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This article is about the phonology of the Hebrew language based on the Israeli dialects. It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof, including geographical variants.
Hebrew has been used primarily for liturgical, literary, and scholarly purposes for most of the past two millennia. As a consequence, its pronunciation has been strongly influenced by the vernacular of each individual Jewish community. In contrast to the varied development of these pronunciations is the relatively rapid development of modern Israeli Hebrew.
The two main pronunciations of Modern Israeli Hebrew are Oriental and Non-Oriental.[1] Oriental Hebrew was chosen as the representative variant by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, but has declined in popularity.[1]
Below are the consonants of modern General Israeli Hebrew. Some historically distinctive Hebrew phonemes have merged in modern Hebrew, such as historically distinctive /t/, /θ/, /tˤ/ (now all /t/), written respectively by the letters Tav (תּ), Ṯav (ת) and Ṭet (ט). The exact nature of the emphatic feature for emphatic consonants is a matter of debate; the most commonly suggested possibilities are pharyngealization (as in Arabic) and glottalization (as in the Ethiopian Semitic languages). For these cases, the Academy of the Hebrew Language suggests two transliteration sets, a generic one, reflecting modern phonology, and a strict one, reflecting the orthographic distinctions, which are still in use, and the historical phonology.[2]
The pairs /b β/, /k x/, and /p f/, written respectively by the letters bet (ב), kaf (כ) and pe (פ) have historically been allophonic. In Modern Hebrew, however, all six sounds are phonemic, due to mergers involving formerly distinct sounds: (/v/ merging with /w/ and for most speakers with /β/, /k/ merging with /q/, /x/ merging with /ħ/ (which both pronounce [χ]), loss of consonant gemination (which formerly distinguished the stop members of the pairs from the fricatives when intervocalic), and the introduction of syllable-initial /f/ through foreign borrowings (see Begadkefat).
In Israeli Hebrew, [θ] can occur in some foreign words, including names (e.g. סמית׳ 'Smith'); television shows (e.g. סאות׳פארק 'South Park'); and places (e.g. פורטסמות׳ 'Portsmouth'), though it is not always pronounced as such and can be replaced by other sounds (e.g. בלוטות׳ 'Bluetooth' is commonly pronounced [ˈblʊtus], as reflected in the spelling בלוטוס).
In obstruent clusters, a voicing assimilation usually occurs as native Hebrew speakers tend to voice or devoice the first obstruent according to the second one.
Examples:
In casual fast speech, some Israelis may drop the glottal sounds when occurring between vowels (Laufer Asher, 2008, Chapters in Phonetics and in Phonetic Transcription, (The book is accompanied with a CD), Magnes, Jerusalem, 2008, chapter 6 & 7, pp. 78-93 (in Hebrew). Hence, /mɑ ha-ʃɑˈʔɑ/ "what's the time?" becomes [mɑhaʃɑˈɑ] or [mɑ.a.ʃɑˈɑ].
The Hebrew Niqqud sign "Shva" was traditionally classified as representing four grammatical entities: resting (naḥ / נָח), moving (na' / נָע), floating (meraḥef / מְרַחֵף) and "bleating" or "bellowing" (ga'ya / גַּעְיָה). In earlier forms of Hebrew, these entities were phonologically (and, in part, phonetically) distinguishable. However, the phonology of Modern Hebrew has produced four phonetic variants of Shva, either [ɛ], or mute, or sometimes [a], or rarely [ɔ] which no longer conform to the traditional classification, e.g. the (first) Shva Nah in the word קִמַּטְתְ (fem. you crumpled) is pronounced [ɛ] ([kɪˈmatɛt]) instead of being mute, whereas the Shva Na in זְמַן (time) is mute ([zman]). In general, in Modern Hebrew, some shvas are always pronounced [ɛ] (particularly, in prefixes like [bɛ] "in" or when following another shva in grammatical patterns, e.g. [tɪlmɛdi] "you (f. sg.) will learn"), while the remaining shvas are pronounced only when not pronouncing them would violate a phonological constraint (for example, between two sounds that are identical or differ only in voicing, e.g. [lɑmadɛti] "I learned" not *[lɑmadti]; or when an impermissible initial cluster would result, e.g. *[rC-] or *[Cʔ-], where C stands for any consonant).
Modern Hebrew, like Tiberian Hebrew, has stress: on the last syllable (milra‘) and on the penultimate syllable (the one preceding the last, mil‘el). The former is more frequent. The stress has phonemic value, e.g. "שבו", when pronounced /ˈʃavu/, means "returned", whereas when pronounced /ʃaˈvu/ it means "captured". However, Modern Hebrew, like Tiberian Hebrew, has also stressed words on the antepenult (mil‘el demil‘el; e.g. נֶ֣עֶרְמוּ מַיִם (Ex. 15:8)) or even further back (קיבוצניקיות) {see e.g. Laufer Asher (2008), Chapters in Phonetics and in Phonetic Transcription, (The book is accompanied with a CD), Magnes, Jerusalem, 2008, pp. 52-55 (in Hebrew).}
The following table contains the pronunciation of the Hebrew letters in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the . The apostrophe-looking symbol after some letters is not a yud but a geresh. It is used for loanwords with non-native Hebrew sounds. The dot in the middle of some of the letters, called a "dagesh kal", also modifies the sounds of the letters ב, כ and פ in modern Hebrew (in some forms of Hebrew it modifies also the sounds of the letters ג, ד and/or ת; the "dagesh chazak" – orthographically indistinguishable from the "dagesh kal" – designates gemination, which today is realized only rarely – e.g. in biblical recitations or when using Arabic loanwords).
Manner of articulation, Place of articulation, International Phonetic Alphabet, Devanāgarī, ɾ̼
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