Talk:Modern Hebrew phonology/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

IPA

Hello,

At first glance, I noticed some problems with the vowel chart, so I did a little investigation. I thought perhaps the wrong symbols were used. However, according to my sources (http://classweb.gmu.edu/accent/nl-ipa/hebrewipa.html ), the symbols are the correct IPA symbols, but the English examples should be as follows:

/a/ (As in the first half of the diphthong in UK "park")

/e/ (As in the first half of the diphthong in "late")

/i/ (Only as in "deep", when spoken quickly)

/o/ (As in the first half of the diphthong in "coat")

/u/ (As in "soup", when spoken quickly)

These last four vowels are identical to those used of Spanish. However, if my source is correct, then the <a> is somewhat different than in Spanish as it is produced much closer to the front of the oral cavity.

I hope that helps!

Best regards,

  Brian Perkins

I'm by no means an expert in Hebrew. From what I can hear, though, it sounds to me like the Hebrew "/e/" is far closer to /ɛ/ than /e/. It sounds much more open than the /e/ in, say, Spanish. Someone who's more knowledgable about Hebrew phonetics than I am, feel free to explain why I'm wrong, which I very well may be. While I'm on the subject, though, Hebrew "/x/" is definitely an uvular fricative /χ/, not a velar one. -Whimemsz

Like so much of the pronunciation of MIH, the pronunciation both of tzere and segol depends almost entirely on the individual, with any remaining influence being due mainly to the origin of their ancestors. Native speakers of Spanish usually pronounce it /e/ when the syllable is open and ɛ when the syllable is closed. The same holds true for the pronunciation of khaf and cheth. Those whose ancestry is Ashkenazi almost exclusively pronounce both as (uvular) /χ/. Most Sefardim pronounce khaf as (uvular) /χ/, while pronouncing cheth as (pharyngeal) /ḥ/, while Mizrachim often pronounce khaf as (velar) /x/ and cheth as (pharyngeal) /ḥ/. That said, many Sefardim and Ashkenazim whose main language is Spanish, rather than more isolated forms of Ladino, in my experience, often use /χ/ or simply only /h/ (especially in non-final positions)! Tomer ^TALK 00:39, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and another thing. I was under the impression that the schwas of Biblical Hebrew have either dissapeared in some cases and merged with /e/ (or /ɛ/) in others. Is /@/ still a phoneme of Modern Hebrew, then? Because that's what the article seems to suggest, to me anyway. --Whimemsz 20:52, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

Assuming that by /@/ you mean /ə/, yes, schwa is a MIH phoneme. Something that's not discussed in the phonology article, however, and should perhaps be touched upon, is the auditory elision of consonant phonemes at the beginnings of words, preceeded by a shva, when it is "too difficult" to pronounce them distinctly, especially in rapid speech. E.g., the pronunciation [b]'vaqasha or [w]'vaqasha for b'vaqasha...which often sounds simply like "vaqasha". :-p Tomer ^TALK 00:39, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, then. בבקשה! ;) --Whimemsz 01:00, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Hi,

I am not a linguist, but I am interested in the topic. I am a native Hebrew speaker, so all my comments are simply based on listening to myself pronounce the words. First a question to Tomer. You say that some mizrakhim pronounce as khaf (כ) as a velar fricative /x/. Are you sure about that? I don't think I have ever heard that. I think all Hebrew speakers pronounce this as an uvular fricative /χ/.

Now for my comments. I think the distinction between long and short vowels in Hebrew is much less obvious than the table suggests. According to the table tzeire is /e/ and segol is /ɛ/. I am not sure this is true. Compare ספר and גבר. The first word has a tzeire on its first syllable, the second a segol. Are the vowels under the first syllable of both words pronounced any differently?

Likewise I am not sure about the distinction between segol and a non-silent sh'va, which according to the table is /ə/. Compare גבר (second unstressed syllable) and בטח (meaning trust in the imperative). The former has segol, the latter sh'va, and they sound the same to me.

The important distinction is between stressed and unstressed syllables. Of course, this affects the nikud, but a stressed syllable with segol (as in בגד) will be pronounced in exactly the same way as a tzeire (unless the tzeire is followed by a yod; see below). The unstressed syllable will be shorter. Thus בגד is /bɛgəd/ and ספר is /sɛfər/. An unstressed non-silent sh'va (a non-silent sh'va will is never stressed) is also /ə/.

The tzeire is pronounced like /e/ only when it is followed by a yod. For example, ביצה is /beɪʦa/. Even this is not true of all speakers. Some (mostly sefaradim, although this way of pronounciation might be in decline) pronoounce it /bɛʦa/.

One point about the pronouciation of the 'o' sound in Hebrew (kholam). There is no real equivalent for this sound in English. 'lot' is /lɒt/ in RP and /lɑt/ in American pronounciation (see IPA chart for English). Perhaps the 'o' in 'obey' is a good English equivalent, but in any case I think it is best to give (in addition, if not instead) examples from European languages in which the vowel exists: 'beau' in French is exactly like בוא in Hebrew: /bo/.

In fact the way vowels are pronounced in Spanish or French is often much more helpful as pronouciation guides. Even people who don't speak those languages usually know what simple words in these languages sound like, so such examples could be very useful. For /a/ 'cama' (bed) in Spanish is identical with קמה and כמה. For /u/ the French 'sous' or the Spanish 'sur' (compare: עשו and אסור) are better than the English 'soon' or 'soup'. 'e' has reasonable equivalents in English, although here again Spanish or French might be closer.

About the 'i' (khirik) I am not entirely sure. I think it is /ɪ/ (and not /i/). I am not sure whether there is a distinction between long and short - I suspect there is. As for pronounciation examples: עשיתי is close to 'city' (less so to 'sit'). The first syllable of 'citė' in French is identical to the first syllable in סיפר in Hebrew /sɪ/.

I hope this helps.

