Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yakov Hadash <yakov.hadash AT gmail.com>]

Hi everyone. Sorry if this question has been discussed many times or  
if everyone already knows the answer already but this is something  
I've been wondering about for YEARS and I think you guys probably  
know the answer...

Two transliteration things I see a lot are:
-Taf without a dagesh transliterated as "TH" as in "B'nai BriTH,"  
"Temple BeTH Shalom" - I see this most often in names of older Jewish  
organizations
-Bet without a dagesh transliterated as "B" as in "JacoB" (for my  
name) - I see this a lot in "scholarly" and non-Jewish contexts

I've spent my whole life going to synagogues around the world as well  
as speaking Modern Hebrew and I've never encountered anyone who  
actually pronounces Hebrew this way ("...mekadesh eTH haShabbat?"  
"Haaretz hayita tohu vaBohu?) so where does this transliteration come  
from? Is there someone, somewhere, who actually would say "tohu  
vabohu" or lisp his soft tafs?

THANK YOU,
Yakov Hadash.
> From yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com  Fri Jun 13 11:26:18 2008
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Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:26:17 +0000
From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] "th" and "b"
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On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 2:54 PM, Yakov Hadash wrote:
> Hi everyone. Sorry if this question has been discussed many times or
> if everyone already knows the answer already but this is something
> I've been wondering about for YEARS and I think you guys probably
> know the answer...
>
> Two transliteration things I see a lot are:
> -Taf without a dagesh transliterated as "TH" as in "B'nai BriTH,"
> "Temple BeTH Shalom" - I see this most often in names of older Jewish
> organizations
> -Bet without a dagesh transliterated as "B" as in "JacoB" (for my
> name) - I see this a lot in "scholarly" and non-Jewish contexts

Masoretic pronunciation is:
taw - with dagesh: aspirated t, without: th as in thin
beth - with dagesh: (possibly aspirated) b, without: v

Yemenite (and perhaps other) communities still pronounce the th.
In Ashkenazi pronunciation, this became th > s.
The transliteration you often see is based on evolved conventions.
For example, "Jacob" is based on the Greek/Old Latin spelling which
did not have a "v" or aspiration.  On the other hand, "Beth" is based
on an attempted reconstruction of the Masoretic pronunciation as it
was understood a few generations back.  The same goes for "Bnai"
even though the "y" is silent in "bne".

Yitzhak Sapir