ducky wrote:
What I think about Hiriq is the same as I think about the Shuruq/Qubuts.
And I don't think that we should look to find English and Hebrew vowels to compare.
If you knew the English pronunciations then you would see the benefit of it.. Because English, particularly RP or regional accent, is quite unusually useful linguistically, in that it has so many sounds.
English has the sound of the sephardi cholam.. and the sound of the ashkenazi cholam. And the shva. And so on.
If you know IPA, then you could perhaps use iPA, but good luck if you aren't familiar with the difference in sound between "food" and "put".
Also, in IPA there's RP Phonemes and there's GenAM Phonemes(General american) phonemes.
There's /u/("food") and /u:/("food") and /ʊ/("put") so /u/ and /u:/ are both the same, just a different IPA representation. US ways of writing them involve no colon. Somebody that isn't familiar with some technicalities of IPA might not realise that /u/ and /u:/ are the same sound!
So I think that since all the sounds exist in English, and you can easily hear English pronunciations with no sing songs.. and lots of excellent clear videos about how to pronounce English. Lots of dictionaries where you can play a sound in one second (no sing song), no monologue. It's an extremely good way to communicate. And when I link to an English word, there is a link for it being spoken , and the IPA.
But if you want IPA, then we are talking the difference between "put" and "food" is the difference between these two sounds A)/ʊ/ (or more clearly, uppercase! Ʊ ). And the other sound B)(/u/ or /u:).
ducky wrote:
And as I say, if there is a change, it is more about the natural way of the speaker.
Yes I agree. But it's interesting to consider when that change occurs.
ducky wrote:
if someone would ask how to pronounce the O in Clock.
The format of the answer would be similar to if somebody asked how to pronounce the Cholam.
You can say, For Sephardi pronunciation, _____ For Ashkenazi pronuncation _____ For Modern Hebrew ____ (or some other eg maybe yemenite).
Or you could ask them which of those pronunciations they are asking about
In the case of English there's a difference between UK(RP) and USA. And that dictionary.cambridge.org shows both very nicely.
ducky wrote:
then one would show him the American way
and the other would say that the English way is right
but then we go back 500 years ago in England, and it maybe was a little bit different
And then we go 1000 back, and maybe it was a little bit different.
This is where it's important to specify and to understand the context of the question, and where the person asking is coming from.
ducky wrote:
So when one wants to learn English rules, it doesn't really matter how it was pronounced when and where.
it does matter to some people, if you want to pronounce English like a Scotsman then it's a very different question.. But, English(RP) pronunciation, that's a set thing.
I have friends who study Hebrew, that aren't Jewish, but don't know good pronunciation, and I help them with their pronunciation. And I tell them of the different pronunciations that are out there. (ashkenazi, sephardi, "ashkefardi"/modern israeli).. and I suggest they go with modern israeli.
I knew an American that really bashed his Ashkenazi heritage(mistakenly), because he thought of that's why he can't pronounce the Cholam correctly. (He was pronouncing it like the 'o' in the american pronunciation of 'orange'). He was surprised to learn that UK Jews pronounce Cholam just fine, because we have the sound in our English!. In terms of sounds, knowing English makes learning other languages much easier. He didn't realise that he was pronouncing Cholam, not actually like Ashkenazi, but like in particular, an American accent!
And a funny thing is, when I told him to try saying "clock" "dock" e.t.c. with a sephardi cholam, it came out as a perfect English accent! He was shocked. It sounded like he was born in London! I was also surprised how good it came out!