I have listened to a couple of Christian scholars of Biblical Hebrew narrate audio books on vocabulary and am curious about their pronunciation. For example, Jonathan Pennington (Old Testament Hebrew Vocabulary) says “David” as “Daa-weeth,” which is very different than the pronunciation I grew up with as an Ashkenazi Jew in the U.S.
“Daaweeth” is really “Dawidh.” B”SD
When “h” follows a consonant, it removes the daghesh (dagesh) from the previous letter like pei without a daghesh is fei, so daleth without a consonant is dhaleth, also known as a voiced “d.” These xians probably don’t realize that there are two different types of pronunciations of “th” in English, one voiced & one unvoiced. In the word “the” the “th” is voiced, but “th” at the END of word in English is ALWAYS UNVOICED, so they’ve made a mistake!!!
No. Not silent, but unvoiced. Notice the difference in the “th” sound in myth and them (or meth and them).
Moshe Coen
4 years ago
There is a glaring mistake in this article! The author writes,
“The most obvious differences involve the cholam: the German pronunciation is au (sounds like “ow” as in “cow”); the Galician and Hungarian pronunciation is oi (sounds like “oy” as in “toy”); and the Lithuanian pronunciation is ei (sounds like “ay” as in “lake”).”
But, in fact, it is the Litvish (Jews following the Lithuanian Jewish Tradition) that pronounce cholam as oi/oy like toy. I know because I’m an altra-orthidox Jew that speaks Hebrew according the the Litvish pronunciation and I live in a Litvish community in Jerusalem.
Although I believe your own metzius to be true (for Yerushalayim), I don’t think it’s universal. Firstly, we have historical records of Litvish pronunciation using an /ei/. (At least according to YIVO, which does a lot of historic work with Yiddish and Ashkenazi Hebrew: https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Language/Hebrew) Secondly, I’ve spent a lot of time around Lubavitchers (read: “Litvish Chassidim”), and they still pronounce the cholam as /ei/. In fact, they still appear to be teaching their children this pronunciation, even as Yiddish is falling by the wayside by them. (Here’s an example: https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/music_cdo/aid/982066/jewish/Bereishis.htm) However, I’ve also found that many (probably most) North… Read more »
Although I believe your own metzius to be true (for Yerushalayim), I don’t think that it’s universal. Firstly, we have historical records of Litvish pronunciation using an /ei/. (At least according to YIVO, which does a lot of historic work with Yiddish and Ashkenazi Hebrew: https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Language/Hebrew) Secondly, I’ve spent a lot of time around Lubavitchers (read: “Litvish Chassidim”), and they pronounce the cholam as /ei/. In fact, they still appear to be teaching their children this pronunciation. (Here’s an example: https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/music_cdo/aid/982066/jewish/Bereishis.htm) However, many (probably most) North American Litvishers appear to have also shifted their pronunciation to /oi/. This reminds me of… Read more »
I am a little nonplussed that you think that what goes on currently in EY reflects what the reality was in Europe. “Litvish” refers to the pronunciation of people identified as Litvaks in Europe. All of them, whether they lived in the countries called Lithuania, Poland, Belarus or Ukrainia after WWII,, pronounced the holam as /ey/. The groups that call themselves Litvish in EY nowadays may be descendents of Litvaks from Europe or to to “Litvish” yeshivos, but no Litvak from Europe would recognize them. Not only because of their pronunciation, but various customs that they have changed. You might… Read more »
Thank you Rabbi Seth I just published a book called “We are Israel” and it speaks of the origin of the British and American peoples, while I was in the act of writing the book my research lead me to delve into the original Hebrew, and I was shocked and surprised to discover that much of the ancient Hebrew sounded English, further investigation has convinced me that indeed English is Hebrew, even William Tyndale, said it, “the properties of the Hebrew tongue aggreeth a thousand times more with the English than with the Latin. The manner of speaking is in… Read more »
My dear sir, As I point out in my article, the pronuciation of the “true original Hebrew” depends on what you define that to be. The Hebrew spoken by Yaaqov? The Hebrew spoken by Moshe Rabbenu? The Hebrew spoken by King David? I can assure you (as much as a human can assure) that they were all quite different. Even in the time of King David, the northern tribes spoke quite differently than the southern tribes. The northern tribes probably prounced the letter “sin” as /sh/, and only the letter “samekh” as /s/, like their neighbors who lived in Tyre… Read more »
