Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

Joel,

1. Your advice: "pronounce the schewa only when you have to" is good,  
except that in my opinion you never have to, and that Hebrew sounds  
better without it. A little bit of vocal discipline goes a long way  
towards producing a crisper language. Whenever you feel the necessity  
to enter an E insert instead a tiny gap. Thus, I read what you mark  
as hal'lu as HAL[ ]LU not HAL[E]LU. I also resist the pull of the  
initial Schwaic L, M, N, R, Y for an added E. Thus I read in Psalms  
23:5 R[ ]VAYAH not R[E]VAYAH, as one commonly hears. Likewise it is B 
[ ])ER, 'well', not B[E]ER, also B[ ](ERAH, 'conflagration', not B[E] 
(ERAH, also T[ ])ENAH, 'fig', not T[E])ENAH, also B[ ](ULAH,  
'married', not B[E](ULAH, which sounds like BE-(ULAH, 'in her yoke'.
2. As I said earlier I willingly pronounce, with the rest of the  
nation of Israel, all initial non-radical V-, B-, K-, L-, M- as VE-,  
BE, KE, LE, ME-. Thus I read VET of Genesis 1:1 as VE-ET. But  
otherwise, with an initial radical V, it is VLADOT, 'new born'.
3. In spoken Hebrew Alef and Ayin are not stops anymore and Schwaic  
Alef or Ayin are realized now as the previous vowel. Thus NE)DAR,  
'sublime, supreme, magnificent, awesome' of Exodus 15:11 is  
pronounced now NE[E]DAR to provide a clumsy hint that the word is  
from the root )DR, but even here I would pronounce it NE[ ]DAR.  
Similarly, BMA(GLEI, 'in circles, in paths' of Psalms 23:3 is  
pronounced B[E]MA[A]GLEI, but even here I would prefer B[E]MA[ ]GLEI.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Sep 3, 2007, at 10:43 AM, joel AT exc.com wrote:

> > I have noted a number of theoretical posts on shewa, but have rarely
> > found any concrete guidance, the form of which a student can take and
>
> For practical purposes, the single rule, "pronounce the schewa only
> when you have to" works very well.  In a context like YIKh'TOV, people
> will naturally not pronounce the schewa, while in contexts like
> "hal'lu," they will tend to pronounce it.
>
> Similarly, transliterating every schewa with an aprostrophe will give
> useful guidance to those trying to pronounce Hebrew.
>
> -Joel
>
> Joel M. Hoffman, PhD
> http://www.lashon.net/JMH
> http://caje33.lashon.net
>
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