Biblical Hebrew Forum

[joel AT exc.com]

>And this:
>> - in some environments (yeshobhebh), the aspirated versions are nearly
>> unpronounceable.
>
>By no means it is. At least not for a German native speaker ;-)

More generally, it's almost always a mistake to use one's native
language to figure out what's "easy" or "hard" to pronounce in another.

Research on German shows that native speakers can easily pronounce
four constants at the end of a word --- "du peitschst," "you whip" ---
and can do five if they try --- "du peitschst's," "you whip it."
(Sorry for the violent examples.  They're from the original research.)
Americans have trouble when they get to four, as in "sixth's."

English piles up consonants at the front of a word, allowing "str..."
and "st..." and "shr...," but not "sr...." (Modern) Greek and (modern)
Hebrew allow even more possibilities.  Most of these patterns are
impossible for Spanish speakers to pronounce.

And so forth.

We don't know what ancient spekers of Hebrew were and weren't able to
pronounce.

-Joel

Joel M. Hoffman, PhD
http://www.lashon.net

Author of And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning
http://www.AndGodSaid.com