Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dr. Joel M. Hoffman" <joel AT exc.com>]

>> I began learning Hebrew using 'The First Hebrew Primer' which
>> pronounces Qamets and Pathach in the same way. I then switched to a

I've been away for a while, so I hope my reply doesn't repeat what
others have said.

The issue of Hebrew pronuncation is complicated, and if you really
want to start learning about what's going on, I encourage you to read
my NYU Press book (_In the Beginning: A Short History of Hebrew_,
available from Amazon in paper) and then, if you don't believe or
don't like what you find, follow up with the references I list.

But the simple story is this.  Most Jews around the world use one of
two systems:  Israeli Hebrew, or some tradition based on Tiberian
Masoretic Hebrew.  (Israeli Hebrew is also based, less directly, on
Tiberian Masoretic Hebrew.)

At least in principle, the former is easy to investigate: go to Israel
and listen.  You will hear two standard mainstream dialects, roughly
representing the 1950's onward and the 1980's onward, and several
"non-standard" though widely accepted dialects.  You will also hear an
artificial but, in my opinion, beautiful dialect used almost
exclusively for official news broadcasts.

The former --- traditions based on Tiberian Masoretic Hebrew -- are
purely presecriptive dialects that reflect various
(mis-)understandings of the dialect of Hebrew left to us roughly 1,000
years ago by the Tiberian Masorets.  Again, I cover that material in
detail in my NYU Press book, though it's fairly widely known.  Saenz
Badillos' excellent  _History of the Hebrew Language_ goes through all
of the various Masoretic versions in great detail.

One such prescriptive version in indeed what Yitzhak Sapir provides:

>This system in short is as follows:
>qamats is pronounced like the vowel in the word 'bought'
>patach like the vowel in the word 'bat'
>holam like the vowel in the word 'boat'
>hirik like the vowel in the word 'bit'
>tsere like the vowel in the word 'bait'
>segol like the vowel in the word 'bet'
>qubuts and shuruk like the vowel in the word 'boot'

But there is little reason to think that this is an entirely accurate
representation of how people pronounced Hebrew 1,000 years ago.
(Also, is this "bought" in America in in England?)

There is less evidence for this:

>A mobile schewa is pronounced 'a' in most cases.  But when followed
>by a yod it is pronounced 'i' and when followed by alef, he, het, or ayin,
>it is pronounced with the same value as the guttural's vowel.  It is always
>short unless stressed.  hataf-qamats/patah/segol are pronounced like
>the qamats/patah/segol and are short.

And this:

>A schewa is mobile if it is at the beginning of the word, follows another
>schewa in the middle of the word (but not in the end), if it is under a
>letter that takes a dagesh hazak/forte, or if it both follows a long vowel
>and if the consonants that are separated by the schewa are the same.

while widely accepted, almost has to be wrong, because of words like
SHTAIM ("two").  The sh'va under the SHIN would have to be mobile by
these rules, but then the DAGESH in the DALED would have to drop.

These rules, and others that you may encounter, reflect modern systems
based upon the Masoretic work.

So how you pronounce Hebrew depends in large part upon what you want
to do and upon your personal philosophy.

I do have a reading list:

  http://www.exc.com/JoelHoffman/ReadingList.html

if you really want to make a project out of this.

Enjoy.

-Joel


Joel M. Hoffman, PhD
http://www.exc.com/JoelHoffman