dental plosive
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
s, rather than
alveolar Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit.
Uses in anatomy and zoology
* Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs
** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte
** Alveolar duct
** Alveolar macrophage
* ...
.
*There is always a phonetic distinction between (tav) and (samekh).
*The Sephardi dialects observe the
Kimhian five-vowel system (a e i o u), either with or without distinctions of
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 (leng ...
length:
**
Tsere
Tzere (also spelled ''Tsere'', ''Tzeirei'', ''Zere'', ''Zeire'', ''Ṣērê''; modern he, צֵירֵי, , sometimes also written ; formerly ''ṣērê'') is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by two horizontally-aligned dots "◌ֵ" un ...
is pronounced , not as may be found in
Ashkenazi Hebrew
Ashkenazi Hebrew ( he, הגייה אשכנזית, Hagiyya Ashkenazit, yi, אַשכּנזישע הבֿרה, Ashkenazishe Havara) is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for Jewish liturgical use and Torah study by Ashk ...
**
Holam
Holam (modern he, , , formerly , ') is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign represented by a dot above the upper left corner of the consonant letter. For example, here the holam appears after the letter '' mem'' : . In modern Hebrew, it indicates ...
is pronounced , not or as may be found in Ashkenazi Hebrew
**
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 pho ...
is pronounced , not as in Ashkenazi, Yemenite, or Tiberian Hebrew
This last difference is the standard
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 passwor ...
for distinguishing Sephardi from Ashkenazi, Yemenite, and Tiberian Hebrew. The differentiation between
kamatz gadol and
kamatz katan
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 pho ...
is made according to purely phonetic rules, without regard to etymology, which occasionally leads to
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 pronounc ...
s at variance with the rules laid down in
Biblical Hebrew
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 ...
grammar books. For example, כָל (all), when unhyphenated, is pronounced "kal", rather than "kol" (in "kal 'atsmotai" and "
Kal Nidre"), and צָהֳרַיִם (noon) is pronounced "tsahorayim", rather than "tsohorayim". This feature is also found in
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 s ...
, but is not found in
Israeli Hebrew
Israeli may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the State of Israel
* Israelis, citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel
* Modern Hebrew, a language
* ''Israeli'' (newspaper), published from 2006 to 2008
* Guni Israeli (b ...
. It is represented in the transliteration of proper names in the
Authorised Version
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of K ...
, such as "Naomi", "Aholah" and "Aholibamah".
Letter pronunciation
Consonants
Vowels
Variants
Sephardim differ on the pronunciation of ''bet raphe'' (, ''bet'' without ''dagesh''). Persian, Moroccan, Greek, Turkish, Balkan and Jerusalem Sephardim usually pronounce it as , which is reflected in Modern Hebrew.
Spanish and Portuguese Jews
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the i ...
traditionally pronounced it as (as do most
Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews ( he, יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () or ''Mizrachi'' () and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained i ...
), but that is declining under the influence of Israeli Hebrew.
That may reflect changes in the pronunciation of
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
. In
Medieval Spanish
Old Spanish, also known as Old Castilian ( es, castellano antiguo; osp, romance castellano ), or Medieval Spanish ( es, español medieval), was originally a dialect of Vulgar Latin spoken in the former provinces of the Roman Empire that provided ...
(and in
Judaeo-Spanish
Judaeo-Spanish or Judeo-Spanish (autonym , Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew script: , Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: ), also known as Ladino, is a Romance languages, Romance language derived from Old Spanish language, Old Spanish. Originally spoken in Spain ...
), ''b'' and ''v'' were separate, with ''b'' representing a voiced bilabial stop and ''v'' realized as a bilabial fricative
However, in Renaissance and modern Spanish, both are pronounced (bilabial v) after a vowel (or
continuant
In phonetics, a continuant is a speech sound produced without a complete closure in the oral cavity, namely fricatives, approximants, vowels, and trills. While vowels are included in continuants, the term is often reserved for consonant sounds. ...
) and otherwise (such as after a pause).
There is also a difference in the pronunciation of ''tau raphe'' (, ''tau'' without ''dagesh''):
*The normal Sephardi pronunciation (reflected in Israeli Hebrew) is as an unvoiced dental
plosive
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
();
*Greek Sephardim (like some
Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews ( he, יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () or ''Mizrachi'' () and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained i ...
, such as Iraqis and Yemenites) pronounced it as a
voiceless dental fricative
The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in ''think''. Though rather rare as a phoneme in the world's inventory of languages, it is en ...
();
*Some
Spanish and Portuguese Jews
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the i ...
and Sephardim from the Spanish-Moroccan tradition pronounce it as a
voiced dental plosive
The voiced alveolar, dental and postalveolar plosives (or stops) are types of consonantal sounds used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosiv ...
or
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
(see
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonority hierarchy, sonorous. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronic analysis, s ...
