In the Hebrew language, "There are, generally speaking, two main
pronunciations: the Ashkenazi, or German, originated by central and Eastern
European Jews and carried to all countries to which those Jews have
emigrated (Western Europe, America, etc.); and the Sephardi, or Spanish,
used by Jews of Spanish or Portuguese stock in Europe and America and also
by Jews from Oriental countries. In all universities and throughout Israel,
the Sephardi pronunciation has been adopted, since it is generally believed
that this is the pronunciation nearest to the original." (Biblical Hebrew
Step by Step, vol. 1, p 33, by Professor emeritus of Hebrew and Semitic
studies, Menahem Mansoor).
It is a well known fact, that the Ashkenazi Jews had changed the
pronunciation of the jod to that of the "y" sound. However, the Sephardic
Jews have kept the original pronunciation of the jod as "j."
The first symbol representing both the "i" and "j" came into use around the
beginning of the 9th century C.E. In the late 11th century C.E. brought to
Saxon, England. Therefore, the first symbol representing the "j" sound was
in England 500 years before William Tyndale. Early in the 13th century the
lower case "j" was formed by adding a curl to the bottom of the small "i."
However, the Capital "J" would have to wait until the end of the 16th
century or the beginning of the 17th century. Thus, The capital "I" was
still used for the "J" sound when before a vowel.
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