Sephardi Hebrew language
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The Sephardi Hebrew language is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice. Its phonology was influenced by contact languages such as Ladino, Portuguese, Persian, Dutch and Arabic.
[edit] Phonology of Sephardi Hebrew
There is some variation between the various forms of Sephardi Hebrew, but the following generalisations may be made.
- The stress tends to fall on the last syllable wherever this is the case in Biblical Hebrew
- Some attempt is made to pronounce "ayin", though this varies between communities
- "Resh" is invariably trilled (like Spanish r), rather than uvular (like French r)
- There is always a phonetic distinction between ת (thav) and ס (samekh), whether thav represents a voiceless dental fricative ([θ], typical of Greek Sephardim and many Sephardim in Arabic-speaking countries), as a voiced dental plosive or fricative ([d] or [ð], typical for some older forms of Iberian Hebrew, as well as for Italian Hebrew), or as an unvoiced dental plosive ([t], typical of most European forms of Sephardi Hebrew)
- The Sephardi dialects observe the Kimhian five-vowel system (a e i o u), either with or without distinctions of vowel length: that is
- Tsere represents /eː/, not /ei/
- Holam represents /oː/, not /au/ or /oi/
- Kamats gadol represents /aː/, not /o/
This last difference is the standard shibboleth for distinguishing Sephardi from Ashkenazi (and Yemenite) Hebrew. The differentiation between kamats gadol and kamats katan is made according to purely phonetic rules without regard to etymology, which occasionally leads to spelling pronunciations at variance with the rules laid down in Biblical Hebrew grammar books. For example, כָל (all), when unhyphenated, is pronounced "kal" rather than "kol" (in "kal 'atsmotai" and "Kal Nidre"), and צָהֳרַיִם (noon) is pronounced "tsahorayim" rather than "tsohorayim". This feature is also found in Mizrahi Hebrew, but is not found in Israeli Hebrew. It is represented in the transliteration of proper names in the Authorised Version, such as "Naomi", "Aholah" and "Aholibah".
Unlike Mizrahi Hebrew, Sephardi Hebrew does not generally differentiate emphatic consonants such as "hhet", "tet" and "qof" from "chaf", "tav" and "kaf". Also "vav" is pronounced /v/, not /w/ as in Iraqi and Yemenite Hebrew.
[edit] Influence on Israeli Hebrew
When Eliezer ben Yehuda drafted his Standard Hebrew language, he based it on Sephardi Hebrew, both because this was the de facto spoken form as a lingua franca in the land of Israel and because he believed it to be most beautiful of the Hebrew dialects. However, the phonology of Modern Hebrew is in some respects constrained to that of Ashkenazi Hebrew, including the elimination of pharyngeal articulation and the conversion of /r/ from an alveolar flap to a voiced uvular fricative.