).
Closely related to the Sephardi pronunciation is the
Italian pronunciation of Hebrew, which may be regarded as a variant.
In communities from Italy, Greece and Turkey, ''he'' is not realized as but as a silent letter because of the influence of Italian, Judaeo-Spanish and (to a lesser extent)
Modern Greek
Modern Greek (, , or , ''Kiní Neoellinikí Glóssa''), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the ...
, all of which lack the sound. That was also the case in early transliterations of Spanish-Portuguese manuscripts (''Ashkibenu'', as opposed to ''Hashkibenu''), but ''he'' is now consistently pronounced in those communities.
Basilectal Modern Hebrew also shares that characteristic, but it is considered substandard.
In addition to ethnic and geographical distinctions, there are some distinctions of register. Popular Sephardic pronunciation, such as for
Spanish and Portuguese Jews
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the i ...
, makes no distinction between ''pataḥ'' and ''qameṣ gadol''
or between ''segol'', ''ṣere'' and ''shewa na''
that is inherited from the old
Palestinian vowel notation. In formal liturgical use, however, many Sephardim are careful to make some distinction between these vowels to reflect the Tiberian notation. (That can be compared to the attempts of some Ashkenazim to use the pharyngeal sounds of ''ḥet'' and ''ayin'' in formal contexts, such as reading the Torah.)
History
There have been several theories on the origins of the different Hebrew reading traditions. The basic cleavage is between those who believe that the differences arose in medieval Europe and those who believe that they reflect older differences between the pronunciations of Hebrew and Aramaic in different parts of the
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
: Judaea, Galilee, Syria, northern Mesopotamia and Babylonia proper.
Within the first group of theories,
Zimmels believed that the Ashkenazi pronunciation arose in late medieval Europe and that the pronunciation prevailing in France and Germany during the
Tosafists
Tosafists were rabbis of France and Germany, who lived from the 12th to the mid-15th centuries, in the period of Rishonim. The Tosafists composed critical and explanatory glosses (questions, notes, interpretations, rulings and sources) on the Tal ...
was similar to the Sephardic. He noted that
Asher ben Jehiel
Asher ben Jehiel ( he, אשר בן יחיאל, or Asher ben Yechiel, sometimes Asheri) (1250 or 1259 – 1327) was an eminent rabbi and Talmudist best known for his abstract of Talmudic law. He is often referred to as Rabbenu Asher, “our Rabb ...
, a German who became chief rabbi of Toledo, never refers to any difference of pronunciation though he is normally very sensitive to differences between the two communities.
The difficulty with the second group of theories is that it is uncertain what the pronunciations of the countries actually were and how far they differed. Since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, if not earlier, the Sephardic pronunciation of the vowels became standard in all those countries, ironing out any differences that previously existed. That makes it harder to adjudicate between the different theories on the relationship between today's pronunciation systems and those of ancient times.
Leopold Zunz
Leopold Zunz ( he, יום טוב צונץ—''Yom Tov Tzuntz'', yi, ליפמן צונץ—''Lipmann Zunz''; 10 August 1794 – 17 March 1886) was the founder of academic Judaic Studies (''Wissenschaft des Judentums''), the critical investigation ...
believed that the Ashkenazi pronunciation was derived from that of Palestine in
Geonic
''Geonim'' ( he, גאונים; ; also transliterated Gaonim, singular Gaon) were the presidents of the two great Babylonian Talmudic Academies of Sura and Pumbedita, in the Abbasid Caliphate, and were the generally accepted spiritual leaders of ...
times (7th-11th centuries) and that the Sephardi pronunciation was derived from that of Babylonia. The theory was supported by the fact that in some respects,
Ashkenazi Hebrew
Ashkenazi Hebrew ( he, הגייה אשכנזית, Hagiyya Ashkenazit, yi, אַשכּנזישע הבֿרה, Ashkenazishe Havara) is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for Jewish liturgical use and Torah study by Ashk ...
resembles the western dialect of
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
, and Sephardi Hebrew resembles the eastern dialect: Eastern Syriac ''
Peshitta
The Peshitta ( syc, ܦܫܺܝܛܬܳܐ ''or'' ') is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition, including the Maronite Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the ...
'' as against Western Syriac ''Peshito''. Ashkenazi Hebrew, in its written form, also resembles Palestinian Hebrew in its tendency to ''malē'' spellings (see
Mater lectionis
''Matres lectionis'' (from Latin "mothers of reading", singular form: ''mater lectionis'', from he, אֵם קְרִיאָה ) are consonants that are used to indicate a vowel, primarily in the writing down of Semitic languages such as Arabic, ...
).
