The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, Volume 1

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, Volume 1 Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures The Tiberian Pronunciation Khan Tradition of Biblical Hebrew (Vol. I) The Tiberian Pronunciation Geoffrey Khan Tradition of Biblical Hebrew The form of Biblical Hebrew that is presented in printed edi� ons, with vocaliza� on and Tradition of Biblical Hebrew Vol. I accent signs, has its origin in medieval manuscripts of the Bible. The vocaliza� on and Volume I accent signs are nota� on systems that were created in Tiberias in the early Islamic period The Tiberian Pronunciation The by scholars known as the Tiberian Masoretes, but the oral tradi� on they represent has roots in an� quity. The gramma� cal textbooks and reference grammars of Biblical Hebrew in use today are heirs to centuries of tradi� on of gramma� cal works on Biblical Hebrew in GEOFFREY KHAN Europe. The paradox is that this European tradi� on of Biblical Hebrew grammar did not have direct access to the way the Tiberian Masoretes were pronouncing Biblical Hebrew. In the last few decades, research of manuscript sources from the medieval Middle East has made it possible to reconstruct with considerable accuracy the pronuncia� on of the Tiberian Masoretes, which has come to be known as the ‘Tiberian pronuncia� on tradi� on’. This book presents the current state of knowledge of the Tiberian pronuncia� on tradi� on of Biblical Hebrew and a full edi� on of one of the key medieval sources, Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ ‘The Guide for the Reader’, by ʾAbū al-Faraj Hārūn. It is hoped that the book will help to break the mould of current gramma� cal descrip� ons of Biblical Hebrew and form a bridge between modern tradi� ons of grammar and the school of the Masoretes of Tiberias. Links and QR codes in the book allow readers to listen to an oral performance of samples of the reconstructed Tiberian pronuncia� on by Alex Foreman. This is the fi rst � me Biblical Hebrew has been recited with the Tiberian pronuncia� on for a millennium. As with all Open Book publica� ons, this en� re book is available to read for free on the publisher’s website. Printed and digital edi� ons, together with supplementary digital material, can also be found at www.openbookpublishers.com Cover image: The Aleppo Codex. Courtesy of the Ben-Zvi Insti tute, Jerusalem. Photographer: Ardon Bar Hama. Cover design: Luca Baff a. book 1 ebooke and OA edi� ons also available OPEN ACCESS OBP https://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2020 Geoffrey Khan. Recorded material © 2020 Alex Foreman, CC BY. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Geoffrey Khan, The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew, Volume I. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2020, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0163 In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit, https:// doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0163#copyright Further details about CC BY licenses are available at, https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web Updated digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0163#resources Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher. Semitic Languages and Cultures 1, volume 1. ISSN (print): 2632-6906 ISSN (digital): 2632-6914 ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78374-675-0 ISBN Hardback: 978-1-78374-676-7 ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-78374-677-4 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0163 Cover image: The Aleppo Codex, Courtesy of the Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem. Photographer: Ardon Bar Hama Cover design: Luca Baffa. I.2. VOWELS AND SYLLABLE STRUCTURE I.2.1. BASIC VOWEL SIGNS I.2.1.1. The Qualities of the Vowels The basic vowel signs in the standard Tiberian vocalization system indicated distinctions in vowel quality rather than distinctions in length. The qualities of the various vowels can be reconstructed as follows from the sources that are discussed :(א below (the signs are added to the letter [Open, unrounded front [a] or back [ɑ :( ַַא) ָּפַתח Pataḥ [Back, open-mid rounded [ɔ :( ַָּא) ָּקֵמץ Qameṣ [Front, open-mid unrounded [ɛ :( ֶַא) ֶסגֹול Segol [Front, close-mid unrounded [e :( ֵַא) ֵצֵרי Ṣere [Front, close, unrounded [i :( ִַא) ִחיֶרק Ḥireq [Back, close-mid rounded [o :(ֹֹאַ) חֹוֶלם Ḥolem [Back, close, rounded [u (אּו) ׁשּוֶרק Shureq :( ַא) ִקּבּוץ Qibbuṣ These qualities correspond to the eight primary cardinal vowels, which are represented diagrammatically according to their position of articulation below: © Geoffrey Khan, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0163.02 Vowels and Syllable Structure 245 I.2.1.2. The Terms Pataḥ and Qameṣ The terms pataḥ and qameṣ are found in the early Masoretic and grammatical sources. They are in origin Aramaic active participles and are vocalized as such in some manuscripts, viz. In some Masoretic treatises forms with a final he 1.