|
So let us discuss pronunciation. Can we assume that the way in which Hebrew is commonly pronounced today is correct?
Unfortunately
not. First of all, Jews in every part of the world (during the Galuth)
pronounced, and continue to pronounce, our language differently from
one another. They cannot all be right. Secondly, there cannot be any
doubt that the long and bitter Galuth had a very negative effect on our
command and pronunciation of our ancestral language. Take the letter
'ayin for example. As is well known, the Ashkenazim have not been able
to differentiate between it and an aleph for centuries. The Sepharadim
and Taymanim, on the other hand, have never experienced such trouble.
We can attempt to explain this phenomenon in one of three ways:
1)It is simply a matter of luck that those communities of Jews preserved the original pronunciation.
2)
The Ashkenazim lost (as a rule) the ability to pronounce the 'ayin due
to the fact that in Europe, the vernacular that they spoke (whether it
was German, French, Russian, or Yiddish) lacked such a consonant. (Not
one of the native languages of Europe possesses such a sound). Seeing
that Hebrew ceased (until recently) to be a spoken and living language
at least 2000 years ago, the Ashkenazim simply never heard such a
sound, and could not, therefore, pronounce it.
3)
The Sepharadim and Taymanim are in fact wrong: the 'ayin and the aleph
are supposed to be identical, and thus indistinguishable, and were
designed to lead to confusion. I'll leave it to you, the reader, to
draw your own conclusions. The same applies to several other Hebrew
consonants (according to standard pronunciation). Teth (tet) and Tauw
(Tav) are mysteriously and confusingly identical, as are Waw (Vav) and
Veth (Vet), Kaf and Qof, and Khaf and Heth (Het). We therefore have
five sets of letters, 10 letters in all, that for some reason are
precise copies of their 'twin' letter! Does this make any sense? Does
this sound like a tongue the Creator Himself would have dreamed up?
Sefer
Yesira (a very ancient text that discusses, among other things, the
aleph beth - see 1:1, 2:2 and 3:3) lists the 22 letters of our aleph
beth, and points out that 7 of their number are 'double', i.e. have two
alternate pronunciations, depending upon whether they have a dot or
not: BeGeD KaPoReT, i.e. Beth, Gimmel, Daleth, Kaf, Pe, Resh, Tauw. All
of us know about three of these: Beth/Veth, Kaf/Khaf, Pe/Fe (and
according to present-day Ashkenazi tradition the fourth is Tav/Sav,
which we shall presently discuss). But what of Gimmel, Daleth and Resh?
While not attempting to deal with every aspect of
this subject in the current article, I feel that one clear indication
from the Talmud that the standard pronunciation of today is woefully
lacking is in place. "Sumkhos stated: 'He who lengthens [his
pronunciation of the word] Ehad will have his days lengthened [by
Hashem]'. R. Aha Bar Ya'aqov added: 'On the daleth'" (Talmud Bavli Berakhoth 13b). This is a standard Halakha (see Rambam
Qeriyath Shema 2:9, Shulkhan 'Arukh Orah Hayim 61:6). The trouble is
that as anyone who has ever tried to lengthen the daleth knows, this
can simply not be done - the letter d is a plosive consonant (i.e. it
is formed by the expulsion of air from the mouth in one, explosive
burst, and by definition cannot be extended). What usually results,
therefore, is Ehannnnnnnd. (Try it and you'll see what I mean). If,
however, one knows that the undotted daleth of Ehad is to be pronounced
as the th in the definite article the, the matter becomes simple - the
way to extend the daleth is to say Ehathhhh (which can be said, try it
and you'll see). To perform this requirement is, then, very simple, if
one knows that the undotted daleth is to be pronounced like the word
the; it is impossible, however, if one pronounces it as a d.
Rav Sa'adya Gaon
(flourished roughly 1100 years ago, universally accepted as one of the
greatest sages, in all areas of Tora, of all time) in his commentary to
Sefer Yesira (p. 74 onwards) states the following facts:
1)
There are 29 consonantal sounds in our language (22+7). No two letters
are identical, with the exception of 'sin' and 'samekh'.
2) The letters of our aleph beth are identical to those of (classical) Arabic, unless otherwise stated.
3) We possess four sounds that Arabic does not: Veth, Gimmel, Pe and the strong (or second) pronuncition of Resh.
