Where does the Ashkenazi "oy" sound come from?

[David Pinto]

I am a member of a synagogue where most of the members use the Israeli or Sephardi pronounciation of Hebrew.

 

Some of our older members, however, stick to the Ashkenazi pronounciation which they learned, I imagine, as children.

 

I was listening to such an individual this past Shabbat, as he chanted the blessings.

 

Where I would pronounce the word "toratoh", he pronounced it as "torasoy."

 

Now the t versus s pronunciation is well known as a difference between  Sephardi Jews and Ashkenazi Jews, so we do not have to discuss that here.

 

My question is: where on earth does that "oy" sound come from?

 

David Pinto

Montreal, Canada

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[Dr. Avraham Ben-Rahamiėl Qanaļ]

David,

 

        It comes from a tendency to vowel shift in Rhenish German/Yiddish. German o becomes ö, which became either oy or ey depending on the dialect of Yiddish. Similarly, German u becomes ü , which became u or i depending on the dialect of Yiddish, German ei [phonetically ai] becomes äi, which became ey or a depending on the dialect of Yiddish, German au becomes äu, which became oy or ey depending on the dialect of Yiddish, and German long a has a tendency to become å, which became o or u depending on the dialect of Yiddish.

 

   Avraham

                                                                

[Minden]

Kindly correct me if I'm wrong:

1. As opposed to today's Israeli o, which varies between closed and open, the massoretic o was closed (distinct from the more open קמץ).
2. In Ashkenaz, this was diphthongised to ou as in the English 'bow', at least in open syllables. "Core" Ashkenaz, i. e. Jews from South-Western Germany and the neighbouring regions, stayed at this stage until today, while
3. the East fronted it to öü, which in turn was
4. unrounded partly (Central/SE oi/öi) or entirely (NE ei).

But the real question is: Where on earth does that first o and the a of "torasoy" come from? Did you hear that right? (The expected would be Litvish "teyrosey", Galitzianer "toyrusoy", YIVO/chareidi make-up "toyrosoy" or the like.) This sounds like a case of heavy interference from the Israeli standard, or "Baaltshuvish".

Lipman Phillip Minden