According to modern historical linguistics—taking into account Semitic comparative phonology, regional spelling differences corresponding to dialect, and probable phonetic influence from languages surrounding Shomron (Samaria)—the northern tribes probably retained the proto-Semitic phoneme “th”, as opposed to the merger of “th” with Shin that occured in every other dialect of proto-Hebrew. Therefore, while mainstream dialects pronounced שבלת as “Shibbult”, northerners would have pronounced it as “Thibbult”. Southerners, not knowing how to pronounce “th”, would try to reproduce it with the closest sound that they *could* make: “s”. Ergo, “Sibbult”(–>”Sibbolet”). (This same phenomenon is actually what caused Ashkenazim to pronounce soft ת… Read more »
Patrick Michael Hayes
4 years ago
I am reading this because I hear a difference between Israeli modern Hebrew and what I hear in synagogue. Israeli friends note American synagogue Hebrew sounds very strange, emphasis on “wrong ” syllables. They understand the words, so it does not appear to be a difference like Chaucer’s middle English and modern English. That surprised me. I assumed they were having trouble with hearing an ancient Hebrew with modern ears. To be fair, neither of these friends spent much time in synagogue when they lived in Israel. 1. Suggested readings please on this topic. 2. Why does it not matter… Read more »
What you are describing is not that surprising. If all you ever heard was contemporary Australian English, and then you were dropped into a room of Bostonians reciting Shakespeare’s sonnets, you would also think that it sounds very strange and with emphasis on the wrong syllables. American synagogue attendees are using a liturgical language for ceremonial purposes with a distinctive American accent and they are generally not proficient in Modern Conversational Hebrew; Israeli Hebrew is a living modern language with its own formal pronunciation (and with variations on the formal pronunciation that are associated with different social/cultural groups.) You’re not… Read more »
Gid Kahen
3 months ago
It’s wrong to say that there’s “no way” to figure out which accent most closely resembles ancient Hebrew. We have mountains upon mountains of linguistic evidence, including entire books about pronunciation written by the Masoretes themselves. We know exactly how every consonant except ר was pronounced in Biblical Hebrew, Rabbinic Hebrew, and each Masoretic tradition. We know what the Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew phonemes were, and we know the precise phonetic values of the vowels in each Masoretic system. For the most part, we can trace the evolution of all modern reading traditions to the three major Masoretic traditions. It’s… Read more »
I have listened to a couple of Christian scholars of Biblical Hebrew narrate audio books on vocabulary and am curious about their pronunciation. For example, Jonathan Pennington (Old Testament Hebrew Vocabulary) says “David” as “Daa-weeth,” which is very different than the pronunciation I grew up with as an Ashkenazi Jew in the U.S.
“Daaweeth” is really “Dawidh.” B”SD
When “h” follows a consonant, it removes the daghesh (dagesh) from the previous letter like pei without a daghesh is fei, so daleth without a consonant is dhaleth, also known as a voiced “d.” These xians probably don’t realize that there are two different types of pronunciations of “th” in English, one voiced & one unvoiced. In the word “the” the “th” is voiced, but “th” at the END of word in English is ALWAYS UNVOICED, so they’ve made a mistake!!!
I don’t understand your comment, “th” when at the end of an English word is silent? Wrath, you pronounce the “th”, am I missing something?
No. Not silent, but unvoiced. Notice the difference in the “th” sound in myth and them (or meth and them).
There is a glaring mistake in this article! The author writes,
“The most obvious differences involve the cholam: the German pronunciation is au (sounds like “ow” as in “cow”); the Galician and Hungarian pronunciation is oi (sounds like “oy” as in “toy”); and the Lithuanian pronunciation is ei (sounds like “ay” as in “lake”).”
But, in fact, it is the Litvish (Jews following the Lithuanian Jewish Tradition) that pronounce cholam as oi/oy like toy. I know because I’m an altra-orthidox Jew that speaks Hebrew according the the Litvish pronunciation and I live in a Litvish community in Jerusalem.