DSP

It's true that "European" (I guess) vowels are closer to those of Hebrew; perhaps the explanations could be things like "Like the Spanish 'o', or similar to the English 'oa' in boat." --Whimemsz 02:32, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

I first edited this page before I auto-chose "Watch this page", so I didn't see DSP's comment until just now. I'll go into an in-depth answer sometime in the next couple of days, and hope DSP is still around to hear it. :-p Tomer ^TALK 12:02, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

moved sounds section from Hebrew language

I hope nobody minds too much that I moved this rather long section from the Hebrew language article to here, after having made extensive changes to that section in the Hebrew language article. (q.v.) Tomer ^TALK 07:19, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

nikkud optional

It may seem obvious to those who already know, but I think we should note that nikkud and dagesh symbols are optional in most writing. I know that this is an article on phonology and not writing, per se, but as it's listed, I don't think it's so clear that vet and bet are basically the same letter. A Hebrew speaker wouldn't look at "אבא" and think that it's either misspelled or supposed to be pronounced /ava/. But as this article is written, especially since it's pointed out that [v] and [b] are separate phonemes, someone unfamiliar with the language might consider אבא and אבּא a minimal pair. Anyone else agree, or should I quitely go away?  :-) -Eleusinian 01:09, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

I agree, so long as the reader isn't a spanish primary-language speaker or assuming that the text is referring to Egyptian Hebrew pronunciation.  :-p Tomer ^TALK 11:55, August 7, 2005 (UTC)== Can we have a consensus on the rewrite of this article? ==

This article is back to front. It starts with the alphabet (including word-final forms!) and makes comments about pronunciation, whilst mixing up transcription methods. It looks far too much like something hacked from an elementary grammar. A phonology should talk about the phonemes of a language and their grouping and features. The means for this should be the International Phonetic Alphabet. Other transcription methods and the alphabet itself should be secondary. Does anyone else agree with my interpretation? --Gareth Hughes 17:58, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

The same phonological data, excluding vowels, is essentially given in Hebrew alphabet. Surely that article's data should just be moved here. Similarly, something needs to be done in the way of merging from Niqqud, which is not the prettiest of articles. jnothman ^talk 10:59, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Hebrew 4th-5th Century CE Pronunciation

I have read that while writing the Vulgata (the christian Latin translation of the bible), the translator, Ausaebius I think, made a dictionary, which contained the Hebrew pronunciation in Latin alphabeth of the word, as he heared it pronounced by the local jewish people at the time, 4-5 cetury CE in Israel (the time in which the "Talmud Jerushalmi" was written). A few fragments of this dictionary have survived. Does someone know if the pronunciation can be identified as relating to Ashkenazi, Sepharadic or Yemanite Hebrew pronunciations ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.68.157.136 (talk • contribs) 01:09, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Vowel Chart

Perhaps this article should have a IPA vowel chart like in the article French phonology --Mo-Al 04:41, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

khaf is not an aspirated stop

someone wrote that khaf is assumed to have been originally an aspirated k. this sounds like total garbage to me, so i've removed it. Benwing 05:30, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

That it "sounds like like total garbage to [you]" is utterly irrelevant. veth, ghimel, dhaleth, khaf, fe, and thav are ALL assumed to originally have been aspirated stops. Have you ever actually read anything about Hebrew linguistic studies? Or is this all just off the cuff "authoritative" personal original research of yours? Tomer ^TALK 11:58, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, of course I´ve read about Hebrew historical linguistics. What I´ve read says that there was a time when the various stops became fricativized in weak positions -- single after vowel, more or less. this type of change is extremely common in historical linguistics. i imagine that you are asserting that they became aspirates in the process of moving from stops to fricatives. i´ve never seen this written anywhere, but it is at least possible; however, such a transition violates a number of generalizations about the way that sounds change -- aspiration is not a usual transition between stop and fricative, and aspiration tends to happen in *strong* positions (cf. English), exactly the opposite of the case here. Furthermore, there is no such thing as aspiration on voiced sounds. If you really mean that veth, ghimel, dhaleth were "aspirated" i.e. breathy voiced, that would be quite strange, to say the least. Now I´ve seen a number of authorities on this change, and none mentions aspiration. Furthermore, I question what possible evidence could be used to prove this (especially the "breathy-voiced" sounds!). If the evidence is based on Greek transliteration, this is hardly a tenable argument since for one, Greek itself had fricatives after a certain point; and even if it can be shown that Greek was using theta etc. to represent thav when theta was known to be an aspirated stop, this still proves nothing as Greek had no other reasonable way of representing such a fricative.

So

• Please cite the source and quote what the source says;
• It doesn´t accomplish anything to mention this "aspiration", as even if it did exist it would have been a short stage between stop and fricative, and so we may as well just call them fricatives.

Benwing 12:31, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

This dispute is not about facts but about terminology. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the word aspiration meant what fricativization refers to in modern phonetic science, and aspiration now has a different meaning. (The source of the confusion, I suspect, is that in Greek the consonants that were originally aspirated (in the modern sense) changed into fricatives. So theta once sounded like the t in English tin (an aspirated /t/), and later on came to sound like the th in English thin (a fricative). But people kept calling it "aspiration". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.49.74.185 (talk • contribs) 15:05, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

vowels

I am a bit unpleased about the pronounciation guide to the vowels. Firstly, the "a" vowels do not have an 'ar' sound - the sound is much shorter, like the a in 'hat' or 'bag'. The "i" vowels are usually like the 'ee' in 'meek', and when shortened can become like the 'i' in lit. As for "o": the 'or' sound in 'sore' is inaccurate, it should be shorter like the 'o' in 'lot'. (please note: these are all from the sephardi and modern Israeli pronounciation, which I think is the most appropriate type if given on a article for those who don't know Hebrew). So, please feed back, -- A

I am not an expert in English pronunciation (not even mentioning the fact that the phonetic sets of different languages almost never coincide), but I can share the following observations:

• The descriptions at Hebrew alphabet are quite precise and perhaps should be merged in (since the page about the alphabet shouldn't deal with the pronunciation, and the page about phonology should)
• The pharyngeal 'ain doesn't have an equivalent in English. Maybe it'd be best to mention one could try to reproduce it by stressing the pharynx a bit, but it's not worth bothering (with Hebrew, at least). I concur that 'heart' is a very imprecise example.
• The /i/ in 'meek' is longer than any Hebrew vowel; the /i/ in 'lit' is a good approximation.
• Perhaps I'm mistaken, but the sound in 'sore' is a bit throatal; unfortunately the English pronunciation of 'lot' differs between dialects, so it's not a helpful example (the sound in Hebrew is similar to the one found in British English).
• The article doesn't mention that in Hebrew /r/ is a trill, and not an approximant, like in English.

Yours truly,

--Uri

Uri - thank you for your input. I will tentatively change the vowel pronounciation, but do not feel confident enough to effect a merge. --A P.S. I am still wide open to anyone else out there with input on the subject.

The letter resh (ר) is not a trill /r/. It's /ʁ/. It's close to the Frecnh 'r' (/ʀ/?), but with a bit less stress of the tongue on the uvula than in French. Consequently the French 'r' occasionally sounds like a /χ/. This never happens in Hebrew (except when spoken by French).

