Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 7/1/06, Chris and Nel wrote:

> I understand that the Yemenite Jews pronounce the UnDageshed Dalet as a soft
> 'th' as in English; that they pronounce the Dageshed Gimmel as in English
> 'George' and the 'Vav' as 'wor' (ie not as a hard 'V' when a consonant),
> they also pronounce the UnDageshed Tav also like 'th' in English so to
> speak.

The following is from the Cambridge Enc. of World's Ancient Languages, on
Hebrew: "At some point in the development of Tiberian Hebrew, the six
nonemphatic stops, /b/, /p/,/d/, /t/, /g/ and /k/ acquired a second, 
continuant
realization, giving rise to six fricative allophones, [v], [f], [dh],
[th], [gh] ..., and
[x] ... These forms arose as subphonemic or phonetic variants, originally
restricted to nongeminated consonants in postvocalic positions.  This
development, which was shared by and probably influenced by Aramaic, is
widely assumed to have taken place in the second half of the first century
BC, but its precise chronology is unknown.  The fricative allophones are fully
represented in the Tiberian Masora, and there is evidence for their presence
in the time of Rabbinic Hebrew, but their existence before the Common Era
is not unambiguously documented."  (by P. Kyle McCarter, Jr. -- the original
uses precise IPA notation).

The following is by Gary Rendsburg, in "Phonologies of Asia and Africa" on
Ancient Hebrew Phonology: "At some point in ancient Hebrew, the six non-
emphatic plosives ... developed a two-fold realization.  ... Exactly when the
fricativization of the non-emphatic plosives in post-vocalic position occurred
cannot be determined.  According to one theory, it is due to Hurrian
influence, in which case it must have occurred quite early (ca 1000 BCE?).
However, most scholars date the fricativization of the non-emphatic plosives
in post-vocalic position to a later period, say, ca 400 BCE, perhaps under
Aramaic influence. ... Clearly, these sounds were pronounced by all (?) Jews
ca. 850 CE when the Tiberian system of the Masorah was developed.  In
time, however, the ability to pronounce some of these sounds was lost by
various Jewish communities, especially those in Europe.  ... Among
most European Jews, however, [th] was realized as [s] [and as for] [gh]
and [dh], fricativization disappeared and /g/ and /d/ were pronounced as [g]
and [d] in all environments.  On the other hand, Jews in Arab lands retained
most if not all of the fricativized allophones into the 20th century.  The 
Jews
of Yemen are an example of a community whose pronunciation of Hebrew
included the proper realization of all six allophones."

I think there are some reasons to suppose that at least [k] developed the
sound [kh] during Persian times due to records of transliterations of Persian
names.

> My question surrounds the only comment that I read, (without any fuller
> explanation dissappointingly), and that was QUOTE"....this is an ancient,
> correct and pure pronounciation". As confirmed by other eminent Jewish
> scholars.  My problem is threefold:
>
> 1. Historical sources are conflicting in saying either that the yemenite
> jews were in this region beginning with Solomon, that they came just before
> Ezra, that they arrived in 200 AD? If any of these are correct that would
> mean that the masoretes were well aware of their pronounciation?

It's not clear from the above what you mean.  Yemenite Jews were in which
region?  In general, though, the idea is not that Yemenites had a special
pronunciation that Masoretes knew about, but rather that the Yemenites
preserved most faithfully the pronunciation used originally by all Jews
(whether this idea is correct or not).

> 2. IF this is a correct and pure pronounciation, how are these scholars able
> to establish this?

As you may understand from the above, the earliest clear evidence for the
differences of pronunciation of the bgdkpt letters stems from the time of
the Massoretes, in the later 1st millenium CE.  However, an interesting fact
is that not only the Tiberian system of Massoretic marks but also the
Babylonian system, the Israeli ("Palestinian") system, and even a Samaritan
system all have methods of marking soft (rafe) as well as hard (dagesh) 
letters
(although it's the soft markings that are significant) which implies
that all of them
realized these letters in two ways.  This suggests that the 
double-pronunciation
of those laters is much more ancient than 850 CE.

> 3. IF number two is true.......Why is the biblical hebrew pronounced
> differently as regards the aforementioned letters?

I don't understand the question.

Yitzhak Sapir
http://toldot.blogspot.com