Re: Semitic rhotic questions

On Friday, November 7, 2003, at 11:17  PM, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> At 17:36 6.11.2003, Isaac Penzev wrote:
>> It is rather possible that Old Hebrew /r/ was [G] or [R] because it is
>> classified as guttural, and its presence in the stem provokes the
>> same kind of
>> phonetic changes, as, e.g. /X\/ or /?\/.
>
> I've read somewhere that [R] ir [R\] rather than [r] was
> characteristic of Jewish dialects such as Judeo-French,
> Judeo-Spanish and Yiddish long before these uvular sounds
> made any inroad into the speech of surrounding non-Jewish
> peoples.  If this is true (but how would it be provable)
> this might be a carryover from ancient Hebrew via Judeo-
> Aramaic and Jewish Vulgar Latin.
>
> /BP 8^)
> --
> B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)
>
I've heard Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) spoken, and it uses a [4].  What i
haven't figured out yet is whether it distinguishes between /4/ and /r/
like Spanish does.  If it does, it isn't represented in the Hebrew
Ladino orthography.  But i'm pretty sure i would have noticed if the
/r/ was pronounced as anything other than [4]~[r]


-Stephen (Steg)
  "venimos a ver, venimos a ver,
   ke gozen i logren i tengan munčo byen."
      ~ from 'skalerika de oro', ladino wedding song