French 'r' is an uvular fricative, so it's the same as the Hebrew 'r' (except when I hear Hebrew spoken, the 'r' seems to be an approximant most of the time). --Whimemsz 02:32, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, even what you say is wrong. Parisian 'r'is a uvular affricative. It is categorically not the same as the Hebrew 'r', which is much more like the German or Danish 'r', and among those MIH speakers who use this pronunciation, you are correct, it usually comes out as more of a uvular approximant (especially in certain positions), than a uvular trill. I think in these positions its IPA symbol would be the uvular equivalent of [gh] (that v with the loop on the bottom that I think is supposedly derived from gamma). Anyone know what that might be? Tomer ^TALK 09:19, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

Resh as a trill /r/, is both common (both Oriental, and east-european immigrants), and considered proper by both the academy and Kol Yisrael.

All Hebrew I've ever heard used the uvular trill, [ʀ]. Keep in mind that a one-contact trill (one where a single bubble of air is squeezed through) is still a trill. On the other hand, of course, all Hebrew I've ever heard was on TV, usually spoken by politicians in the news, so I'm most likely underestimating the variation within Hebrew.

I'm a native speaker of German, so I trust myself to recognize a uvular trill when I hear it…

Most (not all) kinds of German and French (I live in Paris) use a uvular trill. (In French, it becomes voiceless – [ʀ̥] – in many environments, and usually acquires friction there – [ʀ̝̊] or [ʀ̥͡x] or something.) Some French speakers (at least) use a voiced uvular fricative ([ʁ]) instead. The claim that any kind of French has a uvular affricate, whether voiced ([ɢ͡ʁ] or voiceless ([q͡χ]), is nonsense; you have probably misunderstood the meaning of that word. David Marjanović 22:18, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

difference between segol and tsere

I guess many speakers don't do it, but actually segol is [ε] and tsere is [e]... aren't they? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.52.179.251 (talk • contribs) 21:31, 4 June 2007

/ε/ and /e/ are designations of two phonemes in archaic forms of Hebrew which were accordingly denoted by the segol and the tseyre. In modern Hebrew there is a partial correspondence to a phonemic distinction between a monophthongal /e/ ([ε]) and diphthongal /e/ ([εi]), the former denoted by segol, chataf-segol, some tseyres and some shvas, and the latter denoted by some tseyres. There are also many cases where the monophthongal /e/ and the diphthongal /e/ are allophones. Dan Pelleg (talk) 01:50, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

monophthongal /e/		diphthongal /e/
example	IPA	example	IPA
הרה־גורל	[ha'ʁε gɔ'ʁal]	הרי־גולן	[ha'ʁεi gɔ'lan]

Actually Segol is [ε], Tsere is [e(:)], Small Kamatz is [ɔ] and Holam is [o(:)].Some speakers in vernacular speech pronounce Tsere and Holam as [eɪ] and [oʊ] respectively. I read that there never was a difference between "Haser" Tense Vowels (Tsere, Holam) and "Mallé" Tense Vowels (Tsere Mallé, Holam Mallé) until the Revival of Hebrew.

WillRock41 (talk) 08:34, 6 December 2014 (UTC+2)

Vav

It says in the article that the w sound for vav is a double-vav in Hebrew (וו), when in reality, in full Hebrew writing, double vav is used to indicate a v sound (as opposed to a w). Does anyone have a source saying otherwise? -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 08:51, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the note and source. But don't you think the article should reflect it? The note itself says that double-vav is used to represent v as opposed to u/o, but in the article's table, it's still where the w sound is (which is wrong). -- Ynhockey ^(Talk) 20:07, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Five vowels?

Hebrew is usually thought of as having five vowels, but that's inaccurate. I think in total there are 10; they change pronunciation when unstressed (they're less rounded). For instance, the vowel 'a' follows the same rules as in Russian (saying the word 'nagar', carpenter, with an Israeli accent and with a Russian one, would sound identical, except the 'r' would be an alevolar tap/trill). Siúnrá (talk) 09:17, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, might that depend on whether the 10 articulations can be thought of as 5 vowels with a degree of allophony? Arabic has an issue of having only 3 short vowels and 3 long vowels, but actual articulations vary wildly depending on context. And Marshallese practically takes the cake at having 36 allophonic articulations for only 4 vowel phonemes. - Gilgamesh (talk) 13:43, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Ay, but the allophones aren't mentioned either, though there are a gajillion of them, and getting them right is the difference between sounding native and sounding like someone who most likely learned Hebrew abroad. Siúnrá (talk) 17:59, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Volume 24 of Journal of Phonetics has an article titled "An acoustic analysis of modern Hebrew vowels and voiced consonants" that would be appropriate I think. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:15, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

More Differences in Different Groups

I would venture there are three Ashkenazic Hebrew pronounciations:

1) Ashkenazi - Toyra Bawruch

2) Litvish - Tayra Boruch

3) Hassidish/Oberlander - Toyru Bu-reech

Something to that effect, possibly Oberlander is different from the Polisher Chassidim. --Saxophonemn (talk) 23:38, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I suspect these are not pronunciations of native speakers of Hebrew, but rather only of native speakers of Yiddish (pronouncing Hebrew vocabulary incorporated into Yiddish), in which case they are relevant to Yiddish phonology and not to this article. Dan Pelleg (talk) 19:57, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

In all intensive purposes it would count, since Hebrew the language is essentially the Lashon Kodesh with modern adaptations. Thus either someone splits the page into עברית and לשון קודש. Then there would be only one phonology for עברית and 6 or so for לשון קודש. Thus it would just be messed up. --Saxophonemn (talk) 04:40, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I believe the best distinction would be one clarifying the intrinsic differences in the nature and usage of these varieties of Hebrew:

1. Hebrew (native language) – referring to native speakers, i.e. speakers who learned the language intuitively as children (as far as I know this is the case only with modern Israeli Hebrew),
2. Hebrew (liturgical language) – referring to Hebrew used for this purpose by non native speakers around the world,
3. Hebrew (reconstructed language) – referring to biblical and other historical, no longer existing forms of Hebrew.

Dan ☺ 11:45, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Ashkenazic T=>S

This article should explain *why* Ashkenazic Jews turn the Hebrew T into S, but it doesn't. Is it because they were trying to approximate the original [θ] sound of ת? So the Mishnaic, Yemenite, and Sephardic pronunciation of "shabbat" was "shabbath"? Can someone add this? Badagnani (talk) 07:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

That's not true though.--Saxophonemn (talk) 23:31, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

It's historical, but not totally relevant to this article as it only deals with modern Hebrew. Mo-Al (talk) 23:53, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

No /h/?

There is no /h/ in the Consonants of Modern Hebrew table, isn't ה pronounced /h/, and maybe even [ɦ] in certain positions? OK, I know some (many? mainly Russians?) don't pronounce it at all, but that's not the point.

