Re: About Hebrew pronunciation

I came across an interesting article published originally in 1969,
regarding modern Isreali Hebrew, which analyzed the phonology and history
of its revival. In some senses, modern Hebrew resembles a semi-conlang in
the vein of Gotish, the ancient Germanic natlang expanded through conlang
means (by J.R.R. Tolkien and others). I recommend reading it, as it goes
over the means through which the language was revived and extended, the
semantic issues with creating new words and constructions, and the rather
complex historical and cultural phonological melange. The article can be
found at:

http://www.adath-shalom.ca/israeli_hebrew_tene.htm

Enjoy!

--Scott Heath

At 10:31 05/30/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>I'm talking about Modern Hebrew, the one which is spoken in Israel today.
>
>Do sephardic speakers keep the pharyngeal consonants? I have also noticed
>there is a trend regularly to omit glottal stops (at least in the
>ashkenazic pronunciation), does this happen with the sephardic
>pronunciation?
>
>I also read somewhere that in casual / fast speech 'ayin ( voiced
>pharyngeal) is omitted. Can anyone verify this?
>Thanks.