Aleph and Ayin
Dennis
that in Israeli Hebrew they both are silent, though Israelis of Arabic-
speaking background will pronounce them as in Arabic.
I've also read that in modern liturgical Hebrew, such as in US synagogue
services, both 'aleph and `ayin are pronounced as a glottal stop.
The glottal stop is fairly easy for English speaker to produce, since we
have it in things like 'uh-oh' . However, the pharyngeal approximant or
fricative in Arabic `ayin is quite difficult for us. I've read that it's a
major way that Arabs measure the quality of a non-native speaker's Arabic -
how well they produce `ayin.
Dennis
Patty
They have no sound of their own, it depends on the vowel markings.
I've never heard a glottal stop, anybody else?
mm
The day before Pesach is a busy day for me, not that I could write a
much better answer if I had more time. In Hebrew school in America
taught by the someone from Danzig and maybe in the books I've seen
also, ayin and aleph were indeed taught simply as silent, with no
elaboration. And no one in Hebrew school in Indianapolis ever said
anything different, including the Israeli teachers. But of course,
that might not mean much because getting pronunciation perfect would
have been less important than all the other things**. So I don't know
what Israeli pronunciation is.
But places like Gaza, Gomorrah, and a couple other words we see in
English are actually spelled with an ayin in Hebrew, not a gimel.
They are not pronounced Gaza or Gomorrah in Hebrew, with a leading-G
sound, but with the sound of the ayin, whatever that is. The G in
English and other European languages is used to represent the stop
that the ayin represents, that represents how the words are
pronounced, a glottal stop I guess. I don't know if I pronounce the
words right or not - I've never asked anyone to tell me.
When I try to pronounce it right, it comes out more strongly than in
uh-oh, and the rear of my mouth, I guess the rear of the soft palate,
vibrates a bit (one cycle?). I don't know if that is an improvement
or the opposite.
At one point after age 30, I think I read or was told that ayin had
this stop sound, but aleph was truly silent, but later I believe I
read that aleph too has a sound to it.
**Plus, pronunciation improves with time on its own if one spends time
with those who pronounce words correctly. When I was learning
Spanish, the book said that j was pronounced as a guttural h. I was
in Mexico and had no dictionary with me, and didnt' know what guttural
meant, so I just pronounced it like a h. Within two months I was
pronouncing it correctly, picked it up without trying or even noticing
it for a long time, just by being with people who used a guttural h.
--
Meir
"The baby's name is Shlomo. He's named after his grandfather, Scott."
sheldonlg
I'm with you, but what I learned was over fifty years ago.
--
Shelly
Dennis
>> They have no sound of their own, it depends on the vowel markings.
>> I've never heard a glottal stop, anybody else?
>
> I'm with you, but what I learned was over fifty years ago.
See my previous remarks.
Incidentally, a happy Pesach to everyone! I'll probably read the Haggadah
I bought sometime ago.
Dennis
Dennis
>>They have no sound of their own, it depends on the vowel markings.
>>I've never heard a glottal stop, anybody else?
>
> The day before Pesach is a busy day for me, not that I could write a
> much better answer if I had more time. In Hebrew school in America
> taught by the someone from Danzig and maybe in the books I've seen
> also, ayin and aleph were indeed taught simply as silent, with no
> elaboration. And no one in Hebrew school in Indianapolis ever said
> anything different, including the Israeli teachers. But of course,
> that might not mean much because getting pronunciation perfect would
> have been less important than all the other things**. So I don't know
> what Israeli pronunciation is.
>
> But places like Gaza, Gomorrah, and a couple other words we see in
> English are actually spelled with an ayin in Hebrew, not a gimel.
> They are not pronounced Gaza or Gomorrah in Hebrew, with a leading-G
> sound, but with the sound of the ayin, whatever that is. The G in
> English and other European languages is used to represent the stop
> that the ayin represents, that represents how the words are
> pronounced, a glottal stop I guess.
Probably not a glottal stop for `Ayin I hadn't realized what you say
about Gaza, Gomorrah, but Wiki's article discusses it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayin
> I don't know if I pronounce the
> words right or not - I've never asked anyone to tell me.
>
> When I try to pronounce it right, it comes out more strongly than in
> uh-oh, and the rear of my mouth, I guess the rear of the soft palate,
> vibrates a bit (one cycle?). I don't know if that is an improvement
> or the opposite.
This sounds like the pharyngeal or epiglottal sound I had thought, and
an approximant/fricative, not a stop. That would be like Arabic.
Wiki's article discusses this, and there are sound samples. The article
says it can sometimes be a stop, though I believe they're talking about
Arabic.
