Hebrew phonology
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Hebrew phonology must take into account that the Hebrew language has been used primarily for liturgical, literary, and scholarly purposes for most of the past two millennia. As a consequence, its pronunciation has been strongly influenced by the vernacular of each individual Jewish community. In contrast to the varied development of these pronunciations is the relatively rapid development of modern Israeli Hebrew.
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[edit] Consonants
Below are the consonants of modern General Israeli Hebrew. Some historically distinctive Hebrew phonemes have merged in modern Hebrew, such as historically distinctive /t/, /θ/, /tˤ/ (now all pronounced [t]), written respectively by the letters Tav (תּ), Ṯav (ת) and Ṭet (ט). The exact nature of the emphatic feature for emphatic consonants is a matter of debate; the most commonly suggested possibilities are pharyngealization (as in Arabic) and glottalized (as in the Ethiopian Semitic languages). For these cases, the Academy of the Hebrew Language suggests two transliteration sets, a generic one, reflecting modern phonology, and a strict one, reflecting the orthographic distinctions, which are still in use, and the historical phonology. See transliteration rules set by the Academy of the Hebrew Language.</ref>.
| Bilabial | Labio- dental |
Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ||||||
| Plosive | p b | t d | k g | ʔ | ||||
| Affricate | ts1 | tʃ dʒ | ||||||
| Fricative | f v | s z | ʃ ʒ | χ ʁ2 | ||||
| Approximant | l | j | w |
- In old Hebrew the /ts/ was emphatic. Currently, the only community of Hebrew-speakers that expresses this in speech are Yemenite Jews, whose Hebrew did not lose them, as other communities did under the influence of Yiddish and other European languages); however the emphasis led to several types of phonetic change that still exist.
- /ʁ/ is the rhotic consonant for most speakers. This was originally an alveolar trill /r/ but has changed due to the influence of European languages.
The pairs /b v/, /k x/, and /p f/, written respectively by the letters bet (ב), kaf (כ) and pe (פ) have historically been allophonic. In Modern Hebrew, however, all six sounds are phonemic, due to mergers involving formerly distinct sounds: (/v/ merging with /w/, /k/ merging with /q/, /x/ merging with /ħ/ (which both have become /χ/), loss of consonant gemination (which formerly distinguished the stop members of the pairs from the fricatives when intervocalic), and the introduction of syllable-initial /f/ through foreign borrowings.
[edit] Vowels
The Hebrew word for vowels is tnu'ot (תְּנוּעוֹת). The orthographic representations for these vowels are called Niqqud. Israeli Hebrew has 5 vowel phonemes.
| Phoneme | Example | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| /a/ | [ʔav] | אב | 'father' |
| /e/ | [ʔem] | אם | 'mother' |
| /i/ | [ʔiʃ] | איש | 'person' |
| /o/ | [ʔoʁ] | עור | 'skin' |
| /u/ | [ʔaduma] | אדומה | 'red' (f) |
[edit] Shva
The Hebrew Niqqud sign "Shva" represents four grammatical entities: resting (nakh / נָח), moving (na' / נָע), floating (merahef / מְרַחֵף) and "bleating" or "bellowing" ('ge'iya' / גְּעִיָּה). In earlier forms of Hebrew, these entities were phonologically and phonetically distinguishable. However, the phonology of Modern Hebrew has produced two phonetic variants of Shva, either [e] or mute, which no longer conform to the traditional classification, e.g. the (first) Shva Nach in the word קִמַּטְתְ (fem. you crumpled) is pronounced [e] ([kiˈmatet]) instead of being mute, whereas the Shva Na in זְמַן (time) is mute ([zman]).
[edit] Orthography
| Spelling of the Hebrew vowels | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vowel Length (historical classification) |
IPA | Transliteration | English Approximation |
||
| Long | Short | Very Short | |||
| ָ | ַ | ֲ | [a] | a | far |
| ֵ | ֶ | ֱ | [e] | e | temp |
| וֹ | ָ | ֳ | [o] | o | coke |
| וּ | ֻ | n/a | [u] | u | put |
| יִ | ִ | [i] | i | ski | |
| Note Ⅰ: | By adding two vertical dots (sh'va) ְ the vowel is historically classified as "very short". |
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| Note Ⅱ: | The short o and long a have the same niqqud. In a few versions of Israeli writings (like 'Rinat Israel'), the vertical line of the short o is lengthened so it will be easily distinguishable. |
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| Note Ⅲ: | The short o is usually promoted to a long o in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation |
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| Note Ⅳ: | The short u is usually promoted to a long u in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation |
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[edit] Stress
Hebrew has two main kinds of stress: on the last syllable (milra‘) and on the penultimate syllable (the one preceding the last, mil‘el). The former is more frequent. The stress has phonemic value, e.g. "ילד", when pronounced [ˈjeled], means "boy", whereas when pronounced [jeˈled] it means "will give birth to". Specific rules connect the location of the stress with the length of the vowels in the last syllable. However, due to the fact that Israeli Hebrew does not distinguish phonetically between long and short vowels, these rules are not evident in everyday speech. They usually cannot be inferred from written text either, since usually vowels are not marked. The rules that specify the vowel length are different for verbs and nouns, which influences the stress; thus the mil‘el-stressed ókhel ('food') and milra‘-stressed okhèl ('eats' masculine) differ only in the length of the vowels (and are written identically if vowels are not marked). Little ambiguity exists, however, due to nouns and verbs having incompatible roles in normal sentences. This is, however, also true in English, in, for example, the English word "conduct," in its nominal and verbal forms.
