Biblical Hebrew Forum

["R. Hoberman" <rdhoberman AT ccmail.sunysb.edu>]

Saenz-Badillos's statement which Alfred Silberman quoted,"This range of
vowels with its clear distinction between pathah and qames and sere and
segol has not been preserved in any contemporary pronunciation of Hebrew"
(A History of the Hebrew Language, p. 111) certainly looks at first glance
like a glaring blunder.  

However, a more careful look seems to indicate that Saenz-Badillos both
knew the facts and had something in mind.  On p. 282 he discusses modern
Ashkenazic pronunciation and correctly points out that the holem is
pronounced in different regions of Ashkenaz as ey, oy, aw, or ow.  None of
these matches his description of the Tiberian pronunciation on p. 111; the
difference is between a monophthong o (as in German hoch)  versus a
diphthong ey, oy, aw, or ow (as in English go).  Similarly he correctly
describes qames as o or u, tsere as ey or ay, in all cases different from
the qames as open o (like English call) or tsere as monophthongal e (like
German zehn).  If I understand Saenz-Badillos correctly, he's thinking of
the phonetic differences between the way he (and most scholars) believe
Tiberian pronunciation to have been and the various modern Ashkenazic
pronunciation.  No modern pronunciation has seven so-called "pure," 
monophthongal vowels. 

Silberman writes:
> What I would like to know is how such a false statement gets into a history
> of the Hebrew language. I and all of Central European Jewry still use the
> Tiberian pronunciation that the author states does not exist today.
> 
> How am I supposed to give any credence to claimed descriptions of Hebrew
> pronunciation of three thousand years ago when today's pronunciation is
> unknown to these researchers?

So: the statment as intended was probably not false, the facts were not
unknown (and who are "these researchers", plural?), and, neither Silberman
nor anyone else in modern times uses the Tiberian pronunciation in precise
detail.  Who wasn't accurate?

I would agree with Alfred Silberman that the most important facts are that
the number of different vowels is the same in Tiberian and Ashkenazic
pronunciation and that they correspond one-to-one.  (It could be that that
reflects a difference between a linguist like me and a philologist like
Saenz-Badillos.)  But it's clear that S-B both knew the facts (for
instance, he cites Morag's article on Hebrew pronunciation in the
Encyclopedia Judaica [on p. 282] and Morag's book The Vocalization Systems
of Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic, both of which cover all the essential
details) and meant something sensible in his description of them. 

I can't figure out just what Silberman is objecting to in his next
statement:

> By the same token I find it incredible that there are linguists who are
> still trying to square Tiberian pronunciation with Sephardi tradition or
> Sephardi descriptions of their pronunciation. That amounts to trying to put
> a square peg in a round hole.

Traditional Hebrew grammar textbooks do still say things like that "long" 
qames is to be pronounced a and "short" qames like o, which certainly is
trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. They are reproducing a docrine
that goes back to David Kimhi.  I doubt that any linguist for the past 50
or 100 years has thought of that as a coherent description as it stands. 
(For a more nuanced, knowledgeable and incredibly thoroughgoing version of
this Silberman might look at Malone's book Tiberian Hebrew Phonology.) 
Clearly, there were historical correspondences between Tiberian and
Sephardi pronunciations; what's wrong with trying to figure them out?

Robert Hoberman
robert.hoberman AT sunsyb.edu