> At one point after age 30, I think I read or was told that ayin had
> this stop sound, but aleph was truly silent, but later I believe I
> read that aleph too has a sound to it.
In ancient Hebrew 'Aleph did indicate the glottal stop.
None of this is a matter of what's 'right'; it's rather a question of
what's current practice. I think that ancient Hebrew had these about
like Arabic does now, but the Hebrew language is different now. Just
like the modern Greek pronounciation is quite different from the ancient
one.
> **Plus, pronunciation improves with time on its own if one spends time
> with those who pronounce words correctly. When I was learning
> Spanish, the book said that j was pronounced as a guttural h. I was
> in Mexico and had no dictionary with me, and didnt' know what guttural
> meant, so I just pronounced it like a h. Within two months I was
> pronouncing it correctly, picked it up without trying or even noticing
> it for a long time, just by being with people who used a guttural h.
The sound should be like a Hebrew 'ch'. It's velar, not glottal like
English 'h'. I don't know whether Spanish even has the English 'h'.
Dennis
Dennis
> The day before Pesach is a busy day for me, not that I could write a
> much better answer if I had more time. In Hebrew school in America
> taught by the someone from Danzig and maybe in the books I've seen
> also, ayin and aleph were indeed taught simply as silent, with no
> elaboration. And no one in Hebrew school in Indianapolis ever said
> anything different, including the Israeli teachers. But of course,
> that might not mean much because getting pronunciation perfect would
> have been less important than all the other things**. So I don't know
> what Israeli pronunciation is.
>
> But places like Gaza, Gomorrah, and a couple other words we see in
> English are actually spelled with an ayin in Hebrew, not a gimel.
> They are not pronounced Gaza or Gomorrah in Hebrew, with a leading-G
> sound, but with the sound of the ayin, whatever that is. The G in
> English and other European languages is used to represent the stop
> that the ayin represents, that represents how the words are
> pronounced, a glottal stop I guess. I don't know if I pronounce the
> words right or not - I've never asked anyone to tell me.
I hadn't heard about Gaza, Gomorrah, and the others before, but Wiki's
article discusses that. Apparently 'ayin represented two sounds in
ancient times. See the quote below for the current different possible
pronounciations of 'ayin - though I think they're discussing Arabic.
> When I try to pronounce it right, it comes out more strongly than in
> uh-oh, and the rear of my mouth, I guess the rear of the soft palate,
> vibrates a bit (one cycle?). I don't know if that is an improvement
> or the opposite.
What you're doing is the way I've heard 'ayin described, as a pharyngeal
approximant or fricative (not stop, since there's air flow.) Apparently
it's often soft enough that it's hard for English speakers to heard at
all. (Meaning Arabic 'ayin, of course.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayin
" 'Ayin has traditionally been described as a voiced pharyngeal fricative
([?]). However, this may be imprecise. Although a pharyngeal fricative
have occasionally been observed for ayin in Arabic, and so therefore may
occur in Hebrew as well, the sound is more commonly epiglottal ([?]),[1]
and may also be a pharyngealized glottal stop ([??])."
There are recordings at the links for all these.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_epiglottal_fricative
Incidentally, `Ayin is ultimately where our letter O comes from. The
great specialist on writing systems Peter Daniels thinks that the Greeks
made it into "omicron" simply because they didn't hear the initial
consonant, and thought the letter was just a vowel! .The same thing
happened with 'aleph and alpha, yod and iota, he and epsilon, and cheth
and eta. Notice how they're in the same order, and how the names are
similar.
> At one point after age 30, I think I read or was told that ayin had
> this stop sound, but aleph was truly silent, but later I believe I
> read that aleph too has a sound to it.
'aleph would be the glottal stop, like 'uh-oh'. Again, Arabic as well as
ancient Hebrew worked this way.
My question, of course, was what's the practice in modern Israeli and
modern liturgical Hebrew.
> **Plus, pronunciation improves with time on its own if one spends time
> with those who pronounce words correctly. When I was learning
> Spanish, the book said that j was pronounced as a guttural h. I was
> in Mexico and had no dictionary with me, and didnt' know what guttural
> meant, so I just pronounced it like a h. Within two months I was
> pronouncing it correctly, picked it up without trying or even noticing
> it for a long time, just by being with people who used a guttural h.
The Spanish <j> is a voiceless velar fricative. It's actually pronounced
further forward in the throat than English <h>; it's articulated at the
same point as <k>. However, the air stream flows; the difference between
English <k> and Spanish <j> is like the difference between English <p>
and <f>, or <t> and <s>
In some forms of Spanish, and also in some other languages, it's just
pronounced more roughly than we pronounce <h>, thus it sounds "guttural".