קָּמֵ ץ and פָּתַ ח The suffix may be the Aramaic .קמצה and פתחה .are used, viz definite article or the feminine ending.2 In Arabic sources such as Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ equivalent Arabic feminine participles are used, 3 qāmiṣa. The terms referred to the קאמצה fātiḥa and פאתחה .viz distinct lip positions of the two vowels, pataḥ ‘opening’, qameṣ 4 ‘closing, contracting’, indicating that the pataḥ was pronounced 1 For examples in early Karaite grammatical texts (Khan 2000a, 28). 2 For the sources see Steiner (2009). 3 Eldar (1994, 123–24) 4 is used in the sense of קמץ In Jewish Palestinian Aramaic the verb because (the sleeping‘ דיַקמיץַחדאַופתחַחדא .closing (eye, mouth), e.g‘ deer) opens one (eye) and closes the other’ (Palestinian Talmud, Shabbat 14b) (Sokoloff 1992, 496). 246 The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew with open, spread lips whereas the qameṣ was pronounced with a smaller aperture of the mouth on account of some degree of lip- rounding. The fact that the terms are Aramaic in origin indicates that they must have been created in the early Masoretic period, before the tenth century, when Aramaic was in productive use by the Masoretes. By the tenth century, Masoretic treatises were written in Hebrew or Arabic (§I.0.13.1.). The names of these vowels came to receive a variety of different vocalizations in later sources. The practice developed of vocalizing the first syllable of the names of vowels symbolically with the vowel it designated, ,This type of vocalization .פַתַ ח so pataḥ came to be vocalized as which according to Dotan was used from the eleventh century onwards,5 is the vocalization used, for example, by Elias Levita (1469-1549). Subsequently, the vowel of the second syllable of the names of vowels was also given a similar symbolic vocalization. These often reflect pronunciation traditions that did not distinguish between the pronunciation of the two vowels and 6.פַתָּ ח and פַתָּ ח ,קָּמַ ץ one finds vocalizations such as I.2.1.3. More on the Quality of Pataḥ and Qameṣ Saadya and Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ give details of the articulatory distinction between the vowels within the oral cavity. Their descriptions are based on a theory of the production of vowels, which can be traced to the Muslim physician Ibn Sīnā (980–1037 C.E.), that involves both the position of buccal organs and the 5 Dotan (2007, 634). 6 For details see Steiner (2009). Vowels and Syllable Structure 247 7 direction of the dynamic flow of air. The Hidāya states that the place of articulation of pataḥ is the ‘surface of the tongue at the 8 bottom (of the mouth)’. Saadya similarly states that ‘its strength (i.e. dynamic realization by airflow) goes over the surface of the 9 tongue moving downwards.’ With regard to qameṣ the Hidāya indicates that its place of articulation is ‘slightly above the root of the tongue, that is the (back) third of the tongue, and its 10 movement is towards the (place) above the palate.’ Saadya indicates that the place of articulation of qameṣ is next to that of ḥolem: ‘If one wants to move the vowel from this place (of ḥolem) and then articulate it, the strength (i.e. realization) of qameṣ comes about, and its movement (i.e. direction of airflow) is towards the place above the palate in 11 particular.’ According to the theory of the realization of vowels by dynamic airflow, the realization of pataḥ took place through the free flow of air across the surface of the tongue in a low position, 7 For details see Eldar (1983). 8 ,long version, edition in vol. 2 of this book ,סטח ַאללסאן ַמן ַאספל §II.L.2.15.3.; Eldar (1994, 130). 9 .(Dotan 1997, 445) קותהאַסאירהַעליַסטחַאללסאןַמנחדרהַאליַאלספל 10 ,long version ,פוקַאצלַאללסאןַקלילאַוהוַת̇לת̇ ַאללסאןַוהרכתהאַאליַפוקַאלחנך edition in vol. 2 of this book, §II.L.2.15.2.; Eldar (1994, 130). 11 ואןַשאַאןַיתגאוזַבהאַהדאַאלמוצ̇ עַתםַיפצלהאַט̇ הרתַקוהַעלקמץַוכאנתַחרכתהַ .(Dotan 1997, 445) אליַאעליַאלחנךַכאצה 248 The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew whereas in the realization of qameṣ there was some obstruction that directed the air upwards towards the palate.12 From the vowel names and the aforementioned des- criptions of articulation, it can be determined that Tiberian pataḥ was an open, unrounded vowel in the region of [a] or [ɑ] whereas qameṣ was a back half-open rounded vowel below ḥolem in the region of [ɔ].