4)
The Arabs have three that we lack: Jin (as the 'j' in jaywalk), a
second, deeper version of our dotted Daleth, and a second, deeper
version of our undotted Daleth. The very same information is imparted
to us by R. Dunash Ben Tamim (shortly after R. Sa'adya) in his
commentary to Sefer Yesira (p. 21). Add to this the statement of the
Rambam (letter to Shemuel Ibn Tibon, printed in Responsa Pe'er HaDor
no. 143,. p.275) that Arabic is simply Hebrew 'gone somewhat awry'
(sic), and the words of R. Avraham Ibn 'Ezra (in his commentary to Shir
HaShirim 8:11) "that Arabic is very close to the Holy Tongue...over
half the roots are common to both (Shalom-Salaam, Shemesh-Shams = sun
etc.)", and the picture is more or less complete: the alphabets of
these two related languages are very similar. (In the area of vowels,
the difference is greater: Hebrew is much richer in its range of
vowels. In addition, despite the similarity, our Holy Tongue is much
gentler). The fact that all Medieval Jewish scholars (e.g. R. Sa'adya,
Rambam, Ibn 'Ezra) who authored books in Arabic did so utilizing Hebrew
characters speaks for itself.
Despite the fact
that all of the disparate communities of the Jewish Diaspora were
adversely affected (linguistically) by the Galuth, the Teymani
(Yemenite) community preserved the authentic tradition more than any
other. The same is true, albeit less so, for some of the Sepharadi
communities. In this matter of linguistics and received pronunciation,
the Ashkenazim, living in an environment entirely inimical to a Semitic
language such as Hebrew, suffered the most. (If anyone doubts the truth
of such a claim, witness the substantial and obvious differences in
pronunciation between the average Ashkenazi, Haredi-style Jew, living
today in New York, and his Israeli counterpart. One will say 'borukh'
(blessed) with a plainly north-American 'r' sound, the other with a
distinctly different east-European guttural 'r'. The American Jew will
say 'godowl' (big) with the second vowel being identical with the
common English-American vowel-sound 'o' as in 'old' but if you step
into any schul of Israeli Haredim, you will hear 'godoyl'. This despite
the fact that both these Jews stem from the same European communities,
and theoretically are recipients of the same tradition. And all this in
the space of two, or at the most three, generations of American
Judaism. As opposed to this example, we are discussing aberrations that
evolved over 2000 years!.
Many authorities have
openly recognized the lackings of present-day Ashkenazi and Sepharadi
pronunciations. The renowned Ashkenazi rabbi R. Ya'aqov Emden
(Ya'abes) writes in his introduction to his famous Siddur Beth Ya'aqov:
"Pronunciation must be complete and correct...particularly one must not
confuse alephs with 'ayins and hehs...not to mention confusing totally
dissimilar letters ...not as we the Ashkenazim pronounce the undotted
tauw (tav) as a samekh, to our shame. In the matter of vowels, however,
we are much better off, not like the Sepharadim who do not distinguish
between a qames (kamatz) and a patah..." (new Eshkol edition p. 10).
R. Avraham Yishaq Hakohen Kook,
(the leading Ashkenazi Rabbi in this country 70 years ago), states that
"the essential aspect of any pronunciation is the distinction it
provides between letters and vowels, and in this respect the Sepharadi
pronunciation cannot equal the Ashkenazi, and even more so the Yemenite
pronunciation which is superior to both, in that it differentiates more
than the other two..." (Orah Mishpat p. 20).
In conclusion, I wish to quote the words of R. Ya'aqov Kaminetzky (in
a letter of approbation to the book Safa Berura on the subject of the
pronunciation of Hebrew, reprinted in the excellent book Qosht Imre
Emeth, on the same subject, p.14): "It is very important to clarify
the truth...I know that many will say 'Who is this person who wishes to
introduce new things [pronunciations] such as these? As a certain
person once said to me after I pointed out to him that our
pronounciation of the undotted daleth is plainly incorrect [as
explained above]: 'Do you imagine that the Hidushe HaRim [a great Tora
sage of the last century] did not read Shema properly?' I replied that
he certainly performed his obligation b'diavad. It is also possible
that he himself read it entirely correctly, but could not influence the
conduct of the entire community...But if only a few will pay heed [to
what you have written], it will have been worthwhile".
|
Articles 
