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| Phonology | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.
Main article: Hebrew phonology
[ Tags:Ipa,Unicode,Rendering Support,Question Marks, Boxes, Or Other Symbols,Hebrew Phonology,Hebrew,Article, | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Consonants |
The Hebrew word for consonants is ‘itsurim (עיצורים). The following table lists the Hebrew consonants and their pronunciation in IPA transcription:
Consonants
Labial
Coronal
Dorsal
Laryn-
geal
Bilabial
Labio-
Dental
Dental
Alveolar
Post-
alveolar
Palatal
Velar
Uvular
Glottal
Nasal
m
n
Plosive
p b
t d
k g
ʔ
Affricate
ts
tʃ dʒ
Fricative
f v
s z
ʃ ʒ
χ
ʁ
h
Approximant
j
w
Lateral Approximant
l
[ | Tags:Plosive,Fricative,Consonant, Begadkefat |
The pairs /b, v/, /k, x/ and /p, f/ have historically been allophonic – as seen still today in some inflections, such as ערב ← ערביים /ˈerev/ → /arˈbajim/ ("evening" → "twilight"), מלך ← מלכה /ˈmeleχ/ → /malˈka/ ("king" → "queen"), אלף ← אלפית /ˈelef/ → /alˈpit/ ("a thousand" → "a thousandth") – as a consequence of the phenomenon of spirantization known as "begadkefat". In Modern Hebrew, however, all six sounds are sometimes phonemic; comprae e.g. פִּסְפֵּס /pisˈpes/ "striped" and פִסְפֵס /fisˈfes/ "missed", הִתְחַבֵּר /hitχaˈber/ "connected" and הִתְחַבֵר /hitχaˈver/ "befriended" or לככב "to star", whose common pronunciation /lekaˈχev/ preserves the manner of articulation of each kaf in the word it is derived from: כּוֹכָב /koˈχav/ "a star" (first plosive, then fricative), as opposed to the prescribed pronunciation /leχaˈkev/, which regards the variation in pronunciation of kaf /χ/ ←→ /k/ as allophonic and determines its manner of articulation according to historical phonological principles. This phonemic divergence might be due to mergers involving formerly distinct sounds (historical pronunciation /w/ of vav merging with fricative bet, becoming /v/, historical pronunciation /q/ of kuf merging with plosive kaf, becoming /k/, and historical pronunciation /ħ/ of het merging with fricative kaf, becoming /x/), loss of consonant gemination, which formerly distinguished the stop members of the pairs from the fricatives when intervocalic – e.g. in the inflections קפץ ← קיפץ /kaˈfats/ → /kiˈpets/, historically /kiˈppets/ ("jumped" → "hopped"), שבר ← שיבר /ʃaˈvar/ → /ʃiˈber/, historically /ʃiˈbber/ ("broke" → "shattered"), שכן ← שיכן /ʃaˈχan/ → /ʃiˈken/, historically /ʃiˈkken/ ("resided" → "housed") – and the introduction of syllable-initial /f/ (e.g. פברק /fibˈrek/) "fabricated") and non-syllable-initial /p/ (e.g. הפנט /hipˈnet/) "hipnotized") and /b/ (e.g. ג׳וב /dʒob/) "job") through foreign borrowings.
[ | Tags:Ce,Modern Hebrew,Allophonic,Inflections,Spirantization,Begadkefat,Manner Of Articulation,Kaf,Derived,Prescribed,Vav,Bet,Kuf,Het,Foreign Borrowings,א, Varieties of ayin |
ע was once pronounced as a voiced pharyngeal fricative. Most modern Ashkenazi Jews do not differentiate between א and ע; however, many Mizrahi Jews and most Arabs pronounce these phonemes. Georgian Jews pronounce it as a glottalized[clarification needed] q. Western European Sephardim and Dutch Ashkenazim traditionally pronounce it [ŋ] (like ng in sing) – a pronunciation which can also be found in the Italian tradition and, historically, in south-west Germany. (The remnants of this pronunciation are found throughout the Ashkenazi world, in the name "Yankl" and "Yanki", diminutive forms of Jacob, Heb. יעקב.)