Hey ה is just like an /h/--Saxophonemn (talk) 23:32, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

That's just about what I think as well what I'm wondering is why this sound is absent from the Consonants of Modern Hebrew table. In fact it's not even mentioned in Consonants.Fnugh (talk) 13:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I often hear people (mostly teenagers and children) pronouncing it [ʕ], or not pronouncing it at all, but that's only in fast, day-to-day speech, and is incorrect pronunciation. Siúnrá (talk) 10:58, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Clearly you mean [ʔ]. From a descriptive standpoint you can't say it's "incorrect", but it's true that basilectally it's often elided. Mo-Al (talk) 23:53, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

IPA linking

Good job Aeusoes, is there a general policy concerning linking IPA transcription? Dan ☺ 21:49, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Basically, you don't want to have the IPA be underlined, otherwise characters with descenders and diacritics will be obscured. Otherwise, linking is fine. The way to do it is by having the link go inside the template, as such: {{IPA|[[voiced bilabial fricative|[b]]]}} ([b]). If you do it with the template inside the link, it'll make the IPA character underlined ([b]), which you don't want. WP:PRON doesn't say this, though it perhaps ought to. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:06, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Strange, although my IE preferences indicate "always underline links", it shows Wikipedia links underlined only when hovered over – same for Safari, Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, which I think means that Wikipedia default CSS for links is set to "text-decoration:none" and only for links hovered over (a:hover) for "text-decoration:underline", which would mean that for almost all readers, links only appear underlined when hovered over. Could your personalized Monobook be what makes links appear underlined to you? If not – which browser do you use? Dan ☺ 00:43, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

From what I understand, for non-registered users, links are never underlined. Try logging out and seeing what it looks like. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:09, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Nope – whether logged in or not, links are not underlined, except when hovered over. Curious. Dan ☺ 11:56, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm the same way when I log out. Not underlined unless it's hovered over. It's not a problem. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:17, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

☺ but for me they stay un-underlined when I'm logged in. My point is: if virtually all users don't see links underlined unless they're hovered over, why object to linking IPA transcriptions? Dan ☺ 18:22, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Transliteration Rules

The links to “transilteration rules” do not work for me. Please fix. Thanks. — Solo Owl (talk) 21:38, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Those links provide a source, if you need that information in English, it is offered here. Dan ☺ 19:53, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to User:TFighterPilot, the links have been fixed. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 20:44, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

You welcome TFighterPilot (talk) 09:00, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Shva

In Hebrew phonology#Shva I miss the pronounciation [ə], like in "לך" (to you). Or am I misunderstanding something? Debresser (talk) 23:23, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain *[ə] has been replaced by [e] in Modern Israeli Hebrew. The article in the Handbook of the IPA (cited in this article) agrees with me. Also, since English speakers don't really contrast [ə, e] when controlling for stress, it makes sense that they would not realize that [ə] isn't phonemic. And my impression (admittedly this is anecdotal) is that Hebrew pedagogy in the US perpetrates some myths regarding Israeli Hebrew, e.g. that [ə] is phonemic, or that some words are pronounced with [ej] when they are usually actually pronounced with [e]. Mo-Al (talk) 23:51, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so, based on my experience. Unless I am misunderstanding something. We have the word "ליחה" (flegm) with [e] and "לך" (to you) with [ə]. Debresser (talk) 01:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the stress is on a different syllable. Isn't phlegm pronounced [ˈleχa] rather than [leˈχa]? I think the reason you're confused may be because unstressed [e] sounds similar to [ə] for English speakers, especially since unstressed vowels in all languages tend to be centralized non-phonemically. Mo-Al (talk) 03:51, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

The stress is on the same syllable, the "a", just that the unstressed syllable is pronounced differently in these words. And I hold that in one of them it is a true "shva", phonetically. In my mother tongue, which is Dutch, we used to call this "stommeling", see [1]. It is rendered there and in Dutch phonology as [ə], which sounds like this^ⓘ (just unstressed). I don't think I am confused here. But at any rate, that's what I came here for, to hear opinions of other people. We have been discussing this already at some length elsewhere. Now I want to hear other people's opinions. Debresser (talk) 05:15, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah, my mistake. But I agree, I think we need the opinion of a native speaker who also is familiar with phonetics. Mo-Al (talk) 05:19, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I am a native Israeli Hebrew speaker. There is absolutely no such thing as a phonemic "Schwa" /ə/ in Israeli Hebrew. It is pronounced either /e/ or Null. At least in the "çabbar" kind of a regular pronunciation of almost all native speakers. Maybe in "radio talk" or people who insist on speaking "correct" Hebrew, there is a difference between the two but I believe the difference is the "shva" is pronounced "ḥaṭup" (/xa'tuf/), like.. "ultra short". Like many other "ultra short vowels". But even for them it isn't natural. Ly362 (talk) 06:29, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

That is definitely true for a word like זמן, where the shva is indeed "null". But in לך it is not null. You don't say "l'cha". So what is it, in you opinion? Debresser (talk) 07:27, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm a native speaker, and studied phonetics so I'm familiar with the topic, and I do say "l'cha" at times - depends on the environment of the word. "I told you" would be pronounced by me usually as "amarti l'cha". If it's rapid speech - it can even be "amart' 'cha". The basic rule of thumb that I can suggest is that it's difficult for Israelis sometimes, so they use the /e/ sound. It also happens in foreign words, some israelis say [popkoʁen] referring to popcorn. Shva is null in Hebrew, and becomes /e/ in case it's difficult for Israelis, that's all. Most Israelis, when asked to use Niqqud in their writing, probably wouldn't know whether to use Tsere/Segol/Shva in the word "yeladim" (kids). It's [jela'dim] in general, but "the kids" is commonly pronounced [ajla'dim] - and not only in rapid speech. Israelis basically drop the /e/ sound wherever they can. "Shelcha" is [ʃχa] in regular or rapid speech, and there isn't any Shva in that word. If I remember correctly, my teacher at the University tried and succeeded in showing that virtually everyone says "sh'cha", even if they deny it. Also notice "et" becomes usually just "'t" before vowels. We just drop whatever 'e' we can, and add it when we can't pronounce words otherwise. I pronounce ליחה and לך the same, only difference is I would only drop the /e/ in ליחה in rapid speech, whereas in לך it's normal practice for me to say it as "l'cha". Note that some pronounce ליחה as [lei'χa], with a diphthong, sometimes it's even something between /e/ and /i/ I think. Perhaps that is the reason why it's less commonly dropped, it's not a normal /e/ - there isn't a consensus regarding its pronunciation. Omeriko (talk) 06:49, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

