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Consonantal Ayin



This is a postscript to my posting on using the "ng" consonant to represent 
the Hebrew vowel "Ayin."
In addition to Spanish-Portuguese Sephardic pronunciation, of course, other 
dialects of Hebrew pronounce this letter as a guttural consonant.  But 
there appears to be a vestigial remnant of a consonantal Ashkenazic Ayin in 
Yiddish pronunciation as well.  The "n" in the name Yankl and "Yankev" 
corresponds to such a consonant.  There is also a nasalization on the long 
"ah" vowel sometimes heard in the word for "story" ("maase") which can also 
be pronounced with a real "n" ("manseh" or "maynseh"). Perhaps this also 
corresponds to the letter Ayin in the Hebrew spelling (?and pronunciation?) 
of this word.

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