[ | Tags:Sephardi,Jews,Voiced Pharyngeal Fricative,Ashkenazi,Mizrahi,Georgian,Clarification Needed,Sephardim,Italian,Jacob,Ashkenazim,Phonemes,Phoneme, Historical sound changes |
Standard (non-Oriental) Israeli Hebrew (SIH) has undergone a number of splits and mergers in its development from Biblical Hebrew.[3]
BH /b/ had two allophones, [b] and [v]; the [v] allophone has merged with /w/ into SIH /v/
BH /k/ had two allophones, [k] and [x]; the [k] allophone has merged with /q/ into SIH /k/, while the [x] allophone has merged with /ħ/ into SIH /χ/
BH /t/ and /tˤ/ have merged into SIH /t/
BH /ʕ/ and /ʔ/ have usually merged into SIH /ʔ/, but this distinction may also be upheld in educated speech of many Sephardim and some Ashkenazim
BH /p/ had two allophones, [p] and [f]; the incorporation of loanwords into Modern Hebrew has probably resulted in a split, so that /p/ and /f/ are separate phonemes.
[ | Tags:Israel,Biblical Hebrew,Allophones,Loanwords, Dagesh |
Hebrew also has dagesh, a phonological process of consonant strengthening that is indicated in fully pointed texts by a dot placed in the center of a consonant. There are two kinds of strengthenings: light (kal, known also as dagesh lene) and heavy (hazak or dagesh forte). The light version applies to the phonemes /b/ /k/ /p/ (historically, also /ɡ/, /d/ and /t/), causing them to be pronounced as stops rather than fricatives, and operates when the dagesh occurs in the beginning of a word or after a consonant (i.e. a silent shva). The heavy dagesh occurs after vowels and applies to all consonants except gutturals and /r/, originally causing them to be pronounced as geminate (doubled) consonants; it also selects the stop allophone of /b/, /k/, /p/, etc. (In Modern Hebrew, gemination has disappeared, and the hence the heavy dagesh has a phonological effect only on /b/ /k/ /p/, affecting them the same as the light dagesh.) Traditional Hebrew grammar distinguishes two sub-categories of the heavy dagesh according to their historical origin: structural heavy (hazak tavniti) and complementing heavy (hazak mashlim). . Structural heavy dagesh corresponds to consonant doubling that was inherited from Proto-Semitic, and occurs in certain verb conjugations and noun patterns (mishkalim and binyanim; see the section on grammar below). Complementing heavy dagesh corresponds to consonant doubling that arose within Hebrew as a result of consonant assimilation, most commonly of an /n/ to a following consonant (e.g. Biblical Hebrew /attā/ "you (m. sg.)" vs. Classical Arabic /anta/).
[ | Tags:Semitic,Arabic,Dagesh,Shva,Gutturals,Geminate,Proto-semitic,Assimilation,Classical Arabic,Vowels, Vowels |
Main article: Niqqud
The vowel phonemes of Modern Israeli Hebrew
The Hebrew word for vowels is tnu'ot (תְּנוּעוֹת). The orthographic representations for these vowels are called Niqqud. Israeli Hebrew has 5 vowel phonemes, represented by the following Niqqud-signs:
phoneme
pronunciation in
Modern Hebrew
approximate pronunciation
in English
orthographic representation
"long" *
"short" *
"very short" / "interrupted" *
/a/
[ä]
(as in "spa")
kamats ( ָ )
patach ( ַ )
chataf patach ( ֲ )
/e/
[e̞]
(as in "bed")
tsere male ( ֵי ) or tsere chaser ( ֵ )
segol ( ֶ )
chataf segol ( ֱ ), sometimes shva ( ְ )
/i/
[i]
(as in "ski")
chirik male ( ִי )
chirik chaser ( ִ )
/o/
[o̞]
(as in "more")
cholam male ( וֹ ) or cholam chaser ( ֹ )
kamatz katan ( ָ )
chataf kamatz ( ֳ )
/u/
[u]
(as in "flu" but with no diphthongization)
shuruk (וּ)
kubuts ( ֻ )
* The severalfold orthographic representation of each phoneme attests to the broader phonemic range of vowels in earlier forms of Hebrew. Some linguists still regard the Hebrew grammatical entity of Shva na—marked as Shva (ְ)—as representing a sixth phoneme, /ə/.
