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Questions about Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation

Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2018 10:14 pm
by squee333
Is the Ashkenazi pronunciation given here: https://books.google.com/books?id=KEYEA ... &q&f=false still used? Do people who ue it say "zayin" or "zoyin" for ז? "alef" or "olef" for א? "daled" or "doled" for ד? Do they use Eastern or Westen Yiddish? Is there a variety of Ashkenazi pronunciation that was used by stereotypical Jewish immigrants to New York City in the 1890s–1930s that could also conceivably be represented by a medieval grammar? Sorry if this question doesn't make a lot of sense...

Re: Questions about Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation

Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2018 4:24 pm
by SteveMiller
Squee,
We say zayin, alef and daled.
Your links do not seem to correspond to your questions.
All 4 of my grandparents immigrated to Baltimore from Lithuania in your timeframe.

Re: Questions about Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:39 pm
by ralph
squee333 wrote:Is the Ashkenazi pronunciation given here: https://books.google.com/books?id=KEYEA ... &q&f=false still used? Do people who ue it say "zayin" or "zoyin" for ז? "alef" or "olef" for א? "daled" or "doled" for ד? Do they use Eastern or Westen Yiddish? Is there a variety of Ashkenazi pronunciation that was used by stereotypical Jewish immigrants to New York City in the 1890s–1930s that could also conceivably be represented by a medieval grammar? Sorry if this question doesn't make a lot of sense...
Ashkenazi pronunciation is still used though nowadays it is used moreso by the more religious ashkenazim.. Many modern orthodox ashkenazim now use israeli pronunciation or something between sephardi and israeli.

For how the letters are , one has to look at the vowels

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_alphabet (I'm assuming those vowels)

Zayin is with a patach. So it's Ah Zayin not Zoyin

Aleph has a kamatz, so t'd be Oleph.

Dalet has a kamatz.. (I'm not sure if Ashkenazim spell it Dalet Lamed dalet.. )

Note that the Oh of Kamatz is a sound that exists in British English but barely exists in American English if at all. So British English pronunciatioin of Clock, dock, tod. British pronunciation of the 'o' in orange, not american pronunciation of orange.

There is some variety in Ashkenazi pronunciation when it comes to the pronunciation of the Cholam vowel. Some say Oh like the 'o' in boat. (Yemenites might also pronounce cholam like that). But there are some ashkenazim that go all over with the cholam. Ay, Oy, Ow. So, many ways of saying 'Torah'! There is a classic ashkenazi siddur (siddur sefas yisrael on opensiddur website), that is really emphatic that it's Oh and that all the rest is corruption!

Accordng to your book p5, it's Zoyin in "German/Polish". That suggests your book thinks that it's spelt with a Kamatz. (The Kamatz is pronounced as 'O' by ashkenazim and ah by sephardim - and by sephardim as oh in some situations). Patach is pronounced the same by ashkenazim and sephardim. ah.

So, your book would be spelling Zayin with a kamatz.

Which differs from wikipedia... Maybe Ashkenazim spell Zayin with a Kamatz, I don't know

And the proper way to do it is to see what vowels they use when they spell it.. What your book does is crazy, in that it doesn't tell you how the different groups pronounce the vowels, then later it gives you a bunch of words and tells you for each word how each group would pronounce it. Just know for each vowel how it is pronounced, know what vowel you are reading, e.g. is it a kamatz, is it a patach, e.t.c. and then you can work it out for each word very easily, how to pronounce it.

Re: Questions about Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation

Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 10:58 pm
by talmid56
The folks at http://www.chabad.org are also willing to answer this kind of question by email. I asked them one a little while back and a very helpful person there got back in touch in a couple of days. Leave a message under the "Ask the Rabbi" section.