Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Trevor Peterson <06PETERSON AT cua.edu>]

It does take a lot of getting used to. I had an especially hard time with 
Ayin 
until I could actually interact with someone who knew how to use it. (In a 
lot 
of my early training, we either didn't make the distinction or simply 
pronounced it as an aleph with more force.) I've already explained het in 
another message, and ayin is just the voiced counterpart. So once you get the 
constriction of het, you should just be able to use your vocal cords and make 
an ayin without much problem.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics

>===== Original Message From "Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu> =====
>Dear Uri,
>I did study Arabic for about two months
>on my own with a tape. I understood from
>that course that all these letters should be
>pronounced differently, including the
>aleph and the ayin, which has not yet been mentioned.
>I could not for the life of me hear the
>difference between the members of these pairs,
>and finally gave up. Is there any hope or is it
>a lost cause?
>Liz
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: uri hurwitz [mailto:uhurwitz AT yahoo.com]
>> Sent: Fri, December 21, 2001 11:32 AM
>> To: Biblical Hebrew
>> Subject: RE: etter names
>>
>>
>>
>>      Liz, re your question," do you distinguish tet from tav" Of course
>> one should, since these are totally different letters in all Semitic
>> languages. The distinction is lost among  modern Heb. speakers, even among
>>  most of Non= Ashkenzi origin speakers.
>>      The tet is one of the emphatics, the others being  sad and dad, to
>> use their Arabic names; of the latter, the sad is the bib. Heb. Tsadi; the
>> dad was lost already in bib. Heb. where it appears as a Tsadi (in Early
>> Aram. as Q,in later Aram as ayin).
>>      The kof ,scholarly transliterated as Q, is also a totally different
>> letter from Kaf., and should be pronounced differently.
>>                  Uri
>>
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>
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