In Biblical Hebrew, each vowel had three forms: short, long and interrupted (chataf). However, there is no audible distinction between the three in modern Israeli Hebrew, except that tsere is often pronounced [eɪ] as in Ashkenazi Hebrew.
[ | Tags:Niqqud, Shva |
Main article: shva
The Niqqud sign "Shva" represents four grammatical entities: resting (nach / נָח), moving (na' / נָע), floating (merahef / מְרַחֵף) and "bleating" or "bellowing" ('ga'ya' / גַּעְיָּה). In earlier forms of Hebrew, these entities were phonologically and phonetically distinguishable. However, in Modern Hebrew these distinctions are not observed. For example, the (first) Shva Nach in the word קִמַּטְתְ (fem. you crumpled) is pronounced [e̞] ([kiˈmate̞t]) even though it should be mute, whereas the Shva Na in זְמַן (time), which theoretically should be pronounced, is usually mute ([zman]). Sometimes the shva is pronounced like a tsere when accented, as in the prefix "ve" meaning "and".
[ | Tags: Stress |
Hebrew has two frequent kinds of lexical stress, on the last syllable (milrá; מלרע) and on the penultimate syllable (the one preceding the last, mil‘él; מלעיל), of which the first is more frequent. Contrary to the prescribed standard, some words exhibit a stress on the antepenultimate syllable or even further back. This occurs often in loanwords, e.g. פּוֹלִיטִיקָה /poˈlitika/, "politics", and sometimes in native Hebrew words, e.g. אֵיכְשֶׁהוּ [4]/ˈeχʃehu/, "somehow"; אֵיפֹשֶׁהוּ /ˈefoʃehu/, "somewhere". Colloquial stress is also often shifted from the last syllable to the penultimate, contrary to the prescribed standard, e.g. כּוֹבַע, normative stress /koˈvaʕ/, colloquial stress /ˈkovaʕ/ "hat"; שׁוֹבָךְ normative stress /ʃoˈvaχ/, colloquial stress /ˈʃovaχ/, "dovecote". This is also common in the colloquial pronunciation of many personal names, for example דָּוִד normative stress /daˈvid/, colloquial stress /ˈdavid/, "David".[5]
Specific rules correlate the location or absence of stress in a syllable with the written representation of vowel length and whether or not the syllable ends with a vowel or a consonant.[6] Since spoken Israeli Hebrew does not distinguish between long and short vowels, these rules are not evident in speech. They usually cannot be inferred from written text either, since usually vowel diacritics are omitted. The result is that nowadays stress has phonemic value, as the following table illustrates: acoustically, the following word pairs differ only in the location of the stress; orthographically they differ also in the written representation of the length of the vowels, however if vowel diacritics are omitted (as is usually the case in Modern Israeli Hebrew) they are written identically:
common spelling
(Ktiv Hasar Niqqud)
mil‘él-stressed
milrá-stressed
spelling with vowel diacritics
pronunciation
translation
spelling with vowel diacritics
pronunciation
translation
ילד
יֶלֶד
/ˈjeled/
boy
יֵלֵד
/jeˈled/
will give birth
אוכל
אֹכֶל
/ˈoχel/
food
אוֹכֵל
/oˈχel/
eating (masculine singular participle)
בוקר
בֹּקֶר
/ˈbokeʁ/
morning
בּוֹקֵר
/boˈkeʁ/
cowboy
Little ambiguity exists, however, due to context and syntactic features; compare e.g. the English word "conduct" in its nominal and verbal forms.
[ | Tags: Grammar |
Main article: Hebrew grammar
Hebrew grammar is partly analytic, expressing such forms as dative, ablative, and accusative using prepositional particles rather than grammatical cases. However, inflection plays a decisive role in the formation of the verbs and nouns. E.g. nouns have a construct state, called "smikhut", to denote the relationship of "belonging to": this is the converse of the genitive case of more inflected languages. Words in smikhut are often combined with hyphens. In modern speech, the use of the construct is sometimes interchangeable with the preposition "shel", meaning "of". There are many cases, however, where older declined forms are retained (especially in idiomatic expressions and the like), and "person"-enclitics are widely used to "decline" prepositions.