Recommended publications
  • Towards a Practical Phonology of Korean
    Towards a practical phonology of Korean Research Master programme in Linguistics Leiden University Graduation thesis Lorenzo Oechies Supervisor: Dr. J.M. Wiedenhof Second reader: Dr. A.R. Nam June 1, 2020 The blue silhouette of the Korean peninsula featured on the front page of this thesis is taken from the Korean Unification Flag (Wikimedia 2009), which is used to represent both North and South Korea. Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... iii 0. Conventions ............................................................................................................................................... vii 0.1 Romanisation ........................................................................................................................................................ vii 0.2 Glosses .................................................................................................................................................................... viii 0.3 Symbols .................................................................................................................................................................. viii 0.4 Phonetic transcription ........................................................................................................................................ ix 0.5 Phonemic transcription.....................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • And [W] Distinction in Back Round Vowel Contexts
    BRITISH ENGLISH [KW], [K], AND [W] DISTINCTION IN BACK ROUND VOWEL CONTEXTS Helena Beeley University of Oxford [email protected] ABSTRACT the effect of labialization on rounded vowel transi- tions was not discussed in these studies, nor were Corpus data from the Audio British National Cor- English stops with secondary labialization the focus pus was used to compare the acoustics of British of study. This paper aims to analyse the acoustics English stops with velar and/or labial articulation in of phonemic secondary labialization of stops and onset positions preceding back rounded vowels. The approximants and of non-phonemic coarticulatory acoustics of labialized velar stops in British English labialization of stops in back vowel contexts. Due have not commonly been described due to their fre- to the absence of a contrast between labialized velar quent phonological analysis as clusters. Labialized stops and /kw/ clusters in syllable onsets in English velars have been characterized cross-linguistically the question of the exact phonological status of the in terms of low second formant frequency, but it sounds is not considered very relevant to the present was found that third formant frequency is a more discussion. significant cue to differentiation in back rounded vowel contexts. Plain velars with non-phonemic 2. THE CORPUS labialization resulting from proximity to a follow- ing back rounded vowel did not differ significantly The Audio British National Corpus [2] consists of from labialized velars in formant transition frequen- approximately 7 million words of spontaneous En- cies. Lower F3 in labial-velar approximants indi- glish speech. Recordings were collected during the cates more lip-rounding but higher F2 suggests a period 1991 to 1994 using analogue audio casette more fronted tongue position.
