Israel > The JTF Hebrew Club
More than one Hebrew
Edward:
rhayat
I studied linguistics and I am interested in languages, I speak 5 different languages.
But unfortunatelly I know almost nothing about the old language of my dear nation.. I'd like you to share this interesting information with me, if you can.
Thanks in advance:-)
rhayat1:
--- Quote from: Edward on January 31, 2010, 03:36:59 PM ---rhayat
I studied linguistics and I am interested in languages, I speak 5 different languages.
But unfortunatelly I know almost nothing about the old language of my dear nation.. I'd like you to share this interesting information with me, if you can.
Thanks in advance:-)
--- End quote ---
I'll start with the letter waw, known amongst European Jews as "vav". This letter we share with Arabic and Aramaic and probably other Semitic languages. It is common for the Yod and waw to be interchanged amongst Semitic languages (and sometimes even within a language). For example, Hebrew yaroq (green) has its equivalent in Arabic waraqa (leaf). Hebrew yeledh (lad) is walad in Arabic. Sometimes, they are the same as in Hebrew weredh (rose) and Arabic (ward). I use Arabic examples because I am most familiar with it.
Naturally, when Jews came to settle in Germanic and Slavic lands, they got used to the local vernacular - which had no equivalent to the waw. So their children and children's children began reading Hebrew with their own local accent, much as American Jews will use the American versions of letters to approximate the Hebrew ones. It is only natural and to resist would have been an uphill struggle. So, just as a German would say "I vish to sank you" instead of "I wish to thank you", so a German Jew would say "vehaya im shamoa" instead of "wehaya im shamoa' "
Could the letter originally have been pronounced like English "v" and been transformed into "w" among Mideastern Jews? No. Because we find Yemeni Jews retaining the letter "v" in the form of the soft "veth" even though Arabic has no exact equivalent sound. Arabic has no "v" sound but it does have a soft "b" sound and it is likely that this is how Hebrew was as well. In Iraq, the Jews did not retain the soft "veth" but read both the "beth" and the "veth" as "b". An Iraqi would say "Ya'aqob" instead of "Ya'aqov". Had the waw been originally the same as veth, then we would find some Mideastern Jews pronouncing the waw as "bab" - but we find no such cases.
Since the times of the geonim, we find Jewish authors using the Hebrew alphabet to write Arabic. The Rambam did so for his More haNnevukhim and so did Sa'adya Gaon for his translation of the Torah into Arabic. They consistently use Hebrew waw for Arabic waw - with no modifying signs. In cases where Arabic has sounds not found in Hebrew, they used special signs to show that this letter is not pronounced as it would normally be pronounced in Hebrew.
R. Adonim Dunash ben Tamim (10th century) wrote, in his commentary to sefer haYyesirah, that Hebrew has three letters that do not exist in Arabic: the soft veth, and the hard gimel and pe. He does not mention the "vav", as he should have had it been pronounced the same as veth.
ibid. that Arabic has three letters that do not exist in Hebrew... he does not mention the waw - because Hebrew has the exact same letter, pronounced the exact same way.
The Radaq (R. Dawidh Qimhi) writes that it is important be be careful to distinguish between the waw and the soft veth, whose pronunciations are close. He lived in Spain and, since Spanish also does not have an equivalent letter, it is easy to understand how this would have been a problem even in his day.
R. Avraham ibn 'Ezra, in his commentary on the Torah (Shemoth 3:15) wrote that the waw has its origins in the coming together of the lips. R. Yehudah Hayuj (a very early Hebrew grammarian) wrote that the waw is from the "kissing" of the lips.
In ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint, we find that the Greeks, who had no letter for either the "v" nor the "w" took pains to approximate the "w" sound in place names by combining several consonants together. However, when it came to the soft "veth", they simply used their letter "beta". Hence the name Hawwoth, we find spelled AAUAOTH (they had nothing similar to the heth either). For Shawwe, we find EAUEY (they also had nothing like "sh"). For 'Alwan, we find the most interesting GOLAM or TOLAM (the 'ayin obviously confused them greatly as well). But for Levonah, we find LEBONA. For Nevayoth, we find NABAOTH.
My late mentor, Ben Siyyon Cohen, presents no less than 57 proofs of the correct pronunciation of the waw in his book Sefath Emeth. Here are a few of those:
If the waw were the same as the veth, then it would turn into "b" with the addition of a dagesh (dot) just as the veth does. It does not - because it is not the same to begin with.
If the waw were the same as the veth, we would find confusion in verses such as "Yokhalu 'anawim" (consume the meek) could just as easily be "Yokhalu 'anavim" (consume grapes). No language can function like that for long - nor would there be any need to have two separate letters for the same sound.
What reason could there have been to use the letter waw as a proxy for the vowels o and u? It is because, if you start saying "w" and stop in the middle (lengthening it), you will end up with one of those vowels. This does not happen with "v". The sound "v" has no relationship to any vowel, while the "w" is a semivowel so to speak.
My mentor lists much evidence based on Hebrew grammar (diqduq) that is very difficult for me to translate so I must leave those out.
Anyway, that's it for waw unless you have any questions. I'll post about the other letters separately.
Edward:
Wow! This was very interesting! but It's still weird that the Greek translators of the Bible didn't use the letter 'X' (kheta) the Greek equivalent to the Hebreic '?' (khet). For example: the names Eve - in Hebrew 'khava'.
Another thing, does the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet (?) should sound like 'th'?
rhayat1:
--- Quote from: Edward on January 31, 2010, 08:34:53 PM ---Wow! This was very interesting! but It's still weird that the Greek translators of the Bible didn't use the letter 'X' (kheta) the Greek equivalent to the Hebreic '?' (khet). For example: the names Eve - in Hebrew 'khava'.
Another thing, does the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet (?) should sound like 'th'?
--- End quote ---
The reason the Greeks did not use their letter Khi for Heth is that the Khi does not sound the same at all. There is no similar letter in English for the Heth, but Arabic has it. If you listen to the audio file that zelhar linked to a couple of posts up, you'll hear the speaker pronouncing the Heth quite clearly and correctly (most of the time). It basically is like a prolonged English "h", almost like a person wheezing. There is no friction in the throat as there is with the Khaf.
The ancient sources list the guttural letters as alef, heth, he and 'ayin. The Khaf/kaf comes from the glottis, as does the ghimel/gimel, the qof and the yod.
Yes, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, in its soft form (without the dagesh) sounds like English "th" as in "thirty" or "anthem". It's easy to see how this got changed to "s" in some parts of Europe and "t" in others. The same exact thing happened to the Arabic letter "tha". It became an "s" in some places and a "t" in others. In a few places, it retained its original "th" pronunciation - not coincidentally, the same places where Hebrew retained its "thaw". Those places are mainly Iraq and Yemen.
Edward:
Yes, you're right about that..
I have an Israeli friend ane her family originally came from Yemen, so her parents have that special accent that quite resembles Arabic.
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