In today's Israeli Hebrew? /le'xa/ of course. As I said, "shva" can be either /e/ or null (I used the word null since I saw mo-al using it). And by the way, it is mostly phonetically and/or morphologically predicted. Ly362 (talk) 10:50, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

indentThen how would you render ליחה? I don't mean because of the ח/כ, of course, but the vowel after the lamed. Debresser (talk) 11:01, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Basically /le'xa/, same for both words. Here though, I guess some people might say /lej'xa/ or something around it, maybe because of the י, maybe because their grandparents are ashkenazi, I don't know, people have all kinds of habits. Ashkenazis used to say any çere (tsere) as /ej/, and some words in Israeli Hebrew are actually pronounced with this sound even when it's not a çere maleˀ, like /'tejʃa/ instead of /'teʃa/ only beacuse of the Ashkenazi pronunciation. Basically any çere, either maleˀ or not, and segol, and ḥaṭap segol and some of the "shvas" are all pronounced /e/. Well, in fact it's /e̞/. Ly362 (talk) 12:20, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I have heard that theory, about the tsere and the segol being pronounced the same. And it is more or less true. So, for example, בראשית would be with an /e/ also? Debresser (talk) 12:44, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely. If we're still talking about the vast majority of today's native Israelis of course, /bere'ʃit/. The first /e/ is this way although it's a shva, because it is a clitic /be/ and not part of the word, as opposed to /bre'xa/ "pool". There are also people who insist on talking "correct" Hebrew and would say something like /bre'ʃit/, null or ultra short shva, but that would be the case anyway even in regular speech when people short things and say [bre'ʃit]. About the second /e/, there could still be all kinds of people that for some reason say /rej'ʃit/ or /brej'xa/, it's like they have some ashkenazi influence but it's not the majority or the standard pronunciation. Although /bre'xa/ in everyday ktiv male without niqqud is spelled בריכה with י, and I wonder if it has some effect on the readers, but I'm not sure about it. Ly362 (talk) 13:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Would you care to meet me? I would like to see (and hear!) the person that pronounces /bere'ʃit/ rather than /bəre'ʃit/ or even /bərə'ʃit/. No way! Are we talking about /e/^ⓘ and /ə/^ⓘ? Debresser (talk) 13:34, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Hehe... um... well, I'm not sure if I have the time for it at this point... but where are you anyway? Just turn on Israeli TV or watch some video from Israel or just talk to any Israeli you know. In Israeli's accent there are five vowel phonemes only, pretty much like the five Spanish vowels. Just as it says in this very article and elsewhere. But well, you know what, the point is the phonemic differentiation. Maybe, just maybe you could say that when talking naturally and maybe not even the most clearly like maybe we Israelis do, then the /e/ could be something closer to [ə], one speaker could talk this way and another not, but then it is only the realization of the phoneme /e/ in natural speech, and the difference is not a phonemic one, and it can include either "shvas" or "tseres", or "segols" all together. But actually, I think the speakers are likely to have some feel of the morphology and also the knowledge about the "correct" "radio like" speech, and that can affect the realization too, at least somehow. So actually, I could focus your question on the phonemic differentiation rather than the specific [ə] sound. You can ask are there two separate sounds here. And then the answer is, there isn't as far as the phonemes are concerned, if two or more different sounds happen to be spoken here, then they are (at least for now) an outcome of the phonetic environment or the morphologic one, but I think the sound different than [e] is likely to be something that resembles more a very short [e] or null.. no vowel, rather than [ə]. But still, if you ask the speakers what is the word please, they would pronounce it to you rightfully with /e/. Ly362 (talk) 15:08, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

So far two people have tried to explain to me what I hear on an everyday basis to be not as they say. I live presently in Jerusalem. But I'll try and pay close attention to people. It is true that I find myself mostly in the presence of people who try to speak Hebrew well, while everybody knows the man in the street might speak it differently. Nevertheless, I still don't see the above opinion being true. Debresser (talk) 15:18, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Those people who try to speak Hebrew well say [ə]? If you ask them to slowly pronounce a word the would say /ə/? As opposed to other places where they would say /e/? Check it this way. Ly362 (talk) 17:13, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

We'll be in touch. I have done alot of editing today. Templates. Now I'm finishing my wikignoming, and will pick up a good book (SF). :) Debresser (talk) 17:40, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I asked my wife. Sabra. "Breshit" indeed something like you say, but "lecha" and "bederech klal" like I say. I'll ask more people. Debresser (talk) 17:59, 1 September 2009 (UTC)'

Again, at least in the US I've believe that there is this strange phenomenon whereby people who believe they are speaking Israeli Hebrew add some "Ashkenazisms" in. It makes sense given that people are mixing together liturgical and colloquial usage. I could be way off, but if I were you I wouldn't trust anyone but a native speaker. Mo-Al (talk) 21:44, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, what Mo-Al said. I think you keep asking and relying on people from the same origin and same Hebrew education. I don't know where you live in Jerusalem, take the bus and ride it at least 20 stations and make sure people wear all kinds of cloths. Ly362 (talk) 04:31, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Second native Hebrew perspective here: only "bereshit", never "breshit".

בראשית ברא אלוהים את השמיים ואת הארץ
"Carefully pronounced" sample:	/bereˈʃit baˈra ʔelohˈim ʔet haʃaˈmaim veʔet haˈʔarets/
"Casually pronounced" sample:	/bereˈʃit baˈra eloˈim et aʃaˈmaim ve.et aˈarets/

Yaron's right, elision occurs sometimes in speech, but this phenomenon has nothing to do with standard grammar: תן לי בבקשה את הפטיש /ten li bevakaˈʃa et hapaˈtiʃ/ becomes /ten li vakˈʃa tapaˈtiʃ/, and so /leχa/ could become /lχa/, as in

הוא הראה לך את הכובע?
"Carefully pronounced" sample:	/hu herˈʔa leˌχa ʔet haˈkova?/
"Casually pronounced" sample:	/ʔu erˈa lχa taˈkova?/

And I actually believe that Schwa (/ə/) does exist in certain sociolects, as in so called "tsfonit", where e.g. כָּזֶה is pronounced "/kəˈze/". Dan ☺ 22:27, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Out of curiousity, what is this "tsfonit" sociolect? Mo-Al (talk) 01:05, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The "sociolect" of the area around /tsfon tel ʔa'viv/. Where people are usually rich and supposedly spoiled, or at least their daughters who talk this way. But I think as far as [ə] is concerned here, you can compare any casually pronounced vowel of Israelis everywhere to it, it is simply a matter of barely opening your mouth to speak "like a human". Ly362 (talk) 04:36, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

nəχɔn. Dan ☺ 19:10, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

(ages later) Actually, I dare say it's the Tel-Aviv parallel to Valspeak. Dan ☺ 18:11, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