Others, including
Abraham Zevi Idelsohn
Abraham Zevi Idelsohn ( he, אַבְרָהָם צְבִי אידלסון ''Avrohom Tzvi Idelsohn'' in Ashkenazi Hebrew; middle name also rendered ''Tzvi'', ''Zvi'', ''Zwi'', or ''Zebi''; June 11, 1882 – August 14, 1938) was a prominent Jewish ...
, believed that the distinction is more ancient and represents the distinction between the Judaean and Galilean dialects of Hebrew in Mishnaic times (1st-2nd centuries), with the Sephardi pronunciation being derived from Judaean and the Ashkenazi from Galilean. The theory is supported by the fact that Ashkenazi Hebrew, like
Samaritan Hebrew
Samaritan Hebrew () is a reading tradition used liturgically by the Samaritans for reading the Ancient Hebrew language of the Samaritan Pentateuch, in contrast to Tiberian Hebrew among the Jews.
For the Samaritans, Ancient Hebrew ceased to be a ...
, has lost the distinct sounds of many of the guttural letters, and there are references in the
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
to that as a feature of Galilean speech. Idelsohn ascribes the Ashkenazi (and, on his theory, Galilean) pronunciation of
qamats gadol as to the influence of
Phoenician: see
Canaanite shift
In historical linguistics, the Canaanite shift is a vowel shift/sound change that took place in the Canaanite languages, Canaanite dialects, which belong to the Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic branch of the Semitic languages family. ...
. The 14th century,
German Jewish
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...
work,
Sefer Asufot
Sefer ha-Asuppot (Hebrew: ספר האסופות; lit. "Book of the collections") is the name of a compilation of medieval German Jewish Halakha and Minhagim, the manuscript of which is privately held by David H. Feinberg of New York (fragments fr ...
seems to suggest that medieval Ashkenazi Hebrew was much akin to medieval Sephardi Hebrew.
In the time of the
Masoretes
The Masoretes ( he, בַּעֲלֵי הַמָּסוֹרָה, Baʿălēy Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Masters of the Tradition') were groups of Jewish scribe-scholars who worked from around the end of the 5th through 10th centuries CE, based primarily in m ...
(8th-10th centuries), there were three distinct notations for denoting vowels and other details of pronunciation in biblical and liturgical texts. One was the
Babylonian; another was the
Palestinian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
; still another was the Tiberian, which eventually superseded the other two and is still in use today.
Of them, the Palestinian notation provides the best fit to the current Sephardi pronunciation; for example, it does not distinguish between ''pataẖ'' and ''qamats'' or between ''segol'' and ''tsere''. (Similarly, the Babylonian notation appears to fit the
Yemenite pronunciation.) The Tiberian notation does not quite fit any pronunciation in use today, but the underlying pronunciation has been reconstructed by modern scholars: see
Tiberian vocalization
The Tiberian vocalization, Tiberian pointing, or Tiberian niqqud (Hebrew: ''haNīqqūḏ haṬəḇērīyānī'') is a system of diacritics (''niqqud'') devised by the Masoretes of Tiberias to add to the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible to p ...
. (A variant of the Tiberian notation was used by Ashkenazim before it was superseded by the standard version.)
By the time of
Saadia Gaon
Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon ( ar, سعيد بن يوسف الفيومي ''Saʻīd bin Yūsuf al-Fayyūmi''; he, סַעֲדְיָה בֶּן יוֹסֵף אַלְפַיּוּמִי גָּאוֹן ''Saʿăḏyāh ben Yōsēf al-Fayyūmī Gāʾōn''; ...
and
Jacob Qirqisani
Jacob Qirqisani (c. 890 – c. 960) ( ar, ابو یوسف یعقوب القرقسانی ''ʾAbū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb al-Qirqisānī'', he, יעקב בן יצחק הקרקסאני ''Yaʿqov ben Yiṣḥaq haṢerqesi'') was a Karaite dogmatist and exe ...
, the "Palestinian" pronunciation had come to be regarded as standard, even in Babylonia (for references, see
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 s ...
). That development roughly coincided with the popularisation of the Tiberian notation.
The accepted rules of Hebrew grammar were laid down in medieval Spain by grammarians such as
Judah ben David Hayyuj Judah ben David Hayyuj (Hebrew: ר׳ יְהוּדָה בֶּן דָּוִד חַיּוּג׳ Arabic: أبو زكريا يحيى بن داؤد حيوج Abu Zakariyya Yahya ibn Dawūd Hayyūj) was a Moroccan Jewish linguist. He is regarded as the fath ...
and
Jonah ibn Janah
Jonah ibn Janah or ibn Janach, born Abu al-Walīd Marwān ibn Janāḥ ( ar, أبو الوليد مروان بن جناح, or Marwan ibn Ganaḥ Hebrew: ), (), was a Jewish rabbi, physician and Hebrew grammarian active in Al-Andalus, or Islamic ...
and later restated in a modified form by the
Kimhi family; the current Sephardic pronunciation largely reflects the system that it laid down. By then, the Tiberian notation was universally used though it was not always reflected in pronunciation. The Spanish grammarians accepted the rules laid down by the Tiberian Masoretes, with the following variations:
#The traditional Sephardic pronunciation of the vowels (inherited, as it seems, from the old Palestinian system) was perpetuated. Their failure to fit the Tiberian notation was rationalised by the theory that the distinctions between Tiberian symbols represented differences of length rather than quality: ''pataẖ'' was short ''a'', ''qamats'' was long ''a'', ''segol'' was short ''e'' and ''tsere'' was long ''e''.