    [Show full text]
  • Vowel Sounds Can Symbolise the Felt Heaviness of Obje
    CORRESPONDENCES AND SYMBOLISM Cross-Sensory Correspondences in Language: Vowel Sounds can Symbolise the Felt Heaviness of Objects Peter Walker1,2 & Caroline Regina Parameswaran2 1 Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, UK 2 Department of Psychology, Sunway University, Malaysia Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Peter Walker, Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK e-mail: [email protected] tel: +44 (0) 1524 593163 fax: +44 (0) 1524 593744 1 CORRESPONDENCES AND SYMBOLISM Abstract In sound symbolism, a word's sound induces expectations about the nature of a salient aspect of the word's referent. Walker (2016a) proposed that cross-sensory correspondences can be the source of these expectations and the present study assessed three implications flowing from this proposal. First, sound symbolism will embrace a wide range of referent features, including heaviness. Second, any feature of a word's sound able to symbolise one aspect of the word's referent will also be able to symbolise corresponding aspects of the referent (e.g., a sound feature symbolising visual pointiness will also symbolise lightness in weight). Third, sound symbolism will be independent of the sensory modality through which a word's referent is encoded (e.g., whether heaviness is felt or seen). Adults judged which of two contrasting novel words was most appropriate as a name for the heavier or lighter of two otherwise identical hidden novel objects they were holding in their hands. The alternative words contrasted in their vowels and/or consonants, one or both of which were known to symbolise visual pointiness. Though the plosive or continuant nature of the consonants did not influence the judged appropriateness of a word to symbolise the heaviness of its referent, back/open vowels, compared to front/close vowels, were judged to symbolise felt heaviness.
    [Show full text]
  • SSC: the Science of Talking
    SSC: The Science of Talking (for year 1 students of medicine) Week 3: Sounds of the World’s Languages (vowels and consonants) Michael Ashby, Senior Lecturer in Phonetics, UCL PLIN1101 Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology A Lecture 4 page 1 Vowel Description Essential reading: Ashby & Maidment, Chapter 5 4.1 Aim: To introduce the basics of vowel description and the main characteristics of the vowels of RP English. 4.2 Definition of vowel: Vowels are produced without any major obstruction of the airflow; the intra-oral pressure stays low, and vowels are therefore sonorant sounds. Vowels are normally voiced. Vowels are articulated by raising some part of the tongue body (that is the front or the back of the tongue notnot the tip or blade) towards the roof of the oral cavity (see Figure 1). 4.3 Front vowels are produced by raising the front of the tongue towards the hard palate. Back vowels are produced by raising the back of the tongue towards the soft palate. Central vowels are produced by raising the centre part of the tongue towards the junction of the hard and soft palates. 4.4 The height of a vowel refers to the degree of raising of the relevant part of the tongue. If the tongue is raised so as to be close to the roof of the oral cavity then a close or high vowel is produced. If the tongue is only slightly raised, so that there is a wide gap between its highest point and the roof of the oral cavity, then an open or lowlowlow vowel results.
    [Show full text]
  • Glossary of Key Terms
    Glossary of Key Terms accent: a pronunciation variety used by a specific group of people. allophone: different phonetic realizations of a phoneme. allophonic variation: variations in how a phoneme is pronounced which do not create a meaning difference in words. alveolar: a sound produced near or on the alveolar ridge. alveolar ridge: the small bony ridge behind the upper front teeth. approximants: obstruct the air flow so little that they could almost be classed as vowels if they were in a different context (e.g. /w/ or /j/). articulatory organs – (or articulators): are the different parts of the vocal tract that can change the shape of the air flow. articulatory settings or ‘voice quality’: refers to the characteristic or long-term positioning of articulators by individual or groups of speakers of a particular language. aspirated: phonemes involve an auditory plosion (‘puff of air’) where the air can be heard passing through the glottis after the release phase. assimilation: a process where one sound is influenced by the characteristics of an adjacent sound. back vowels: vowels where the back part of the tongue is raised (like ‘two’ and ‘tar’) bilabial: a sound that involves contact between the two lips. breathy voice: voice quality where whisper is combined with voicing. cardinal vowels: a set of phonetic vowels used as reference points which do not relate to any specific language. central vowels: vowels where the central part of the tongue is raised (like ‘fur’ and ‘sun’) centring diphthongs: glide towards /ə/. citation form: the way we say a word on its own. close vowel: where the tongue is raised as close as possible to the roof of the mouth.