ו׳ in the comparative table

I have never seen a vav (ו) with a geresh ('), and I'm a native Israeli Hebrew speaker. Could that be a mistake? --Daniel HK (talk) 05:01, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not standard, as pointed out in the table, but rare occurrences do exist (A random example). Dan ☺ 12:13, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Um, that didn't bring any result. 'ו doesn't exist in Hebrew orthography, sorry. Siúnrá (talk) 11:01, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

omg, ten days later and it's gone. Try this one or this one or this one. Dan ☺ 14:09, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I can testify on using ו' מלאו'ח (Melawaj), it's much more efficient than double Vav that can be read both as v and w. I'm actually rather clueless as to why it's so rare while 'צ', ג', ז are standard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.181.43.203 (talk) 22:46, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

foreign sounds

I think we should add a remark saying that /tʃ/, /dʒ/ /ʒ/ and /w/ are considered foreign sounds and not a native part of Modern Hebrew. (despite /w/ being historically a part of Hebrew.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.181.43.203 (talk) 23:04, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Consonant clusters examples

The examples really are weird, I, unless maybe in rapid speech, pronounce those words correctly. There are definitely better examples להזביר-להסביר, ספתא-סבתא. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.181.43.203 (talk) 23:22, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

What is ä doing here?

In the Vowels section, the phonetic transliteration column represents all occurrences of [a] as ä. This symbol

1. is not IPA
2. does not appear anywhere else in the article, nor in Wikipedia:IPA for Hebrew
3. and is almost certainly a mistake deriving from the use of "ä" for /ɑ/ in some dictionaries of American English.

I am changing it to a throughout the table. --Thnidu (talk) 00:03, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

[ä] is actually correct IPA. The umlaut marks a centralized vowel in IPA. Check out the intro section of Diaeresis (diacritic). — Eru·tuon 01:04, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Actually, it is IPA, as the diacritic represents a centering of the vowel in comparison to its cardinal value. See open central unrounded vowel. We can transcribe with or without the diacritic, though it's my understanding that the vowel in question is indeed central, not front. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 01:10, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

ŋ

As a native speaker of Hebrew, I must say I haven't heard any israeli pronouncing נג as [ŋ]. נג is always pronounced as [ng]. Therefore I think it should be removed from the article. מתיא (talk) 16:23, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I disagree:

• ג׳ונגל – ˈd͡ʒuŋɡel, not ˈd͡ʒunɡel
• פינג־פונג – ˈpiŋɡpoŋɡ or ˈpiŋpoŋ, not ˈpinɡponɡ
• בונג – boŋɡ, not bonɡ
• בנק – baŋk, not bank

Dan ☺ 13:23, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Reish

There are all kinds of Reish in modern Hebrew, certainly not only uvular fricative. In the past Aveolar Trilled Reish was obligatory in radio broadcasts and is still considered more correct. Plus, the 1990's wave of immigrants from the former Soviet block have brought many people who knew no other pronunciation except Aveolar Trill. TFighterPilot (talk) 18:11, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

We are talking about the phonology of native speakers, so what's the point of mentioning immigrants in the first place? If there are many Israelis in New York, and they pronounce r as /ʁ/, does it say that it's a variation of New York's English phonology? Immigrants who can pronounce /ʁ/ with no problems do pronounce it. In fact, some work on their Resh until they manage to pronounce it as /ʁ/, because they think that their Resh is incorrect. No one perceives the aveolar tap (not a trill, by the way) as correct. Radio broadcasts don't use it anymore 'cause it's ridiculous. And yes, that's the pure reason for that - it's ridiculous... Some of the broadcasters also tried to pronounce Het and 'Ayin back then. Today not even kids of Jewish-Arabic descent pronounce those letters as in Arabic, so they dropped that issue as well. People used to sing with the tap (again, not a trill) as well, I asked my mother about that - she said that it was always ridiculous in her eyes, and that no one ever spoke that way, not even those singers, and not even politicians giving speeches, it was only in songs and radio broadcasts. She says she has no idea why, because it was certainly not viewed by Israelis as more 'correct' - at least not by her and everyone she knew. It was a weird custom that made no sense. No native Israeli pronounces the tap in any situation today. It's simply not a part of Modern Israeli Hebrew in any way. If the Academy thinks it's correct, it just shows how much they lost touch with reality - all immigrants I know pronounce /ʁ/ if they can, and sometimes try really hard to. Omeriko (talk) 07:23, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, it is obvious why they try it: because the dominant culture in Israel is the one from the European Jews who mostly came from a Yiddish background. Ancient Hebrew was like Arabic, with a trilled r. Come on, even the syntax of modern Hebrew has been influenced by European languages. There were practically no native speakers of Hebrew in the early XX century in Palestine, the parents of "native speakers" were mostly people who had as mother tongue Yiddish or German (and some more a Slavic language, but less so). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Periergeia (talk • contribs) 21:23, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually: there were no native Hebrew speakers 110 years ago. Those who started the movement for revival of the language were mostly Yiddish speakers and thus they had the guttural r as opposed to the trilled one. And they pronounced Hebrew like that and that's why most of the new 'native' speakers got that pronunciation. Those that were living in Iraq or other Arab countries didn't have that sound but pronounced the r trilled.

Aramaic doesn't have the guttural (Yiddish) r. Arabic has two 'r's:

ر which is trilled and ‏ﻎ;, which is not but does not correspond to those Semitic words with what became r in Hebrew.

The cognates show all the time that what stands for Hebrew ו is in Arabic ر (or the equivalent in Aramaic), and that's trilled. So, most native Hebrew speakers use a sound that Hebrews 2000 years ago were very probably not using, a sound that came from German-Yiddish.

Of course, this seems like a political issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Periergeia (talk • contribs) 20:41, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Ghayin is absolutely not a rhotic in Arabic, it's the voiced counterpart of /x/. Check your sources next time. 216.221.94.189 (talk) 00:12, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

New column for Mizrahi Hebrew?

Does anyone else think we ought to add a column under the section about "regional and historical variation" for Mizrahi Hebrew? Or is it meant to be subsumed under Sephardi Hebrew? IMO they are not the same dialect(s), although they are overall fairly similar. The main differences are that Mizrahim tend to keep the emphatic consonants that other dialects fail to distinguish nowadays (except Yemenites) and some still pronounce vav as /w/ like Biblical Hebrew. There's nothing like the vastly different pronunciation of the vowels found in Yemenite or Ashkenazi Hebrew, but if we have separate columns for those, I don't see why we shouldn't have Mizrahi. I mean, there is a separate Wikipedia page on it, which even explicitly says that Mizrahi Hebrew is not the same as Sephardi Hebrew (while also noting that they share a lot of features in common, like the five-vowel system and a tendency for stress on the ultimate syllable). Anyway, I think it's a good idea. 216.221.94.189 (talk) 01:56, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Are /n/, /t/ and /d/ dental? Also, is /l/ palatalized?

