B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

Christianaudio.com is having their semi annual sale now where most audiobooks are reduced to $7.49.
Basics of Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary audiobook by Miles Van Pelt is regularly $21.99 now for 7.49.
The audiobook is 2 sets of 35 chapters. The first 35 use the academic pronunciation (i.e. vav as waw with a "w" sound) and the 2nd 35 (also numbered 1-35) use the modern Israeli pronunciation.
Each chapter corresponds, not exactly, to the vocabulary section of the 35 chapters of Basics of Biblical Hebrew Grammar by Van Pelt.
https://christianaudio.com/basics-of-bi ... k-download

I also have a question about the pronunciation.
The reader of the modern Israeli pronunciation, Nancy Erickson, pronounces the kaf as a "k" whether it has a dagesh or not.
I thought that without the dagesh it should be pronounced as a gutteral "kh" like the chet.

What is the correct way to pronounce the kaf with and without the dagesh?
Thank you.

Hi Steve

The letter Kaf without Dagesh is pronounced as soft KH.
But It is not from the throat.

The letter Chet is from the throat (Even though most people pronounce it as the KH)

By the way, is there a chance that we can hear a few sentences from that?
(Some from the Academic, and some from the modern).

Soft kaf (כ as opposed to כּ) should certainly have a fricative sound. It is something between a voiceless uvular fricative /x/ (hear it here) or a voiceless uvular trill /ʀ̥/ (hear it here). These sounds are actually produced with the back of the tongue and the back roof of the mouth, not in the throat (as David indicated).

Thanks David and Jason!
I tried attaching the audio files, but they were too big. Even after trimming the files down to 380k, it said they were too big.
I posted the files to my website here:
http://www.voiceinwilderness.info/milesvanpeltvocab.htm

The word with a kaf in this chapter is chakham wise. It is after the 50 sec mark in both audios.
Both the academic and the modern sound the same in this chapter for the consonants.

Is the kaf sound in the audios correct?

No, that kaf is not correct. The entire recording sounds זָר "strange, foreign."

Hi

AS Jason said, this is wrong and this whole recording doesn't sound very well.
They pronounce the soft K as a regular K sound.

Thanks for uploading, Steve

I don't understand the Academic vs. Modern
The only difference that I hear is that the soft D in Academic is TH.
But what about the emphatic T, Q, S?
I don't see any difference.
And what about soft G, T (they wasn't in the recoding's words) - but I wonder if they pronounce it "Academic"

And what about the vowels? are they part of the "academic" reading?

What does "Academic even mean?


Also, the word מעט and מאד are pronounced wrongly. they start it with "a" sound" (But it should start with a Mobile Sheva).

Basically, the accent is very strong.
And I don't understand why this recording should be recorded by people with an accent?

It is like me (or you) trying to learn Spanish, and in their recording that teaches us to speak Spanish, we hear people with a British accent speaking the Spanish words.
Why not a recording with a Spanish accent?

ducky wrote: ↑Sat Jun 05, 2021 8:08 am Basically, the accent is very strong.
And I don't understand why this recording should be recorded by people with an accent?

It is like me (or you) trying to learn Spanish, and in their recording that teaches us to speak Spanish, we hear people with a British accent speaking the Spanish words.
Why not a recording with a Spanish accent?

That's a great analogy.

Thanks very much, Jason and David.
The word "Academic" is what I called it. The recording calls it "Traditional or Classical", and the one by the lady is called "Modern or Israeli".
I was not interested in the "Traditional" so I did not listen much to it.
I noticed the dalets pronounced as "th" like you said. And vavs as "w".
The "traditional" vowels sound like the ashkenazi vowels, i.e. kamets as an "aw" sound.