Biblical Hebrew had only these two stress patterns. Modern Hebrew, however, has a moderate number of words which are neither milra nor mil‘el, but are stressed on the antepenult or even further back. These are mostly borrowings, e.g. ótobus 'bus', though a handful are native Hebrew words with an added clitic, e.g. míshehu 'someone' (mi 'who' plus shehu '-ever, any').
[edit] Regional and historical variation
- Further information: Phonology of Biblical Hebrew
The following table contains the pronunciation of the Hebrew letters in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The apostrophe-looking symbol after some letters is not a yud but a geresh. It is used for loanwords with non-native Hebrew sounds and only in Israeli Hebrew. The dot in the middle of some of the letters also modifies its sounds, its called a dagesh.
-
Symbol Pronunciation Israeli Ashkenazi Sephardi Yemenite Tiberian Reconstructed Mishnaic Biblical א [ʔ] [ - ] [ʔ, -] [ʔ, -] [ʔ, -] [ʔ, -] [ʔ] בּ [b] [b] [b] [b] [b] [b] [b] ב [v] [v~v̥] [b~β~v] [β] [v] [β] ג [ɡ] [g~g̊] [ɡ] [ʤ] [ɡ] [ɡ] [ɡ] גּ [g~ɣ] [ɣ] [ɣ] [ɣ] ג׳ [ʤ] N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A ד [d] [d~d̥] [d̪~ð] [d̪] [d̪] [d̪] [d̪] דּ [d̪~ð] [ð] [ð] [ð] ד׳ [ð] N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A ה [h~ʔ, -] [h, -] [h, -] [h, -] [h, -] [h, -] [h] ו [v] [v~v̥] [v] [w] [w] [w] [w] וּ [u] [uː, iː] [uː] [ɘw] ? ? ? וֹ [o] [əʊ, ɔj, ɛj, ɐʊ] [o] [œ] ? ? ? וו) , ו׳) [w](non-standard)[1] N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A ז [z] [z~z̥] [z] [z] [z] [z] [d͡z] ז׳ [ʒ] N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A ח [χ~ħ] [x] [ħ] [ħ] [ħ] [ħ, x] [ħ, x] ט [t] [t] [t̪] [t̴̪] (1) [t̴̪] [t̪ˁ] (2) [t̪ʼ] (3) י [j] [j] [j] [j] [j] [j] [j] יִ [i] [i] [i] ? ? ? ? כּ ךּ [k] [k] [k] [k] [k] [k] [k] ך כ [χ] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] ל [l] [l~ɫ] [l] [l] [l] [l] [l] ם מ [m] [m] [m] [m] [m] [m] [m] ן נ [n] [n] [n̪] [n̪] [n̪] [n̪] [n̪] ס [s] [s] [s] [s] [s] [s] [s] ע [ʔ~ʕ, - ] [ - ] [ʕ, ŋ, - ] [ʕ] [ʕ] [ʕ, ɣ] [ʕ, ɣ] פּ ףּ [p] [p] [p] [p] [p] [p] [p] פ ף [f] [f] [f] [f] [f] [ɸ] ץ צ ts ts ts [s̴] (1) [s̴] [sˁ] (2) [ʦʼ, ʧʼ, tɬʼ] (3) ץ׳ צ׳ [tʃ] N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A ק [k] [k] [k] [ɡ], [ɢ], [q] [q] [q] [kʼ] (3) ר [ʁ] [ɹ]~[ʀ] [r]~ɾ] r~ɾ] [ɾ] [ɾ] [ɾ] שׁ [ʃ] [ʃ] [ʃ] [ʃ] [ʃ] [ʃ] [ʧ], [tɬ], [s] שׂ [s] [s] [s] [s] [s] [s] תּ [t] [t] [t̪] [t̪] [t̪] [t̪] [t̪] ת [s] [θ] [θ] [θ] [θ] ת׳ [θ] N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
- velarized or pharyngealized
- pharyngealized
- sometimes said to be ejective but more likely glottalized.
[edit] References
- History of the Ancient and Modern Hebrew Language, David Steinberg
[edit] See also
- Biblical Hebrew language
- Hebrew alphabet
- International Phonetic Alphabet for Hebrew
- Niqqud
- Tiberian vocalization
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