EIN (talk) 16:30, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

The /l/ is probably not palatalized, but rather velarized (like in Yiddish). It's definitely not a clear l. The article should clarify this nuance. EIN (talk) 14:27, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Then again, I give up. Hopefully, I haven't misled anybody. EIN (talk) 13:31, 28 April 2013 (UTC)0

It's settled. It's a clear l. EIN (talk) 15:50, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Biblical/Mishnaic dialects for modern Hebrew?

Is there a rule against using the Biblical/Mishnaic dialects given in the chart (Ashkenazi, Yemenite etc.) for modern Hebrew? I would like to edit the chart so that pronunciations are given for the letters followed by geresh across the board and remove the words "and only in Israeli Hebrew", since the geresh-letters would have to be used with any dialect being used to speak modern Hebrew. Please respond. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Squee3 (talk • contribs) 21:29, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

OK, I've done it. Please don't change it back, as I believe that all currently-used reading traditions should be considered dialects of modern Hebrew. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Squee3 (talk • contribs) 23:47, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

[2] gives the following for both Israeli (Sephardic) and Ashkenazi Hebrew transliterations of English: ץ׳ for "cz", ג׳ for "j", and ז׳ for "zh". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Squee3 (talk • contribs) 00:01, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

wishful thinking

there was some serious wishful thinking among the phonology described here, esp. among the vowels. i've fixed it to accurately reflect modern hebrew usage (rather than someone's idea of what hebrew *should* sound like), with variants/traditional usage in parens. Benwing 05:46, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

What you did basically amounts to vandalism, which someone will now have to repair. The article does not exclusively treat Modern Israeli Hebrew phonology, which is a note you could have added, rather than gutting it and saying "what a good boy am I!" Tomer ^TALK 20:00, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the previous version of the article, but as it stands right now the only kind of Hebrew it describes systematically is general modern Israeli Hebrew. The comments on Ashkenazim, Yemenites, Mizrahim, Sephardim, Egyptians, etc. are confused. Just one example: the pronuciation of vet as [b] rather than [v] was very widespread among Mizrahim and Sephardim, not just Egyptians. Far more important, though, is the fact that these comments apply exclusively to non-native speakers, or to native Hebrew speakers in their liturgical chanting (and less and less, nowadays), not in their conversation.

That's not the case with [ħ] and [ʕ], which are pronounced in conversation by some Mizrahim and Sephardim, but only some of them. Even within the same family some individuals pronounce [ħ] and [ʕ] and others don't. It varies a lot.

Anyway, since the article describes modern Israeli Hebrew it should say so, and I've changed the title of the consonant and vowels sections. If anyone wants to change the contents, they can change the titles too.

"Far more important, though, is the fact that these comments apply exclusively to non-native speakers, or to native Hebrew speakers in their liturgical chanting (and less and less, nowadays), not in their conversation." I'm sure some people (if only in the diaspora) use these pronunciations in their conversation. That is what I prefer to do. Hebrew isn't my first language, and I'm not Jewish. I'm interested in learning Hebrew as a living, spoken language, but I prefer the above-mentioned regional variants to the Israeli dialect. Am I mistaken that other people do the same? --User:squee3 — Preceding undated comment added 16:58, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Vowel chart: pointless without explanation

As the headline says. Though I was trying hard to figure out why the vowel dots are arranged that way, I failed. It does not seem to have to do with the location the dot is placed with a letter. (e. g. a Vav with a center dot left of it is an "u", this is what I know, but in the chart the "u" is elsewhere). This is why I think that without any explanation (as it is now), the vowel chart will not make much sense to most readers. So please elaborate on what the diagram is trying to depict. -andy 2.243.61.244 (talk) 23:05, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Charts like this are standard in linguistics literature; they show the location of the tongue when pronouncing each vowel. In any case, I've added a link to vowel chart in the description. 140.180.248.145 (talk) 18:13, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Merged from Modern Hebrew

The phonology section of the Modern Hebrew article had more info than this article, especially when details of the orthography were removed. This article was largely a WP:CONTENTFORK. Since the section in the other article was overly long, I merged it here. It has also had more revision and discussion recently, e.g. Dekel (2014) based on corpus linguistics (i.e. Hebrew as she is spoke, rather than as the academy prescribes). The orthographic/dialectical section I removed is now at Hebrew alphabet. (Not sure that is the best place for it; Hebrew dialects might be usefully expanded.) — kwami (talk) 02:45, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Merged some section internally, and removed more stuff on orthography. The /r/ section is still overly long, but maybe s.o. else can handle that. — kwami (talk) 20:37, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

order of pharyngeals regarding "respectively"

Currently note 1 in the phonology section gives the following "1 The pharyngeal consonants are very rare, being pronounced only by older Mizrahi speakers. Others replace them with /ʔ/ and /x/, respectively.[5]". The order of the consonants being referred to, as would determine the interpretation of "respectively" there could only come from the table, where they are give as (ħ)1 (ʕ)1. To my knowledge no speakers of israeli actually use such a pronunciation, I believe this section is in error and the order should at least be reversed (or better relying on "respectively" should be removed, as it is confusing because the phonemes referred to are not actually in that sentence), however I'm not an expert of the subject and I would like someone to look at this before I make such a change myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Telmac (talk • contribs) 00:13, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

No Hebrew?

I'm not an expert on any of the issues in this article. But I am astonished that someone would write an article on pronunciation of Modern Hebrew which hardly includes Hebrew characters. It is almost impossible for someone like me, who knows Hebrew but not the various technical names of the sounds, to walk in and read the article. This article badly needs someone who knows what they're doing to go in and put the appropriate Hebrew letter/vowel next to _every_ appearance of a technical name for a sound, starting right at the top: "Oriental speakers tend to use an alveolar trill [r] rather than a uvular trill [ʀ] or a velar fricative [ɣ], preserve the pharyngeal consonants /ħ/ and (less commonly) /ʕ/" The first part is about a reish ר, the second part I don't know,... All such examples need to have the Hebrew characters added, so the rest of us can tell what you're talking about! Thanks. MikeR613 (talk) 14:24, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

I know you weren't looking at it this way, but your request is comparable to asking geologists to use Hebrew geological terms when discussing geological formations in Israel, Polish geological terms when discussing geological formations in Poland, and so on. A uvular trill is a uvular trill, and is represented as [ʀ], regardless of the language or languages whose possession of a uvular trill we're talking about, in the same way that (when writing in English), we write "igneous rock" whether that igneous rock is located in Hawaii, Mexico, or Iceland.

