§ 6. Pronunciation and Division of Consonants.
p. Haupt, 'Die Semit. Sprachlaute u. ihre Umschrift,' in Beiträge zur Assyriologic u. vergleich. semit. Sprachwissenschaft, by Delitzsch and Haupt, i, Lpz. 1889, 249 ff.; E. Sievers, Metrische Studien, i, Lpz. 1901, p. 14 ff.
The pronunciation of Hebrew by the modern German Jews, which partly resembles the Syriac and is generally called 'Polish', differs considerably from that of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, which approaches nearer to the Arabic. The pronunciation of Hebrew by Christians follows the latter (after the example of Reuchlin), in almost all cases.
The oldest tradition is presented in the transcription of Hebrew names in Assyrian cuneiform; a later, but yet in its way very important system is seen in the manner in which the LXX transcribe Hebrew names with Greek letters.2 As, however, corresponding signs for several sounds ( b
jà [à cà qà v ) are wanting in the Greek alphabet, only an approximate representation was possible in these cases. The same applies to the Latin transcription of Hebrew words by Jerome, according to the Jewish pronunciation of his time.3
On the pronunciation of the modern Jews in North Africa, seeBargeÊs in the Journ. Asiat., Nov. 1848; on that of the South Arabian Jews,J.DeÃrenbourg, Manuel du lecteur, &c. (from a Yemen MS. of the year 1390), Paris, 1871 (extrait 6 du Journ. Asiat. 1870).
1. Among the gutturals, the glottal stopa is the lightest, corresponding to the spiritus lenis of the Greeks. It may stand either at the beginning or end of a syllable, e. g.rm;a' ÈaÒmaÃr ,~v;a.y< yaÎÈsëaÃm. Even before a vowela is almost lost to our ear, like the h in hour and in the French habit, homme. After a vowela generally (and at the end of a word, always) coalesces with it, e. g.ar'q' qaÒraÒ for an originalqaÒraç ; Arab.qaçraçaç ; see further, § 23 a, 27 g.
d
h before a vowel corresponds exactly to our h (spiritus asper); after a vowel it is either a guttural (so always at the end of a syllable which is not final, e. g.%P;h.n< nähpakh; at the end of a word the consonantalh has a point —MappiÖq — in it, see § 14), or it stands inaudible at the end of a word, generally as a mere orthographic indication of a preceding vowel, e. g.hl'G" gaÒlaÒ ; cf. §§ 7 b and 75 a.
e
[ is related toa , but is a much stronger guttural. Its strongest sound is a rattled, guttural g, cf. e. g.hW"[; , LXXGa,za ,hr'mo[] ,Go,morvr`a ; elsewhere, a weaker sound of the same kind, which the LXX reproduce by a spiritus (lenis or asper), e. g.yli[e ~Hli, ,qlem'[] VAmale,k .4 In the mouth of the Arabs one hears in the former case a sort of guttural r, in the latter a sound peculiar to themselves formed in the back of the throat. — It is as incorrect to omit the[ entirely, in reading and transcribing words (yli[e Eli,qlem'[] Amalek), as to pronounce it exactly like g or like a nasal ng. The stronger sound might be approximately transcribed by gh or rg; but since in Hebrew the softer sound was the more common, it is sufficient to represent it by the sign ‘, as[B;r>a; 'arba‘,d[; ‘ad.
f
x is the strongest guttural sound, a deep guttural ch, as heard generally in Swiss German, somewhat as in the German Achat, Macht, Sache, Docht, Zucht (not as in Licht, Knecht), and similar to the Spanish j. Like[ it was, however, pronounced in many words feebly, in others strongly.
As regards g
r , its pronunciation as a palatal (with a vibrating uvula) seems to have been the prevailing one. Hence in some respects it is also classed with the gutturals (§ 22 q, r). On the lingualr , cf. o.