OTOH, in Dutch it's written <ch>, but it's very smooth.
Thanks for the responses!
And once again, a happy Pesach to everyone!
Dennis
Susan S
<paj...@earthlink.net>:
The "t" in cat is a glottal stop.
Susan Silberstein
Giorgies E Kepipesiom
Aleph is a glottal stop. You almost never hear it, because the aleph
is pronounced with whatever vowel is marked on it, and the stop is
imperceptible. the only time you hear it (assuming someone bthers to
pronounce it) is when it is in the middle of a word and has a schewa
underneath. E.G. Yeshaiya 42:21 the last word, should be pronounced ve-
ya--dir, with an ever-so-slight pause between ya and dir. Many people
read it ve-ya-a-dir as if it had a patach or chataf under the aleph.
That is wrong.
Ayin is a guttera letter, not a glottal. It is rarely heard, because
the mesora has been lost as to exactly how to pronounce it. It is
something like the consonant 'N', but pronounced from way back in the
throat, and without the tongue touching the upper teeth.
GEK
whishing good moed.
Dennis
> Aleph is a glottal stop. You almost never hear it, because the aleph
> is pronounced with whatever vowel is marked on it, and the stop is
> imperceptible. the only time you hear it (assuming someone bthers to
> pronounce it) is when it is in the middle of a word and has a schewa
> underneath. E.G. Yeshaiya 42:21 the last word, should be pronounced
> ve- ya--dir, with an ever-so-slight pause between ya and dir. Many
> people read it ve-ya-a-dir as if it had a patach or chataf under the
> aleph. That is wrong.
That's the sort of thing I thought. The glottal stop is a consonant in
some other languages, eg. Arabic, Hawai'ian (note the glottal stop there.)
> Ayin is a guttera letter, not a glottal. It is rarely heard, because
> the mesora has been lost as to exactly how to pronounce it. It is
> something like the consonant 'N', but pronounced from way back in the
> throat, and without the tongue touching the upper teeth.
I wasn't sure what the current practice is. The opinions I've heard here
is that it is indeed like in ancient Hebrew or modern Arabic. Wiki's
article and its links have good discussions and some recordings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayin
Thanks for the replies!
Dennis
Yisroel Markov
I have. My rabbi can do both aleph and ayin. The latter sounds like it
should hurt your throat.
--
Yisroel "Godwrestler Warriorson" Markov - Boston, MA Member
www.reason.com -- for a sober analysis of the world DNRC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"Judge, and be prepared to be judged" -- Ayn Rand
mm
I have trouble with long words like fricative. At any rate, any
choice of linguitic words I used for ayin and aleph were just guesses.
Other than that, I only said what I knew.
You probably know much more about this than I do.
Georgies's post in this thread struck me as very good. This has been
discussed here before, including how the Yemenites etc. speak this
letters, but I only remember so much.
I don't know anything about those last 3 words. I only know that it is
a guttural h for most people. I learned this from another book, but I
have in front of me the very U of Chicago Spanish English dictionary I
took with me in 1970, and it says "20. J Spanish j has no exact
equivalent in English. It is a strongly aspirated h or a guttural
sound, produced by forcing voiceless breath through a looosse contact
of the back of the tonge with the soft palate....." That is, I guess,
it starts out voiceless but ends up with a sound. They're out to get
us, I tell you.
It's sad that I know more about Spanish than I do aobut Hebrew.
Spanish is a lot simpler for someone who knows English, but still.
> It's actually pronounced
>further forward in the throat than English <h>; it's articulated at the
>same point as <k>. However, the air stream flows; the difference between
>English <k> and Spanish <j> is like the difference between English <p>
>and <f>, or <t> and <s>
>
>In some forms of Spanish, and also in some other languages, it's just
>pronounced more roughly than we pronounce <h>, thus it sounds "guttural".
>OTOH, in Dutch it's written <ch>, but it's very smooth.
>
>Thanks for the responses!
>
>And once again, a happy Pesach to everyone!
Too late. Pesach is over. Oh, I guess I'm the one who's late.
Thank you.
>Dennis
Dennis
>>> When I try to pronounce it right, it comes out more strongly than in
>>> uh-oh, and the rear of my mouth, I guess the rear of the soft
>>> palate, vibrates a bit (one cycle?). I don't know if that is an
>>> improvement or the opposite.
>>
>>What you're doing is the way I've heard 'ayin described, as a
>>pharyngeal approximant or fricative (not stop, since there's air
>>flow.) Apparently it's often soft enough that it's hard for English
>>speakers to heard at all. (Meaning Arabic 'ayin, of course.)
