Re: dialects of Hebrew? & Lemba

On Mar 16, 2005, at 8:15 AM, M. C. DeMarco wrote:
> On Mar 16, 2005, at 12:00 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
>> From: Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...>
>> On Mar 15, 2005, at 5:29 AM, Rodlox R wrote:
>>> Out of curiosity, are there any websites or [not overly expensive]
>>> books
>>> that show at least some of the dialect differences between the spoken
>>> Hebrew of, for example, Spain and China?
>> The only thing like that i know is the article "Pronunciations of
>> Hebrew" in the Encyclopedia Judaica.  And it doens't have China.
> Hebrew was a dead language at the time it reached Spain (as such) and
> probably China as well (though I'm not sure who you mean in China);
> "dialect" doesn't really apply here unless you're asking about Ladino.
> I haven't heard that the pronunciation of Hebrew in Spain was
> significantly different from modern Sephardic pronunciation, although
> some possible changes include the pronunciation of both variants of the
> letter bet as b (a Spanish habit which persists to this day in some
> Western Sephardic communities) and pronunciation of resh as uvular r
> rather than alveolar r (under Portuguese influence).  But those are
> just guesses.
> mary
"Dialect" here seemingly = 'accent' or 'pronunciation style'.
Hebrew as pronounced in Iberia did not lose the distinction between [b]
and [v] (in fact, Ladino didn't lose it either), and |reish| was
pronounced alveolar/dental.  This is how it is still pronounced in
Sefardic accents today.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "...i took the cane from a blind man,
   i tasted the fruit in the garden of eden -
   when i walk out of here, you know i'll stand clear;
   but the taste in my mouth still remains, still remains..."
      ~ 'eden' by guster

Reply