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b-hebrew - [b-hebrew] Re: Phonetics of Ayin

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  • From: Ratson Naharadama <yahoo-arch AT heplist.com>
  • To: Mark Spitsbergen <awakesd AT mac.com>, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Re: Phonetics of Ayin
  • Date: Fri, 29 May 2009 08:25:51 -0600

I'll try to be brief but get as much info stuffed in here as possible, while keeping it as non-technical as possible. This is why come of the explanations may not be as detailed and explained as they should be. Feel free to ask for clarifications if the need arises.

Just as the `Arabic Khaa (h(aa = ?) is the fricative version of the K sound, `Arabic ghayin (g.ayin = ?) is the fricative version of the G sound (G sound as in the word "goat"). Further, K is the unvoiced version (the vocal cords are not used to make the sound) of the voiced G sound (the vocal cords are used to make the sound), the `Arabic Khaa is the unvoiced version of Ghayin (all 4 sounds are articulated from the same spot in the mouth).

Another example of this sound relationship between letters is the more English familiar T, D, TH (the TH sound of "thin" and "think"), and DH (the TH sound of "mother" and "that"). T and TH are both unvoiced while D and DH are voiced. TH and DH are fricative while T and D are stops/plosives. All 4 of these sounds are pronounced from the same location in the mouth, they differ in whether they are voiced or not, or whether the tongue completely or only partially stops air flow at the spot of articulation.

The Ghayin sound is often spelled in English orthography using the letter combination GH. In more scholarly books, it will be spelled with a G with a dot above (G.). If this is not available in their font, the G. will be replaced by a G with an acute above (G'). Hopefully, if you are using a Unicode font in your email viewer, these examples are viewable, otherwise you may be seeing boxes, or question marks (or some other odd placeholder) for the letter examples.

The sound of Ghayin is like the sound of KH (as said before, pronounced at the same place as K), but let the vocal cords vibrate as the air passes them. This will make the KH sound take on a G-like sound. If you have taken French, and know how to pronounce a uvular-R (gutteral-R), that sound will sound similar to the Ghayin sound (if you were to move the point of articulation forward --- off the uvula and onto the soft palate where G and K are pronounced --- you would get the Ghayin sound).

When an ear which is not familiar with the Ghayin hears that sound, that person brain tries to associate it with whatever familiar it is closest to. For most English ears, that sound is G. For Greeks, the same thing is true, it sounds like a G to them, even though it is not. Both the places Baghdad and Gaza have a Ghayin in them, but because of this unfamiliar-sound-association, the Ghayin sound got assigned a G sound when brought into our language.

Something similar to the above happens when an ear unfamiliar with the PH sound hears it uttered. For the English speaking ears, the PH is either interpreted as an F sound, or as a P sound.

Hebrew began with a Ghayin sound. When Hebrew used the old 22 letter alphabet (not the current aramaic square one), some letters (just as in the "English" alphabet) pulled double duty: Shin was used for both Th (as in "thin") and Sh (however, the letter shape actually was that for thad, not shin which looked like a delta with wings); Chet was used for both Hh (a throaty H-like sound) and Ch (similar sound to Kh, but not the same); Tsadi for Ts and Tz; `Ayin for Ayin (a voiced pharyngeal sound whose only real English equivalent is the way some people pronounce the slang "aiight" and vowel-initial words in certain contexts in country music singing) and Ghayin (the old hebrew alphabet uses the shape of Ayin, but the current aramaic square alphabet uses the shape for Ghayin); Zayin for Z and DH (the th of "that"). There is no strong evidence showing whether Hebrew ever had a Daad sound (D. = ? ) like Arabic has --- the possibility exists, but more research continues by some.

Over time, several of the sounds in Hebrew started to fall out. A biblical reference to this is the Shibbolet story. At this point in Hebrew history, the TH (the second sound of the Shin letter) was falling out of the language and was becoming replaced by the S sound (which was carried on the Samek letter). Eventually, TH fell out completely and Shin now carries the SH sound and a redundant S sound. Arabic, on the other hand, maintained the TH in the language and words that are spelled with Sin (the modern S sound of Shin) are spelled with Thaa in Arabic. One of the big unfluences to accelerate the loss of these Hebrew sounds was the growing adoption of Aramaic (or, rather, the Isra'elite version of Aramaic). However, by the time of the Septuagint, Ayin and Ghayin sounds were both being carried by one letter, and Gaza and Gomorrah were examples of two words (actually, place-names) where the letter was pronounced as Ghayin. The closest thing that could be put down with the Greek alphabet was gamma (a G letter), so Hebrew words (mainly names) that contained a Ghayin sound were written down with Gamma, and those that contained the Ayin were written down without a letter (there was no clear enough Greek replacement letter).

In Samaritan pronunciations, sounds have degraded much more. There are many redundant sounds and lost sounds. All sounds lost in Jewish Hebrew are gone in Samaritan Hebrew. H, Ch, and Hh are gone from pronunciation. Beyt and Waw are both pronounced B. Samaritan Hebrew also lacks the fricative duality of the BGDKPT letters. Letters that have dagesh in Jewish Hebrew are doubled consonants in Samaritan (doubling --- or gemination --- is a feature of most semitic languages which changes the meaning of the word). The BGDKPT letters in the old Hebrew language were always B, G, D, K, P, and T sounds (respectively) and only began to have their fricative counterparts after Babylonian exile and the Aramaic language began to be used. It was also after the exile that the aramaic square alphabet was adopted (originally in the imperial aramaic form).

--
Ratson Naharädama
Denver, Colorado




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