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayin
>>
>>" 'Ayin has traditionally been described as a voiced pharyngeal
>>fricative
>
> I have trouble with long words like fricative. At any rate, any
> choice of linguitic words I used for ayin and aleph were just guesses.
> Other than that, I only said what I knew.
>
> You probably know much more about this than I do.
No. I wouldn't have asked here if I did.
'Fricative' just means that the air flows past the obstruction that the
tongue makes in the mouth/throat.
For both English t and s, the tongue touches the ridge behind the teeth
(so they're called 'alveolar' consonants, refering to the spot.) For t,
the tongues closes off the air flow completely, so it's a 'stop'. For s,
the air flows past the obstruction - and can continue like that a long
time - so it's a 'fricative'.
Note the same difference between Hebrew bet or kaph, with or without the
hard sign (can't think of the name); you get b vs v and k vs ch.
> Georgies's post in this thread struck me as very good. This has been
> discussed here before, including how the Yemenites etc. speak this
> letters, but I only remember so much.
It *was* good!
>>The Spanish <j> is a voiceless velar fricative.
>
> I don't know anything about those last 3 words.
I explained 'fricative' above. 'Velar' means that the back of the
throat closes off, the same way it does in the English k . 'Voiceless'
means that the vocal chords don't vibrate. English s and z are both
alveolar fricatives (see above), but s is voiceless and z is voiced (the
vocal chords do vibrate).
> I only know that it is
> a guttural h for most people.
The English h is actually a lot further back in the throat than Spanish
j! Compare how a Mexican would pronounce 'jalapeno' vs. the way a
Norteamericano would.
By 'guttural' you might mean that it's a rough sound. In Spanish and
German it usually is, but in Dutch and Russian, it's fairly smooth.
> I learned this from another book, but I
> have in front of me the very U of Chicago Spanish English dictionary I
> took with me in 1970, and it says "20. J Spanish j has no exact
> equivalent in English. It is a strongly aspirated h or a guttural
> sound, produced by forcing voiceless breath through a looosse contact
> of the back of the tonge with the soft palate....." That is, I guess,
> it starts out voiceless but ends up with a sound. They're out to get
> us, I tell you.
That would make it a bit different from what I had above, more like the
German 'ch' in 'ich'. What I described above is like German 'ch' in
'ach'.
> It's sad that I know more about Spanish than I do aobut Hebrew.
> Spanish is a lot simpler for someone who knows English, but still.
You won't hear natives speak Hebrew unless you go to Israel, and even
then, sabra Israeli Hebrew might not be quite the same as liturgical
Hebrew; hence my questions.
>>And once again, a happy Pesach to everyone!
>
> Too late. Pesach is over. Oh, I guess I'm the one who's late.
>
> Thank you.
And thanks to you!
Dennis
mm
<tsalagi...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>mm wrote:
>
>>>> When I try to pronounce it right, it comes out more strongly than in
>>>> uh-oh, and the rear of my mouth, I guess the rear of the soft
>>>> palate, vibrates a bit (one cycle?). I don't know if that is an
>>>> improvement or the opposite.
>>>
>>>What you're doing is the way I've heard 'ayin described, as a
>>>pharyngeal approximant or fricative (not stop, since there's air
>>>flow.) Apparently it's often soft enough that it's hard for English
>>>speakers to heard at all. (Meaning Arabic 'ayin, of course.)
>>>
>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayin
>>>
>>>" 'Ayin has traditionally been described as a voiced pharyngeal
>>>fricative
>>
>> I have trouble with long words like fricative. At any rate, any
>> choice of linguitic words I used for ayin and aleph were just guesses.
>> Other than that, I only said what I knew.
>>
>> You probably know much more about this than I do.
>
>No. I wouldn't have asked here if I did.
You wouldn't have asked here if you knew as much as you wanted to.
But wrt me, you say that but again you show below that you know more
than I do.
>
>'Fricative' just means that the air flows past the obstruction that the
>tongue makes in the mouth/throat.
>
>For both English t and s, the tongue touches the ridge behind the teeth
>(so they're called 'alveolar' consonants, refering to the spot.) For t,
>the tongues closes off the air flow completely, so it's a 'stop'. For s,
>the air flows past the obstruction - and can continue like that a long
>time - so it's a 'fricative'.
>
>Note the same difference between Hebrew bet or kaph, with or without the
>hard sign (can't think of the name);
dagesh
> you get b vs v and k vs ch.