    [Show full text]
  • Encoded Representations for Distinct Positional Uses of Hebrew Meteg Peter Constable, Microsoft Corporation 2004-09-13
    Encoded representations for distinct positional uses of Hebrew Meteg Peter Constable, Microsoft Corporation 2004-09-13 In some uses of the Hebrew script, particularly for Biblical text, a variety of combining marks are used. One of these marks is meteg, encoded as U+05BD, HEBREW POINT METEG. Meteg frequently occurs together with other combining marks. When meteg co-occurs with another mark that occupies the same general space below the base character, different relative arrangements of meteg and these other marks are possible. In some uses it is considered necessary to specify these relative arrangements of meteg and other marks in the encoded representation. A proposal1 has been submitted to UTC for how these different positionings of meteg should be specified in encoded representations. This proposal makes use of the control characters COMBINING GRAPHEME JOINER (CGJ), ZERO WIDTH JOINER (ZWJ) and ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER (ZWNJ). This public-review issue is soliciting feedback on this proposal and, in particular, on the proposed use of ZWJ and ZWNJ for distinguishing between the different positional uses of the meteg. The details in this case are somewhat complex. Familiarity with combining marks, canonical combining classes, canonical ordering and canonical equivalence is assumed. Some background information on those topics is provided in an appendix. 1. Background: meteg in combination with below-base vowel marks Biblical Hebrew text includes a number of marks used to annotate the text, which were introduced by Masoretic scholars over a thousand years ago. These marks include vowel points and a number of accentuation marks that indicate structural units of the text, serving to guide the reader or chanter.
    [Show full text]
  • Learning [Voice]
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations Fall 2010 Learning [Voice] Joshua Ian Tauberer University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the First and Second Language Acquisition Commons Recommended Citation Tauberer, Joshua Ian, "Learning [Voice]" (2010). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 288. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/288 Please see my home page, http://razor.occams.info, for the data files and scripts that make this reproducible research. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/288 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Learning [Voice] Abstract The [voice] distinction between homorganic stops and fricatives is made by a number of acoustic correlates including voicing, segment duration, and preceding vowel duration. The present work looks at [voice] from a number of multidimensional perspectives. This dissertation's focus is a corpus study of the phonetic realization of [voice] in two English-learning infants aged 1;1--3;5. While preceding vowel duration has been studied before in infants, the other correlates of post-vocalic voicing investigated here --- preceding F1, consonant duration, and closure voicing intensity --- had not been measured before in infant speech. The study makes empirical contributions regarding the development of the production of [voice] in infants, not just from a surface- level perspective but also with implications for the phonetics-phonology interface in the adult and developing linguistic systems. Additionally, several methodological contributions will be made in the use of large sized corpora and data modeling techniques. The study revealed that even in infants, F1 at the midpoint of a vowel preceding a voiced consonant was lower by roughly 50 Hz compared to a vowel before a voiceless consonant, which is in line with the effect found in adults.
    [Show full text]
  • Northern Tosk Albanian
    1 Northern Tosk Albanian 1 1 2 Stefano Coretta , Josiane Riverin-Coutlée , Enkeleida 1,2 3 3 Kapia , and Stephen Nichols 1 4 Institute of Phonetics and Speech Processing, 5 Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München 2 6 Academy of Albanological Sciences 3 7 Linguistics and English Language, University of Manchester 8 29 July 2021 9 1 Introduction 10 Albanian (endonym: Shqip; Glotto: alba1268) is an Indo-European lan- 11 guage which has been suggested to form an independent branch of the 12 Indo-European family since the middle of the nineteenth century (Bopp 13 1855; Pedersen 1897; Çabej 1976). Though the origin of the language has 14 been debated, the prevailing opinion in the literature is that it is a descend- 15 ant of Illyrian (Hetzer 1995). Albanian is currently spoken by around 6–7 16 million people (Rusakov 2017; Klein et al. 2018), the majority of whom 17 live in Albania and Kosovo, with others in Italy, Greece, North Macedonia 18 and Montenegro. Figure 1 shows a map of the main Albanian-speaking 19 areas of Europe, with major linguistic subdivisions according to Gjinari 20 (1988) and Elsie & Gross (2009) marked by different colours and shades. 21 At the macro-level, Albanian includes two main varieties: Gheg, 22 spoken in Northern Albania, Kosovo and parts of Montenegro and North 1 Figure 1: Map of the Albanian-speaking areas of Europe. Subdivisions are based on Gjinari (1988) and Elsie & Gross (2009). CC-BY-SA 4.0 Stefano Coretta, Júlio Reis. 2 23 Macedonia; and Tosk, spoken in Southern Albania and in parts of Greece 24 and Southern Italy (von Hahn 1853; Desnickaja 1976; Demiraj 1986; Gjin- 25 ari 1985; Beci 2002; Shkurtaj 2012; Gjinari et al.
