Hebrew, etc.

On 22 Aug, Chollie wrote:

>Steg Belsky wrote:
>"From what i can remember from the _Encyclopedia Judaica_
>article on "Pronounciations of Hebrew" (an amazing resource for this
>stuff!) the only groups that pronounce vav as /w/ (either always or
>allophonically) also use a /w/ (or a continuum of /w/ /B/ /b/) for
>instances of bet."
>    I was going to point out that this is characteristic of the Jews of
>Kurdistan (Geoffrey Khan just wrote an excellent, highly expensive book on
>one of their dialects).  For example, the Aramaic word for "milk" in
>Kurdistan is pronounced "halwa" (Heb. helebh).  The same is apparently true
>for their pronunciations of Hebrew.
>    I made xeroxes of the sacred texts of the Kai-fung Jews (published in a
>facsimile edition by some Presbyterians in Shanghai); interestingly enough,
>words like herebh "sword" and helebh "milk" frequently become confused,
such
>that one will appear for the other and vice versa.  This is, no doubt, due
>to the Kai-fung Jews' own pronunciation of Hebrew (I wish someone had
>bothered to preserve that before the obsolescence of that community!).


    Just one small quibble: the root het-lamed-vet/bet
can mean either "milk" or "animal fat" depending upon the vowels. "Milk"
in Hebrew has the qamats, which in Israeli pronounciation is /a/
and in Ashkenazic pronounciation is AFAIK /O/, but to use /e/
turns the milk into animal fat. ( Not a good idea if you're on a diet!
-)  )
But this, of course, doesn't really affect the
points you made, which were very interesting.

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

A word is an awesome thing.