[ | Tags: Triliteral roots |
Main article: Semitic languages#Morphology: triliteral roots
Like all Semitic languages, the Hebrew language exhibits a pattern of stems consisting typically of "triliteral", or 3-consonant consonantal roots (2- and 4-consonant roots also exist), from which nouns, adjectives, and verbs are formed in various ways: e.g. by inserting vowels, doubling consonants, lengthening vowels, and/or adding prefixes, suffixes, or infixes.
Many of the Hebrew triliteral roots are shared with the other Semitic languages. This fact eases Hebrew learning for persons with a large vocabulary in another Semitic language, and eases learning of other Semitic languages by Hebrew speakers.
[ | Tags:Semitic Language, One-letter prefixes |
Hebrew uses a number of one-letter prefixes that are added to words for various purposes. These are called "Letters of Use" (Hebrew: אותיות השימוש, Otiyot HaShimush). Such items include: the definite article ha- (/ha/) (="the"); prepositions be- (/bə/) (="in"), le- (/lə/) (="to"), mi- (/mi/) (="from"; a shortened version of the preposition min'); conjunctions ve- (/və/) (="and"), she- (/ʃe/) (="that"), ke- (/kə/) (="as", "like").
The vowel accompanying each of these letters may differ from those listed above, depending on the first letter or vowel following it. The rules governing these changes are hardly observed in colloquial speech, as most speakers tend to employ the regular form. The correct form may be heard in more formal circumstances. For example, if a preposition is put before a word which begins with a moving Shva, then the preposition takes the vowel /i/ (and the initial consonant may be weakened): colloquial be-kfar (="in a village") corresponds to the more formal bi-khfar.
The definite article may be inserted between a preposition or a conjunction and the word it refers to, creating composite words like mé-ha-kfar (="from the village"). The latter also demonstrates the change in the vowel of mi-. With be and le, the definite article is assimilated into the prefix, which then becomes ba or la. Thus *be-ha-matos becomes ba-matos (="in the plane"). Note that this does not happen to mé (the form of "min" or "mi-" used before the letter "he"), therefore mé-ha-matos is a valid form, which means "from the airplane".
* indicates that the given example is grammatically non standard.
[ | Tags: Syntax |
Like most other languages, the vocabulary of the Hebrew language is divided into verbs, nouns, adjectives, and so on, and its sentences structure can be analyzed by terms like object, subject, and so on. However, persons who speak only Indo-European languages (e.g. English, French, Hindi) may find the structure of Hebrew sentences quite surprising. Hebrew sentences do not have to include verbs. The verb To Be does not exist in present tense in Hebrew. Unlike the verb To Have, none of the possession terms in Hebrew is a verb. There is no word that is supposed to come before every singular noun. Moreover, many sentences can have a few correct orders of words.
[ | Tags: Writing system |
Main article: Hebrew writing
Modern Hebrew is written from right to left using the Hebrew alphabet, which is an abjad, or consonant-only script of 22 letters. The ancient paleo-Hebrew alphabet is similar to those used for Canaanite and Phoenician. Modern scripts are based on the "square" letter form, known as Ashurit (Assyrian), which was developed from the Aramaic script. A cursive Hebrew script is used in handwriting: the letters tend to be more circular in form when written in cursive, and sometimes vary markedly from their printed equivalents. The medieval version of the cursive script forms the basis of another style, known as Rashi script. When necessary, vowels are indicated by diacritic marks above or below the letter representing the syllabic onset, or by use of matres lectionis, which are consonantal letters used as vowels. Further diacritics are used to indicate variations in the pronunciation of the consonants (e.g. bet/vet, shin/sin); and, in some contexts, to indicate the punctuation, accentuation and musical rendition of Biblical texts (see Cantillation).
[ | Tags:Canaanite, History |
As a language, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages.[7] Hebrew (Israel) and Moabite (Jordan) are Southern Canaanite while Phoenician (Lebanon) is Northern Canaanite. Canaanite is closely related to Aramaic and to a lesser extent South-Central Arabic. Whereas other Canaanite languages became extinct, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in Israel from an unce | Tags:West Semitic,Northwest Semitic, |