2. The Hebrew language is unusually rich in sibilants. These have, at any rate in some cases, arisen from dentals which are retained as such in Aramaic and Arabic (see in the Lexicon the letters h
zà c andv ).
i
v andf were originally represented (as is still the case in the unpointed texts) by only one formX ; but that the use of this one form to express two different sounds (at least in Hebrew) was due only to the poverty of the alphabet, is clear from the fact that they are differentiated in Arabic and Ethiopic (cf. Nöldeke in Zischr. f. wissensch. Theol., 1873, p. 121; Brockelmann, Grundriss, i. 133). In the Masoretic punctuation they were distinguished by means of the diacritical point asv (sh) andf (sà ).5
The original difference between the sounds k
f ands 6 sometimes marks a distinction in meaning, e. g.rk;s' to close,rk;f' to hire,lk;s' to be foolish,lk;f' to be prudent, to be wise. Syriac always represents both sounds bys , and in Hebrew also they are sometimes interchanged; asrk;s' forrk;f' to hire, Ezr 4:5;tWlk.fi fortWlk.si folly, Ec 1:17.
l
z (transcribedz by the LXX) is a soft whizzing s, the French and English z, altogether different from the German z (ts).
3. m
jà q , and probablyc are pronounced with a strong articulation and with a compression of the larynx. The first two are thus essentially different fromt andk , which correspond to our t and k and also are often aspirated (see below, n).c is distinguished from every other s by its peculiar articulation, and in no way corresponds to the German z or ts; we transcribe it bysÌ ; cf. G. Hüsing, 'Zum Lautwerte desc ,' in OLZ. x. 467 ff.
For more precise information on the cases in which the one or the other pronunciation takes place, see § 21. The modern Jews pronounce the aspiratedb as v, the aspiratedt as s, e.g.br; rav (or even raf),tyIB; bais. The customary transcription (used also in this Grammar) of the spirantsbà kà t by bh, kh, th is only an unsatisfactory makeshift, since it may lead (esp. in the case of bh and kh) to an erroneous conception of the sounds as real aspirates, b–h, k–h.
(a) Gutturals | |
(b) Palatals | |
(c) Dentals | |
(d) Labials | |
(e) Sibilants | |
(f) Sonants |
In the case of
On the twofold pronunciation of r in Tiberias, cf. Delitzsch, Physiol. und Musik, Lpz. 1868, p. 10 ff.; Baer and Strack, Dikduke ha-teamim, Lpz. 1879, p. 5, note a, and § 7 of the Hebrew text, as well as p. 82.
i. Throat sounds (Gutturals):
ii. Mouth-sounds: |
w. | m. | e. | w. | m. | |
1. Mutes and Spirants: |
Palatal |
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Dental |
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Labial | ||||||
2. Sibilants: |
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3. Sonants: |
Rem. 1. The meaning of the letters at the top is, w. = weak, m. = middle hard, e. = emphatic. Consonants which are produced by the same organ of speech are called homorganic (e. g. q
g andk as palatals), consonants whose sound is of the same nature homogeneous (e. g.w andy as semi-vowels). On their homorganic character and homogeneity depends the possibility of interchange, whether within Hebrew itself or with the kindred dialects. In such cases the soft sound generally interchanges with the soft, the hard with the hard, &c. (e. g.d =z ,t =v ,j =c ). Further transitions are not, however, excluded, as e. g. the interchange oft andq (t =k =q ). Here it is of importance to observe whether the change takes place in an initial, medial, or final letter; since e. g. the change in a letter when medial does not always prove the possibility of the change when initial. That in certain cases the character of the consonantal sound also influences the preceding or following vowel will be noticed in the accidence as the instances occur.
Rem. 2. Very probably in course of time certain nicer distinctions of pronunciation became more and more neglected and finally were lost. Thus e. g. the stronger r
[ rg, which was known to the LXX (see above, e), became in many cases altogether lost to the later Jews; by the Samaritans and Galileans[ andx were pronounced merely asa , and so in Ethiopic,[ likeaà x , like h,X like s.
Rem. 3. The consonants which it is usual to describe especially as weak, are those which readily coalesce with a preceding vowel to form a long vowel, viz. s
aà zà y (as toh , cf. § 23 k), or those which are most frequently affected by the changes described in § 19 b–l, as againaà wà y , andn and in certain casesh andl ; finally the gutturals andr for the reason given in § 22 b and q.
Footnotes:
5[1] The modern Samaritans, however, in reading their Hebrew Pentateuch pronounce
7[1] So at any rate at the time when the present punctuation arose.