    [Show full text]
  • The Nature of Vocoids Associated with Syllabic Consonants in Tashlhiyt Berber
    THE NATURE OF VOCOIDS ASSOCIATED WITH SYLLABIC CONSONANTS IN TASHLHIYT BERBER John Coleman University of Oxford, UK ABSTRACT pronounced as [4], >T], or >^], with brief vocoids before and Tashlhiyt Berber has entered the phonological folklore as an sometimes after the tap, and between the individual closures of unusual language in which any consonant can be syllabic, many trills. Consonants may be contrastively geminate, even word- words consisting entirely of consonants. I shall argue for an initially (e.g. /VVI9I9C/ ‘be washing clothes’). Typically for an alternative analysis, according to which the epenthetic vowels Afroasiatic language, many words are formed by intercalating which frequently accompany syllabic consonants are the phonetic realizations of syllable nuclei. Where no epenthetic vowel is independent vowel and consonant melodies, e.g. singular C5CM95 K5WMC5 evident, it can be regarded as hidden by the following consonant, / / ‘pile of stones’, plural / /. I shall refer to phonemic according to a gestural overlap model. On this view, Tashlhiyt /i/, /u/, and /a/ as ‘lexical vowels’ and to the so-called syllable structure is a quite unmarked CV(C(C)), and ‘transitional schwas’ as ‘epenthetic vowels’. syllabification is unproblematic. 2. MATERIALS 1. INTRODUCTION 2.1. Recordings Many influential phonology texts (e.g. [9, 13]) repeat Dell and In the absence of a Tashlhiyt dictionary, an unsorted list of 555 Elmedlaoui’s analysis of Tashlhiyt [3], which holds that all words was collated from various papers. Each word was written µ µ µ Tashlhiyt phonemes, even obstruents, are sometimes syllabic, and down in the frame sentence “ini za — yat tklit CF P KP ” (‘please that numerous words consist only of consonants (e.g.
    [Show full text]
  • A Basic Chart of the Hebrew Vowels (And a Few Marks)
    A Basic Chart of the Hebrew Vowels (and a Few Marks) Name + Sample How it Sounds Mnemonics (& Some Notes) each A Dagesh looks like a פּ and ,כּ ,בּ .but a 1—( שֵׁגָדּ ) Dagesh dot in a He’ is a make a sound that dot. cannot be held—as ( קיִפַּמ ) Mapik opposed to the sounds .פ and ,כ ,ב of רּ 2. הּ (Heh with Mapik, which looks like Dagesh) sounds like the “h” in “hi.” 3. For all other letters, ignore. Example: ke’ivu-YAH = הָּיוּוִּאֿ ְכּ Meteg A mark that tells us A Meteg looks like the bottom of a stop sign that a syllable should ( גֶתֶֽמ ) be more stressed than being held by a stressed stop-sign-holder telling other syllables in the you to slow down for the ֽר word. stress(ed syllable). Example: -meku-TZE = תֶרֶֽצֻּקְֿמ ret Edited by Rabbi Jonah Rank for the Shaar Shalom Synagogue in Halifax, NS | 06.27.2018 1 A Basic Chart of the Hebrew Vowels (and a Few Marks) Name + Sample How it Sounds Mnemonics (& Some Notes) Sheva Nach No vowel sound. The Sheva Nach makes the sound that you might Just say the) ( וְ ֿשׁ אָ חָנ ) consonant as if no make when you are silent, and the Sheva Na‘ makes vowel were beneath the sound of you saying a (.it ְר really short “Eh” after someone asks you for Example: your opinion about .sif-RO something you disliked = וֹרְפִס Either way, the Sheva In this packet, we looks like the developing bubbles before the always put a line thought bubble rises, above a Sheva Na to helping you figure out make distinct-looking how to respond.