Although I believe your own metzius to be true (for Yerushalayim), I don’t think it’s universal. Firstly, we have historical records of Litvish pronunciation using an /ei/. (At least according to YIVO, which does a lot of historic work with Yiddish and Ashkenazi Hebrew: https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Language/Hebrew) Secondly, I’ve spent a lot of time around Lubavitchers (read: “Litvish Chassidim”), and they still pronounce the cholam as /ei/. In fact, they still appear to be teaching their children this pronunciation, even as Yiddish is falling by the wayside by them. (Here’s an example: https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/music_cdo/aid/982066/jewish/Bereishis.htm) However, I’ve also found that many (probably most) North… Read more »
Although I believe your own metzius to be true (for Yerushalayim), I don’t think that it’s universal. Firstly, we have historical records of Litvish pronunciation using an /ei/. (At least according to YIVO, which does a lot of historic work with Yiddish and Ashkenazi Hebrew: https://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Language/Hebrew) Secondly, I’ve spent a lot of time around Lubavitchers (read: “Litvish Chassidim”), and they pronounce the cholam as /ei/. In fact, they still appear to be teaching their children this pronunciation. (Here’s an example: https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/music_cdo/aid/982066/jewish/Bereishis.htm) However, many (probably most) North American Litvishers appear to have also shifted their pronunciation to /oi/. This reminds me of… Read more »
I am a little nonplussed that you think that what goes on currently in EY reflects what the reality was in Europe. “Litvish” refers to the pronunciation of people identified as Litvaks in Europe. All of them, whether they lived in the countries called Lithuania, Poland, Belarus or Ukrainia after WWII,, pronounced the holam as /ey/. The groups that call themselves Litvish in EY nowadays may be descendents of Litvaks from Europe or to to “Litvish” yeshivos, but no Litvak from Europe would recognize them. Not only because of their pronunciation, but various customs that they have changed. You might… Read more »
Thank you Rabbi Seth I just published a book called “We are Israel” and it speaks of the origin of the British and American peoples, while I was in the act of writing the book my research lead me to delve into the original Hebrew, and I was shocked and surprised to discover that much of the ancient Hebrew sounded English, further investigation has convinced me that indeed English is Hebrew, even William Tyndale, said it, “the properties of the Hebrew tongue aggreeth a thousand times more with the English than with the Latin. The manner of speaking is in… Read more »
My dear sir, As I point out in my article, the pronuciation of the “true original Hebrew” depends on what you define that to be. The Hebrew spoken by Yaaqov? The Hebrew spoken by Moshe Rabbenu? The Hebrew spoken by King David? I can assure you (as much as a human can assure) that they were all quite different. Even in the time of King David, the northern tribes spoke quite differently than the southern tribes. The northern tribes probably prounced the letter “sin” as /sh/, and only the letter “samekh” as /s/, like their neighbors who lived in Tyre… Read more »
According to modern historical linguistics—taking into account Semitic comparative phonology, regional spelling differences corresponding to dialect, and probable phonetic influence from languages surrounding Shomron (Samaria)—the northern tribes probably retained the proto-Semitic phoneme “th”, as opposed to the merger of “th” with Shin that occured in every other dialect of proto-Hebrew. Therefore, while mainstream dialects pronounced שבלת as “Shibbult”, northerners would have pronounced it as “Thibbult”. Southerners, not knowing how to pronounce “th”, would try to reproduce it with the closest sound that they *could* make: “s”. Ergo, “Sibbult”(–>”Sibbolet”). (This same phenomenon is actually what caused Ashkenazim to pronounce soft ת… Read more »
I am reading this because I hear a difference between Israeli modern Hebrew and what I hear in synagogue. Israeli friends note American synagogue Hebrew sounds very strange, emphasis on “wrong ” syllables. They understand the words, so it does not appear to be a difference like Chaucer’s middle English and modern English. That surprised me. I assumed they were having trouble with hearing an ancient Hebrew with modern ears. To be fair, neither of these friends spent much time in synagogue when they lived in Israel. 1. Suggested readings please on this topic. 2. Why does it not matter… Read more »
What you are describing is not that surprising. If all you ever heard was contemporary Australian English, and then you were dropped into a room of Bostonians reciting Shakespeare’s sonnets, you would also think that it sounds very strange and with emphasis on the wrong syllables. American synagogue attendees are using a liturgical language for ceremonial purposes with a distinctive American accent and they are generally not proficient in Modern Conversational Hebrew; Israeli Hebrew is a living modern language with its own formal pronunciation (and with variations on the formal pronunciation that are associated with different social/cultural groups.) You’re not… Read more »
It’s wrong to say that there’s “no way” to figure out which accent most closely resembles ancient Hebrew. We have mountains upon mountains of linguistic evidence, including entire books about pronunciation written by the Masoretes themselves. We know exactly how every consonant except ר was pronounced in Biblical Hebrew, Rabbinic Hebrew, and each Masoretic tradition. We know what the Biblical and Rabbinic Hebrew phonemes were, and we know the precise phonetic values of the vowels in each Masoretic system. For the most part, we can trace the evolution of all modern reading traditions to the three major Masoretic traditions. It’s… Read more »