Re: The status of the glottal stop in Hebrew

On 5 July, Outo Otus wrote:

> An example of an aleph in an akward position is in the word "Rosh" (As in
> Rosh Hashanah), as the aleph comes after the o. I am guessing this would
> be ignored,
You would be correct.


> also, do ALL words in Hebrew that begin with a vowel have a
> glottal stop before them? Or only the ones spelt with an aleph?
    Besides the aleph glottal stop and the pharyngeal ayin
(which is often pronounced as a glottal stop), there may be a
question of word-initial "yod" (= / j / ). Is the glide really there
at the beginning of a word such as "Yitzhak" ( = Isaac)?
Is it [jitsxak] or [itsxak] --- the second one without an initial
glottal stop before the vowel? In careful speech, IME,
the [j] is definitely heard. In fast speech --- I'm not so sure
that the [j] isn't dropped, leaving [itsxak].
    Then there is the letter "heh" ( = [h] ).When pressed,
native speakers _will_ pronounce it in initial position.
But usually, they drop it. You will then effectively have
a word beginning with a vowel (and, IME, without a preceeding
glottal stop.)
    Also, AFAIK, words beginning with vowels which have been
borrowed from other langs (for example "auto") are usually
spelled with an initial aleph and pronounced with an initial
glottal stop.

> I may be
> wrong, but where a glottal stop ends a word, it seems to be ignored.
True.

> Also,
> is aleph pronounced when it occurs in the middle of a phrase/sentence?
> (Not phrase initial). Thanks.
AFAIK, it's like aleph in the middle of words: if speaking carefully and
slowly, the glottal stop is likely to be pronounced. In fast speech,
it gets dropped. (I've just finished getting an earful from my daughter,
[and let's not go into the reason for the tirade! ;-)  ]
who's a native Hebrew speaker, and I can tell you that within the utterances
that made up what she had to say to me, glottal stops were the least
of the sounds that were dropped in her fast speech! )

Joe wrote:

> Why should it be?  Seems like perfectly fine position to me ([ro?S], I
> assume).
    It may very well have once been pronounced that way.
(You'd have to ask someone more knowledgeable about
Hebrew historical linguistics than I am.) All I know is that,
for whatever reason, these days in Israeli Hebrew,
the word is pronounced without the glottal stop.


Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.