    [Show full text]
  • Tbsl Tyrxs SHACHARIT L’SHABBAT Shabbat Morning Connection I Kabbalah4all Transliteration Guidelines
    tbsl tyrxs SHACHARIT L’SHABBAT Shabbat Morning Connection i Kabbalah4All Transliteration Guidelines Please note that transliteration guidelines are different according to each culture and also within each movement of Judaism. We have developed these guidelines for use with our transliterated documents. They may or may not apply to transliterations put out by other movements including the various organizations teaching Kabbalah. a as in Creator ai as in aisle e as in red ei as in eight i as in pizza o as in no oy as in toy u as in tune ch as in Bach in German (strong sound from the throat) g as in give tz as in lots ’ typically adds an “EH” sound after a consonant, this is known as a Shva Na or pronounced Shva as in the word “Sh’ma”. - a dash is simply used to aid in pronounciation, usually if two like vowels follow each other, as in the word “da-at.” In Hebrew, the accent generally falls on the last syllable, however it sometimes falls somewhere else in the word. In our transliteration, when the syllable falls somewhere else other than the last syllable, that stressed syllable will be underlined. Example: Melech. Hebrew Rules The following are some of the Hebrew rules you may notice in our siddurim (connection books). In Hebrew, the accent generally falls on the last syllable, however it sometimes falls Kjl¤ n«¤ somewhere else in the word. Whenever a syllable other than the last is accented, a “meteg” (the vertical line under the first letter) will appear. The “masoret” above the letter Chaf indicates that this is a Kamatz Katan, which is lkǨ pronounced as “o”; in this example the word is “kol.” The “rafe” above a letter indicates it is a Shva Na.
    [Show full text]
  • A Dispersion-Theoretic Account of Taiwanese CV Phonotactics Sheng-Fu Wang New York University
    A Dispersion-Theoretic Account of Taiwanese CV phonotactics Sheng-Fu Wang New York University 1 Introduction Incorporating the notion of contrast in explaining the structure of sound inventories and sound distributions has been an important development in phonological theory. As summed up by Flemming (2004), from the ‘Theory of Adaptive Dispersion’ (Lindblom, 1986, 1988) to ‘Dispersion Theory’ (Flemming, 1996, 2002), three functional goals have been assumed to determine the structure of phonological contrasts: (1) a. Maximise the distinctiveness of contrasts b. Minimise articulatory effort c. Maximise the number of contrasts Flemming’s (2004) work formalizes the notion of maximal distinctiveness with constraints on contrasts, and demonstrates that such constraints better explain sound inventories than markedness constraints that evaluate individual sounds. The major difference is that constraints on contrasts capture the generalization that certain contrasts are absent because of a lack of distinctiveness, not because of inherent markedness of the segments in contrast. In addition to accounting for the structure of inventories, the notion of distinctive contrast has been shown to capture generalization in different phonological phenomena, such as co-occurrence restrictions (Gallagher, 2010) and segmental alternation that preserves phonemic contrasts (Stanton, 2016). Along this line, this study presents data on the surface phonotactics of voicing and nasality in Taiwanese, and aims to demonstrate that perceptual distinctiveness can provide an account for the distribution of segments, and the configuration of these constraints on contrasts is grounded in language-specific phonetic details, in this case, realization of contrastive vocalic nasality. Taiwanese has a phonemic nasal contrast in vowels (i.e., pi55 ‘sad’ vs.
    [Show full text]