Biblical Hebrew Forum

["YODAN" <yodanco AT yodanco.com>]

The issue of Hebrew "authenticity" is an interesting one, but I feel that
it's futile to search for "authentic Hebrew" there isn't evidence going back
far enough to know for sure, so some are facts, some are opinions.  The
documents that provide us with solid clues about the pronunciations are, as
Joel pointed out, only 1100 old and are of  There may be a few older
documents, but there isn't enough out there to know what is the most
"authentic" Hebrew. Furthermore, the issue is also politicized. 

 

We can have some ideas on how the Masoretes (i.e. Tiberians) pronounced
Hebrew (or at least if they differentiated between certain consonants and
between certain vowels) based on their manuscripts (the Leningrad Codex and
the Aleppo Codex).  But we have to remember that even in the Masoretic era
there were other pronunciations, most known are the Babylonian (Jewish) and
the Eretz-Israeli (Jewish) pronunciations, each of which had it's own vowel
system.  Although the Masoretic vowel/punctuation system is the one that has
been accepted by all, their pronunciation has not (at least not de facto).
The Yemenite pronunciation is considered to be more closely resembling the
Babylonian pronunciation whereas the Sephardi Hebrew stems from the
Eretz-Israeli (not the Tiberian) pronunciation.  

 

Furthermore, the conventional wisdom is that Sephardi Hebrew is more
authentic than Ashkenazi Hebrew.  This is an inaccurate statement, at least
as far as pronouncing Biblical words.  For example, although spoken
Ashkenazi Hebrew is primarily a mil'el language (similar to European
languages), in Torah reading everyone - Ashkenazi or Sephardi or Yemenite or
whoever - pronounce the words with the accent as marked by the Masoretes.
Sephardi Hebrew differentiates between Aleph and Ayin, Heit and Khaf, Kamatz
Gadol and Kamatz Katan, some also pronounce VAV as wow, and there is more
care given to pronouncing Shva Na.  However, why does this make it more
authentic than Ashkenazi Hebrew that doesn't do the above but does
differentiate between Tav and Thav and between Segol and Tzeirei (which are
completely ignored in the Sephardi Hebrew)? And, BTW, the fact that Ashekazi
Hebrew doesn't differentiate between Kamatz Gadol and Kamatz Katan and
doesn't annunciate each Shva Na properly isn't so terrible - after all, the
Masoretes themselves did exactly the same!  They did not differentiate
between the two types of Kamatz (they pronounced both similarly to how
Ashkenazi Hebrew readers pronounce them - as a sort of AU or AW) and they
evidently (if you look at where they have meteg) did not pronounce all the
Shva Na that are considered to be Shva Na according to the grammatical
system that was later developed.

 

Rivka

www.YodanPublishing.com

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Dr. Joel M. Hoffman
Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 9:38 AM
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Cc: wattswestmaas AT eircom.net
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Yemenite Jews - pronounciation differences

 

>I understand that the Yemenite Jews pronounce the UnDageshed Dalet as a
soft 

>[...]

>explanation dissappointingly), and that was QUOTE"....this is an ancient, 

>correct and pure pronounciation".

 

You are entirely correct to distrust this sort of unfounded hyperbole.

 

While there is solid evidence to suggest that all six BEGED KEFET

letters had alternating pronunciations in Masoretic Hebrew (roughly

1100 years ago), there is scant evidence to push the distinction back

further.

 

There is, furthermore, no reason to think that Yemenite is more pure

or more historically authentic than other Sephardic dialects.  Rather,

Yemenite is more *Arabic* than some other dialects, and for a while it

was in vogue to suppose that Hebrew used to sound like Arabic.  (For

example, the "Yemenite Hebrew" word for "yes" is AIWA, not KEN.)

 

I go through all of the evidence about ancient Hebrew pronunciation in

my NYU book (_In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew

Language_).  Most libraries have it, and now it's available

inexpensively in paperback.

 

-Joel

 

Joel M. Hoffman, PhD

http://www.exc.com/JoelHoffman

_______________________________________________

b-hebrew mailing list

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew