Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jason Hare <jaihare AT gmail.com>]

Isaac,

A very clear difference between XfG|GfH and MacCoots is that /g/ is 
vocal while /k/ is not. In order to pronounce two /k/ sounds distinctly 
side-by-side, you have to completely stop the first (which ends in 
silence) before beginning the second. The same is not the case with 
vocal consonants. The vibration of the vocal cords in the /g/ sound 
creates a small /ə/ vowel before the next consonant. I can hear it; 
James can hear it; Michael can hear it. I think it's a natural sound. I 
think you hear it, but you have not identified it in the same way that 
we have. This is why James says that it's impossible to pronounce /b/ 
without a vowel. /b/ is a voiced phoneme, so it cannot be pronounced 
without moving the vocal chords and pushing out air (which is the very 
thing that creates a vowel). With unvoiced consonants (e.g., /p/ /k/ 
/f/), I can agree with you that there is no /ə/ sound at all. The same 
may be true of combinations of liquids or combinations of voiced and 
unvoiced consonants. I haven't thought about it sufficiently to put 
forward an opinion in this way. However, it is clear that there is a 
vowel sound that *must* exist between the cluster בג in בגדים, and this 
sound is *represented* as /ə/. It is simply the push of air required to 
sound the vocal cords and transition between the /b/ and the /d/.

The same vibration is not necessary for the word כביסה, so the consonant 
cluster is intact: /kvi.'sa/. Do you not feel this at all?

Jason Hare
Rishon Lezion, Israel

Isaac Fried wrote:
> James and Michael,
>
> Thanks for the advice. But the question is not articulating the /ə/  
> but just hearing it. Even listening on a good talking dictionary I  
> hear nothing in 'pencil' but pensl. Possibly 's' leaves a faint,  
> barely audible, trail, and 'l' a similar initial faint burst.  
> Possibly it is indeed "the shortest and quickest to pronounce vowel  
> available to the human vocal system", I just do not hear it, and  
> certainly am not going to deliberately attempt it. In any event, I am  
> not interested in the nano-phonetics of micro-second gaps and milli- 
> decibel sighs. The sound-laboratory science of the ephemerally  
> sonant /ə/ looks to me esoteric and irrelevant to the issue at hand.  
> As I said, when a present-day Hebrew speaker "moves" a schwa he does  
> it forcefully and to the fullest extent of the vowel. The bottom line  
> is that there is in my opinion no such thing as a vocal schwa in  
> Hebrew. I think Hebrew sounds crisper and more esthetic without the  
> extra schwa "NA" E's. I have never encountered an instance where a  
> word is unpronounceable without resorting to a schwa mobile.
> I think it is so:
> 1. The nakdanim placed the schwas to avoid vacancies and block  
> thereby latter unauthorized additions.
> 2. The meaning of the word schwa appears to me to refer to the fact  
> that the sign is vertical, NICAB, in contrast with the tsere that is  
> SARU(A, 'spread out'. I can hardly believe the often heard claim that  
> the name schwa refers to 'nothing'.
> 3. The schwa is to be pronounced as the word $WA itself is  
> pronounced, with $ abutting W.
> 4. Occasionally a thin cleavage is helpful, but never an E. Thus, it  
> should be XAG[ ]GAH, '[she] celebrated', not XAG[E]GAH. If I am not  
> mistaken the English pronounce MacCoots as Mac[ ]Coots, not Mac[E]Coots.
>
> Isaac Fried, Boston University