#The theory of long and short vowels was also used to adapt Hebrew to the rules of Arabic poetic meter. For example, in Arabic (and Persian) poetry, when a long vowel occurs in a closed syllable an extra (short) syllable is treated as present for metrical purposes but is not represented in pronunciation. Similarly in Sephardic Hebrew a ''shewa'' after a syllable with a long vowel is invariably treated as vocal. (In Tiberian Hebrew, that is true only when the long vowel is marked with a ''meteg''.)
There are further differences:
*Sephardim now pronounce ''shewa na'' as in all positions, but the older rules (as in the Tiberian system) were more complicated.
[The older rules are still reflected in later Sephardic grammatical works such as ]Solomon Almoli Solomon ben Jacob Almoli (before 1485 – after 1542) was a rabbi, physician and Hebrew author of the sixteenth century; lived in the Ottoman Empire, probably in Constantinople. As a physician he seems to have enjoyed quite a reputation, but he is b ...
's ''Halichot Sheva'' and in the pronunciation of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the i ...
of Amsterdam. In Oriental communities, such as the Syrian Jews
Syrian Jews ( he, יהודי סוריה ''Yehudey Surya'', ar, الْيَهُود السُّورِيُّون ''al-Yahūd as-Sūriyyūn'', colloquially called SYs in the United States) are Jews who lived in the region of the modern state of Syri ...
, those rules continued to be recorded by grammarians into the 1900s (Sethon, Menasheh, ''Kelale diqduq ha-qeriah'', Aleppo 1914), but they were not normally reflected in actual pronunciation.
*''Resh'' is invariably pronounced by Sephardim as a "front" alveolar trill; in the Tiberian system, the pronunciation appears to have varied with the context and so it was treated as a letter with a double (sometimes triple) pronunciation.
In brief, Sephardi Hebrew appears to be a descendant of the Palestinian tradition, partially adapted to accommodate the Tiberian notation and further influenced by the pronunciation of Arabic, Spanish and Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino).
Influence on Israeli Hebrew
When
Eliezer ben Yehuda
Eliezer Ben‑Yehuda ( he, אֱלִיעֶזֶר בֵּן־יְהוּדָה}; ; born Eliezer Yitzhak Perlman, 7 January 1858 – 16 December 1922) was a Russian–Jewish linguist, grammarian, and journalist, renowned as the lexicographer of ...
drafted his
Standard 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 ...
, he based it on Sephardi Hebrew, both because this was the ''de facto'' spoken form as a
lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
in the land of Israel and because he believed it to be the most beautiful of the Hebrew dialects. However, the phonology of Modern Hebrew is in some respects constrained to that of
Ashkenazi Hebrew
Ashkenazi Hebrew ( he, הגייה אשכנזית, Hagiyya Ashkenazit, yi, אַשכּנזישע הבֿרה, Ashkenazishe Havara) is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for Jewish liturgical use and Torah study by Ashk ...
, including the elimination of
pharyngeal articulation and the conversion of from an
alveolar tap Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit.
Uses in anatomy and zoology
* Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs
** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte
** Alveolar duct
** Alveolar macrophage
* M ...
to a
voiced uvular fricative
The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , an inverted small uppercase letter , or in broad transcription if rhot ...
, though this latter sound was rare in Ashkenazi Hebrew, in which uvular realizations were more commonly a trill or tap, and in which alveolar trills or taps were also common.
Endnotes
References
*
Almoli, Solomon, ''Halichot Sheva'': Constantinople 1519
*
Kahle, Paul, ''Masoreten des Ostens: Die Altesten Punktierten Handschriften des Alten Testaments und der Targume'': 1913, repr. 1966
* Kahle, Paul, ''Masoreten des Westens'': 1927, repr. 1967 and 2005
* S. Morag, 'Pronunciations of Hebrew', Encyclopaedia Judaica XIII, 1120–1145
*
* Zimmels, ''Ashkenazim and Sephardim: their Relations, Differences, and Problems As Reflected in the Rabbinical Responsa'' : London 1958 (since reprinted).
{{Sephardi Jews topics
Hebrew
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 ...
Hebrew words and phrases
Sephardi Jews topics