Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-athena.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!mit-athena!martillo From: martillo@mit-athena.UUCP (Joaquim Martillo) Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish Subject: Re: Stop the anglo-saxon hebrew!! Message-ID: <147@mit-athena.UUCP> Date: Sun, 31-Mar-85 01:42:33 EST Article-I.D.: mit-athe.147 Posted: Sun Mar 31 01:42:33 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 5-Apr-85 09:41:48 EST References: <23760@lanl.ARPA>, <1331@aecom.UUCP> Organization: MIT Project Athena Lines: 80 There is some argument among linguists but one may fairly assume that ancient Biblical Hebrew speakers represented each phoneme with a separate consonant and that doubling was real (which in fact many Sefardim do this day do liturgically anyway). Since doubling is almost always a result of grammar it need not be represented because a native Hebrew speaker would always know when to double (this is a simplification). The masoretes however were not native Hebrew speakers and consequently they heard two phonemes where a native Hebrew speaker hears one. Likewise a modern English speaker hears one phoneme /t/ in put and to while a Hindi (or I) hears two separate and distinct phonemes. Teaching students that a taw dagesh or taw rafe (sov in certain barbaric pronunciation systems) are separate letters as is common in most day schools is incorrect and a hindrance to properly learning to read Hebrew. When a person reads a hebrew text properly, he should automatically use the proper expression of a given phoneme given the context. Thus torah has a hard taw sound but 'atah has a soft taw sound because in the first case the /t/ is initial while in the second /t/ is between two vowels. 'attah has two hard taw sounds but the native Hebrew speaker should perceive this as a case of the phoneme /t/ being doubled. The Ashkenazi transliteration scheme hides that fact that we are dealing with three separate sounds but only one phoneme. This makes learning Hebrew grammar harder for the non-native Hebrew speaker because suddenly phonology becomes part of grammar. Also learning to read is much more complicated. The Ashkenazi system of pronunciation can be considered basically incorrect because the phonemes are basically German phonemes (as are the phonemes in Israeli Hebrew which should be termed yisra'elit and not sefardit which is how my father pronounces Hebrew) and because the Ashkenazi pronunciation divides a single phoneme taw into a sibilant and a dental which simply does not happen in living Human languages. This is a fact which Jacob of Emden notices about 3 centuries ago. The lack of any proper expression of the semitic guttarals and emphatics is also a reason to avoid the Ashkenazi pronunciation. Merely pronouncing Hebrew with an `Arabic phonemic system is preferable because one would expect that the correct phonemic system of Hebrew is close to the `Arabic phonemic system since `Arabic is a kindred language. This was Ben Yehudah's approach. But in fact the Yemenite Hebrew pronunciation does not use the `Arabic phonemic system and is probably a genuine 2nd temple period pronunciation preserved. I have to admit I find text easier to read if all taw's are represented as t's and not sometimes as s's. It is very common for Human languages to have two separate representations of the same phoneme as happens in yisra'elit with teth and taw but giving two separate expressions to the same phonemes as Ashkenazi pronunciation does and transcribing a single phone two different ways when Hebrew itself only uses one letter is a bit gross and iritating to anyone who has any knowledge of linguistics. The reason religious Ashkenazim cling to a basically incorrect pronunciation of Hebrew (especially when one considers that the phonemic system of yisra'elit is the same as ashkenazit) is political and neither religious nor reasonable. In Europe many religous Jews were essentially illiterate in Hebrew or Aramaic, if such a religious Jew could get through a little bit of the Humash with help he felt he had accomplished something of religious merit. Suddenly all these kofrim (infidels) were learning to speak Hebrew and made the semi-illiterate Jew's religious achievement look like nothing. The rabbis loved their communities and consequently told them to speak Hebrew language as an every day language was a sin and therefore they should not worry about the achievements of the kofrim because they were founded in sin. Of course this reasoning is relatively stupid today and Sefardic hakamim even the most antiZionist consider speaking Hebrew praiseworthy. The continued persistence of anti-Hebrew opinions by certain Ashkenazi rabbis is yet another example of the mental fossilization of the Ashkenazi community which persists in battling out irrelevant 19th century political battles. Yehoyaqim Martillo