Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Vadim Cherny <him AT vadimcherny.org>]

Hebrew certainly has the features of place-sensitive phonetics: the 
sophits. They are written differently because they were pronounced 
differently in the word-end position. Clearly, pronouncing final m, n, c 
is not an easy job.

Vadim Cherny

David Kolinsky wrote:
> With regard to the softened Gimmel - My wife is from Mexico city and has the most 
> difficult time pronouncing a final G - dog and fog (and other words) are invariably dogh 
> and fogh and not doj or foj.  It seems to me that this is also consistent with the other 
> letters that become softened in Hebrew at the end of a syllable after a vowel - Beth > 
> Bhet (not Vet), Dalet > Dhalet, Kaph > Khaph (being different from the 
> pronunciation of either Chet), Peh > Pheh, and Tabh to Thabh.  The plossive nature of 
> the letter is simply turned into a fricative and slightly lenthened and not wholly 
> shifted in the mouth as a different point of articulation.  This of course could be 
> entirely wrong - shifts obviously do occur (for whatever reason).  But it seems rather 
> logical to me that the reason here has to do with accents and emphasis - meaning that the 
> way that Hebrew was spoken, not unlike Mexican Spanish, made it difficult, uncomfortable 
> or unnatural to make
>  these letters plossive in this position.  Perhaps the emphasis is shifted 
> backward?
>  
> With regard to the Ayin / Gayin -  I believe (personal opinion as above) that these are two different letters (even though the Gayin developed from the Ayin) using the same marker.  Because as I understand it, at the time that the Hebrew alphabet was developing, the sister language from which it borrowed its alphabet was limited to the 22 letters (of our current Hebrew) and rather than adding 7 more letters for a full semitic compliment, they simply used what was available (Hebrew probably didn't need 7 anyway - probably just 2 additional for a soft Chet and hard Chet and Ayin - Gayin).  As for the pronunciation - Ayin is a fricative gag that doesn't hurt - Gayin a gag that for us hurts because it is plossive in nature.
>  
> Curious to know what you think,
>  
> David Kolinsky
>