Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

On 1/5/07, Dr. Joel M. Hoffman wrote:

> 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?)

This is meant to be "bought" as described in http://dictionary.com
and its pronunciation guide.

> 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.

Compare Ibn Ezra's Tsaxut which states:
And the noted scholar (Hayyuj) said that the Tiberians would read the
mobile schewa if a yod follows, with the vowel of hiriq as in יֶחְזְיָהוּ
(yɛxziyɔhu) יִרְמְיָהוּ  (yirmiyɔhu) and the schewa which is followed by a big
qamats (ie, qamats) as in בְּרָכָה שְׁמָרִים as a hataf patax
(=barɔkɔ, $amɔrim)
that is, a schewa with a patax, and if after the mobile schewa there is one
of the letters alef,het,het,ayin which are the guttural letters, the schewa is
always as the vowel which follows such as (2 Kings 10:10) דְעוּ אפוא the
dalet is to be read as a shuruq ("du(u") and in the word דְּעִי as if
it is with
a hiriq ("di(i") and in דְּעֶה as if it is with a small patax (ie, segol).

Hayyuj's rules are as follows:
1) a schewa before a guttural alef, het, he, ayin is as the guttural
2) a schewa before a guttural with a qamats is as a patax
3) a schewa before a yod is like a hiriq
4) all the rest the schewa is as a patax
5) before the plural of a qutl segholate (such as, qodɛ$), the schewa is
like a qamats.

Looks like very explicit evidence for me.  And there's more where that
came from (ie, the actual writings of the Massoretes).

> 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.

I direct you to Nehemia Aloni's "na(im venaxim biyme habenayim" (Vocal
and Silent Schewas in the Middle Ages), in Leshonenu 12, p. 61-74 in
Hebrew on this issue.

> 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.

First of all, there is a dropped -n- here, but the fact is that the
Massoretes in this specific case pronounced it with a helping vowel
("ɛ$tayim").  In cases where the word "two" has a pashta and no
preceding conjunctive cantillation mark, depending on the
pronounciation of the helping vowel.  Massoretes who used a full
vowel placed a pashta on the second syllable, while those who
pronounced it as a short vowel stressed the word on the first
syllable and so the pashta became a yetiv.  Ben Asher had the
yetiv placed before the schewa but Ben Naftali placed it
afterwards.  See for example Ez 1:11 in the HUB for examples of
variants.  (The above is taken from Yeivin's Introduction to the
Tiberian Massorah).

In any case, I did not bring up this issue because he is a
beginner.  Otherwise, I could have gone on to discuss split
vowels and all kinds of fancy stuff.

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

No, they reflect the Massoretic system as described by the Massoretes
themselves and the early scholars who understood their system.

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

Right.  If your philosophy is to pronounce it right, and you have
the Tiberian marks in front of you, use the Tiberian system as I described
concisely above.

> I do have a reading list:
>
>   http://www.exc.com/JoelHoffman/ReadingList.html
>
> if you really want to make a project out of this.

And the following is my reading list:

Israel Yeivin, An Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah, ed. and
trans. E.J. Revell

and also the following articles by Geoffrey Khan:

'Tiberian Hebrew phonology', in A. S. Kaye (ed.), Phonologies of Asia
and Africa, Eisenbrauns, 1997, 85-102.
'The Tiberian pronunciation tradition of Biblical Hebrew' Zeitschrift
für AltHebraistik IX (1996), 1-23
(The above is basically the same as 'Tiberian Hebrew Phonology',
although it complements it in some ways).
'The pronunciation of resh in the Tiberian tradition of Biblical Hebrew',
Hebrew Union College Annual LXVI (1995), 67-80.

The following are more involved articles:
'Vowel length and syllable structure in the Tiberian tradition of Biblical
Hebrew' Journal of Semitic Studies XXXII/1 (1987), 23-82.
'The syllabic nature of Tiberian Hebrew vocalization' in A. S. Kaye
ed., Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau I, Wiesbaden , 1991,
850-865.

Yitzhak Sapir