A language's phonology exists independently of whatever system happens to be used by speakers of that language to represent it in writing. It doesn't even necessarily correspond that closely to the writing system of a given language: would you say that the spelling of the [ɔː] sound in English is "o", "aw", "au", "ough", or "augh"? Linguists study the phonology of languages that have multiple writing systems, non-phonetic writing systems, or no writing system at all. They study phonology across languages: a scholar in the phonology of Indo-Aryan languages isn't going to keep switching among Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Sindhi, and Gujurati writing systems all in the same paragraph to discuss phonological characteristics that the languages share in common. They need to be able to study and discuss the phonology of languages without having to learn all of their writing systems: A reader needs to be able to learn about Hebrew phonology from this article whether or not he happens to have learned the alef-bet.

Typically, it's the article on a language's writing system that will describe the correspondences between the writing system and the phonology of the language. —Largo Plazo (talk) 16:12, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Uvular Fricative

The Velar fricatives mentioned in this article are actually supposed to be Uvular fricatives. In Modern Israeli Hebrew Heth and Kaph are usually pronounced as voiceless uvular fricative and R (Resh) is usually pronounced as voiced uvular fricative or uvular trill.--Adamʂa123 (talk) 01:36, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps they are supposed to be uvular, but this article is about what they actually are, which is velar in 80% of speakers according to Dekel (2014), who performed a statistical study to answer exactly this question. — kwami (talk) 20:33, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

That's exactly my point, they are actually uvular. It should be uvular in 80% of speakers not the other way around.--Adamʂa123 (talk) 23:32, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Again, it doesn't matter what it "should be", we're concerned with what it is. According to the only source I've seen that actually addresses the issue, they're velar. It's very common to use uvular symbols for back-velar sounds that don't actually involve contact with the uvula, so transcription does not suffice for a claim. That would be like saying French has an alveolar rather than dental /t/ because it's transcribed "t". — kwami (talk) 02:38, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I can't really argue, because I don't have the means to find reliable sources other than the internet to support my claim. All I can say is that I have been living my whole life in Israel and never once I heard someone using velar fricatives ex including Israelis with Russian accent. I have both velar fricatives and uvular fricatives in my first language so I can easily distinguish between them. I don't claim that by Hebrew language rules they should be uvular. My claim is that most Israelis actually use uvular fricatives and not velar fricatives. This is very weird to me, because as you say someone performed a statistical study and he found that most Israelis use velar fricatives? Very weird.--Adamʂa123 (talk) 15:15, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Dekel (2014), ref'd in the article. People often mistake back velars for uvulars, and I've often seen such sounds transcribed "ɣ~ʁ" or "x~χ", but if you have both in your mother tongue, that is indeed odd. This is something we might want to change. Dekel's study was based on a small sample, and might not be representative, but he did find ~80% [ɣ] to ~20% [ʁ]. Most sources don't even give [ɣ] as a possibility. It would be nice if we could find a review of Dekel in the lit, or a follow-up or larger study. — kwami (talk) 16:07, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Adopted the "ɣ~ʁ, x~χ" notation I've seen for German and Arabic. — kwami (talk) 18:36, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Actually, Arabic is another thing. Some places like (northern) Egypt use velars only, others, like the Persian Gulf use uvulars only. They are not allophones. And by the way, Israeli Arabs who are a minority are the ones who would most likely pronounce the Hebrew consonants as velars because their native Arabic dialect(s) have velars not uvulars. Adamʂa123 is correct and you shouldn't use primary sources which need more verification. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 04:11, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm not a Hebrew speaker, but I just want to point out that currently, the /r/ section of the article claims both velar and uvular majorities, in different paragraphs. Ørjan (talk) 00:33, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

[h]e and chwet

More than a few times, I've heard Israelis completely drop [h], especially at the beginning of words. One might be inclined to question whether that's why people use "גברים" instead of "אנשים" (to avoid confusion with "הנשים"). There is no mention of this other than passing mention that [h] and [א] are elided between vowels in some people's rapid speech.

Separately, I have heard many times, Israelis pronouncing /kh/ as /khw/, so אוכל sounds like /okhwel/ rather than /okhel/. This also is not mentioned. I would fix it, but I have no sources to draw upon beyond anecdote. 71.87.23.22 (talk) 21:35, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Possibly labio-palatalization, influenced by speakers of Russian Jewish ancestry or perhaps other sources? 173.245.131.67 (talk) 14:04, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Historical sound changes / allophony

Is there a specific source for the allophony mentioned in the historical sound changes section? I ask because although [b]/[v] and [p]/[f] are cited, I was taught [b]/[β] and [p]/[ɸ] -- which makes a lot of phonological sense. Flipping Mackerel (talk) 14:18, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

stress

"Historically, stress was predictable, depending on syllable weight". It lacks an extended and exact explanation. The table below is not enough.--Manfariel (talk) 12:57, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Which Hebrew is this article about?

There's a huge amount of confusion in the article and the talk page, so much so that someone who doesn't know Hebrew will be utterly mislead. The confusion is mostly due to the conflation of information about the Hebrew of native speakers and that of non-native speakers. The Hebrew used by non-Israelis in the Diaspora, or by immigrants to Israel, or in very traditional liturgical performance that preserves (or imitates) Diaspora traditions, or various ideas about how Hebrew ought to be pronounced, are very interesting topics, but Wikipedia needs a clear, well-organized description of how the millions of Israeli native speakers actually pronounce the language. Among those native speakers, there's relatively little variation, pretty much limited to the phonemes /r/, /ʕ/, /ħ/, and /ej/, and variation between /e/ and zero, as well as some aspects of intonation. So there are two topics: (1) the Hebrew of Israeli native speakers, and (2) all the non-native or non-Israeli variations. These should be separated into two articles, or else, if there's one article, it should have two clearly demarcated sections. Linguistatlunch (talk) 22:31, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

-- I agree. This whole article seems really weird, and it's hard to tell what's being discussed. Also, the section on sound changes makes it seem like there was a normal transition from Biblical Hebrew to Modern Hebrew, when it was really anything but. Also the section on the vowels. Still not sure about citing Dekel, especially since she's the only one who seems to be arguing that, and I've been unable to find a review of the book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.239.240.139 (talk) 17:16, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Why is Dekel, 2014 disputed?

I looked up the author and the source, she has a PhD in linguistics from the University of Amsterdam, the book looks professional, and more or less agrees with my (casual) observation of spoken Modern Hebrew. Tbfhhvuv (talk) 14:56, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Agree, it is a comprehensive academic work by an expert in the field, published by an established academic publisher. The user adding dubious deserves a trout. Jeppiz (talk) 10:49, 28 December 2017 (UTC)