Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

> Just how do you pronounce Ieoua, iahu, iehu, etc.

Perhaps, Joe, I might try with an IPA (International Phonetic Association)
approach:

/je'owa/  (where the apostrophe here represents a stress
           in the following syllable);

/'ja:hu/

/'je:hu/


A syllabic initial "i" followed by other vowels is usually a velar glide in
the orthography of those languages that don't have a specific letter for it,
as in Italian. The users often don't realise that it is a consonant, though
they invariably produce one. English people usually use a "y" as in "yacht",
but even that can be a vowel as in "syzygy". The same logic is true for the
"u" in Ieoua, which is a bilabial glide and would be a "w" in English
orthography.


Ian

(This is an example of where a syllabic initial "i" followed by other vowels
is not a velar glide. It gets pronounced /@j@n/ by some Australians, where
the @ is a schwa, rather than /ij@n/.)