Yes, I noticed in Spanish, beh vaca and beh burro. Actually beh is
half-way between an English b and v, and I learned how to say it, but
it's either the same or so close in (Latin-American? Central-American
and Mexican?) Spanish that they have to have a two-name for each, vaca
for the beh that is written v, and burro for the one that is written
b**. I see the letters as very different, but if they are related in
both Hebrew and Spanish, they must be similar somehow.
**It was the foreman of a road repair crew in Guatamala who taught me
and a friend the alfabeto. There are daily rock falls in the Tapon,
the winding strech of the Pan Am Highway just east of the Mexico
border, the road in the mountains and not along the coast. One or
more crews goes out every day looking for rocks on the road and
probably other problems, and I guess they picked us up hitchhiking
about 3PM. We were platonic friends. Truck drivers always put her in
the front and me in the back, with the cargo, usually in open trucks,
but once in a refrigerated meat truck. (In that one case, we descended
quickly from the central plain of Mexico to the Oaxaca, close to sea
level. The swerving, the lack of windows or fresh air, and the smell
of that meat, sausage, etc. almost made me throw up. When we got to
Oaxaca, I bought a package (2 capsules) of Dramimina. Had no use for
it for the rest of the trip, until I got a ride on a small yacht going
from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the canal zone. I told the
guy I was experienced, so I figured I'd better not throw up, so I took
one dramamina, only to find out soon after that the area on the
Atlantic side of the canal is almost smooth as glass. and the canal
channels and locks and lakes are all smooth too. (this was the best
trip of my life, so I like to talk aobut it. )
Anyhow, we stopped at a store and she and I reported our
conversations. I had told the guys staning with me in the back of the
open truck that I was single, since I was. She had told the driver
that we were married, so he'd leave her alone. So we got back in the
truck and I told the guys in back with me that we were married, and
she told the driver that we were each single.
Anyhow the driver was the foreman and I guess there were 30 or 60
minutes to kill after we got back to the one room building that was
their hq in that part of the road, and the foreman and we sat at a
table and he taught us how to recite the alfabeto. I'd been in Latin
America for almost a month and though everyone was nice and helpful,
no one had thought to do that.
>> Georgies's post in this thread struck me as very good. This has been
>> discussed here before, including how the Yemenites etc. speak this
>> letters, but I only remember so much.
>
>It *was* good!
>
>>>The Spanish <j> is a voiceless velar fricative.
>>
>> I don't know anything about those last 3 words.
>
>I explained 'fricative' above. 'Velar' means that the back of the
>throat closes off, the same way it does in the English k . 'Voiceless'
>means that the vocal chords don't vibrate. English s and z are both
>alveolar fricatives (see above), but s is voiceless and z is voiced (the
>vocal chords do vibrate).
>
>> I only know that it is
>> a guttural h for most people.
>
>The English h is actually a lot further back in the throat than Spanish
>j! Compare how a Mexican would pronounce 'jalapeno' vs. the way a
>Norteamericano would.
Yes, I know how to say j in Spanish. That other source I can't find
called it a guttural h and that's what I picked up from the other
people, without even trying, since I didnt' know what guttural meant.
>
>By 'guttural' you might mean that it's a rough sound. In Spanish and
>German it usually is, but in Dutch and Russian, it's fairly smooth.
I dont' know Dutch or Russian and I try not to know any German.
>> I learned this from another book, but I
>> have in front of me the very U of Chicago Spanish English dictionary I
>> took with me in 1970, and it says "20. J Spanish j has no exact
>> equivalent in English. It is a strongly aspirated h or a guttural
>> sound, produced by forcing voiceless breath through a looosse contact
>> of the back of the tonge with the soft palate....." That is, I guess,
>> it starts out voiceless but ends up with a sound. They're out to get
>> us, I tell you.
>
>That would make it a bit different from what I had above, more like the
>German 'ch' in 'ich'. What I described above is like German 'ch' in
>'ach'.
>
>> It's sad that I know more about Spanish than I do aobut Hebrew.
>> Spanish is a lot simpler for someone who knows English, but still.
>
>You won't hear natives speak Hebrew unless you go to Israel,
I've been to Israel for about 3 months total and (hope to go again
soon.) When I picked up hitchhikers, they all wanted to speak
English, but were very willing to speak Hebrew and correct my mistakes
when I asked.
> and even
>then, sabra Israeli Hebrew might not be quite the same as liturgical
>Hebrew; hence my questions.
I've pretty much told you all I know.
>>>And once again, a happy Pesach to everyone!
>>
>> Too late. Pesach is over. Oh, I guess I'm the one who's late.
>>
>> Thank you.
>
>And thanks to you!
>
>Dennis
--