Re: Pronunciation Question

[Jack Love <jlove...>]

In article <1993Jan14(dot)215749(dot)1777 (at) photon(dot)com> wmc (at) 
photon(dot)com (Bill Cornette) writes:
>       This may not be most appropriate place to post this, but in
>light of some recent traffic on Sephardic/Ashkenazic, I thought I
>would give it a try.

And why not, answers crop up in the oddest of places.

>       As a Jew by choice, I don't have the cultural background (but
>then neither does the Jew by birth who prompted this question) to
>understand the difference in pronuciation between Sephardic (and Israeli)
>pronunciation and Ashkenazic pronunciation.

I don't see any reason why a Jew-by-choice needs to be considered
more poorly informed than a Jew-by-ancestors. This case appears
to be an affirmation of my feeling.

>A Jewish friend (non
>practicing, but according to him decended from several rabbis in
>Poland) questioned my use of the word Shabbat, stating that the
>correct pronunciation is Shabbis.  I tried to explain that the
>Sov (last letter in Shabbis) in Ashkenazi Hebrew was a Tov in
>Sephardic Hebrew and the Sephardic Hebrew was the Hebrew used in
>Israel and was becoming/had become (?) the world standard.
>       He claimed that he had never heard of Shabbat except from
>me and with grandfathers, etc. as important Polish rabbis, he felt
>that he knew much more than I did on the matter and I must be in error.

Sounds like your friend is suffering from some sort of ego problem.

>       Can anyone provide any background or history on how the
>Sephardic Sov and the Ashkenazi Tov became pronuounced differently
>(and yes, I realize that there is a Sephardic Tov -- same as the
>Sov, but with a dot in the middle --ASCII characters don't include
>Hebrew).

Gladly. It is always a little problematic to speak about "correct"
pronunciation because "correct pronunciation" is often in the
"ear" of the beholder. However, in this case, the story is
relatively clear.

In the Biblical period, so far as can be discerned, the pronunciation
of the tav was an aspirated "t" as in the English "Tom". This
was a very slight aspiration which distinguished it from the tet
which was a completely unaspirated "t" (a sound not generally known
in English, but common in Spanish, for example). When a vowel
precedes the Biblical Hebrew tav, the voicing of the vowel further
aspirates the tav producing a sound very much like the English
"th" as in "bath." This is why you see many English words taken
from Hebrew spelled as: Sabbath, B'nai Brith, etc.

In the medieval and modern period, several Jewish populations lived
in areas where the "th" consonant was not part of the native
language. This caused these populations to either modify or
simply eliminate the sound. The Spanish speaking Jews whose
native language was Ladino, by and large, eliminated the "th"
sound. The prevailing Israeli dialect, as you indicate, accepts
this way of handling the problem. Therefore there is no difference
in the pronunciation of the tav regardless of whether it is
preceded by a vowel. All tavs are pronounced "t" as in "Tom"
whether or not they contain a dot (dagesh qal). Thus: Shabbat.

Among the Jewish populations who spoke Yiddish as a native
language, the tendency went in a different direction. Since
they too had a problem with the "th" sound, they changed it
to an "s". Thus: Shabbas. This will only happen when the "tav"
is preceded by a vowel. So the Ashkenazi pronunciation preserves
the tradition that there is a two-fold pronunciation of the
"tav" but does not accurately render the second pronunciation.

To see how this might work in your own experience, perhaps
you have heard various Europeans attempting to pronounce the
English word "think." Some of them might say "I tink so,"
while others might say "I sink so."

Good luck with your studies. I think you may have learned a
lesson about how far to trust ancestor worship. :-)

--
________________________________________
Jack F. Love    |       Opinions expressed are mine alone.
                |       (Unless you happen to agree.)

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