Please help out! Note that most speakers of American Hebrew are in their fifties or older, though some younger speakers exist. (The problem is that after a certain point, Israeli teachers started being hired in American institutions that taught spoken "Hebrew".)
| Biblical | Rabbinic | American Hebrew | Yisre'elit | |
| Phonology | •American R •Initial hei obligatorily retained (as /h/). •Some speakers may preserve the Ashkenazzi qomets, at least as an optional variant. •No gemination (except among certain hypercareful speakers, especially in university or on the radio). | •Guttural Ashkenazzi R (Ashkenazzim) or trilled R (Mizrahim) •Initial hei obligatorily (?) dropped. •Ashkenazzi qomets is at best taboo, and at worst unheard of. •No gemination (but possible as a variant, since the language, nobody's exclusively native one, is somewhat "loose"-- whatever that means). | ||
| Morphology | •תִּכְתֹּבְנָה is a very rare variant for the feminine of יִכְתְּבוּ. | •תִּכְתֹּבְנָה is somewhat more common than in Yisre'elit. | ||
| Syntax | •Yesh li et a-beged. (Mis-analysis of the yesh li as "ego habeo", rather than as "est mihi". | •Yesh li ha-beged. | ||
| Lexicon | The little apostrophe marking an abbreviation (among other uses) is known as a "shmitchik". •Suppletion between the verbs אָמַר (for past and present) and לְהַגִּיד (for infinitive and future). | •The little apostrophe is known as a "tship-tship". •אָמַר = to say; הִגִּיד = to tell, narrate, recount. Each verb has a full set of conjugations. | ||
| Orthography |
posted by Mar Gavriel | 10:23 AM
11 Comments:
Some of the columns are twisted and mis-assigned.
Btw, do Americans say ameriqai and Israelis ameriqani? Or is that just me?
Might be worthwhile to also compare American Yekki pronunciation with American Eastern European.
Yisroeli pronunciations have also infected the pronunciation in Western Europe - and the spelling.
Sidetrack into leftfield:
Et/Es - Was it Rabbi Akiva who saw every occurence of the accusative as requiring exegesis? Or am I thinking of someone else?
yesh li ta'beged
Absolutely. Hisraeleet has this more and more, though still marked as substandard by purists. This is a strong Yiddish/German influence from the beginnings, rather than an American from newer immigrants. (And, of course, nothing Russian or Arabic, as both have an impersonal construction similar to Hebrew.)
There's other evidence Ta- for 'et(h) ha- from Mishna etc. MSS, but this is independent from the question of habeo vs. mihi 'st.
BTW - no, I'll be a good commenter and start a new comment.
Word verification: kkveta
This is the nearest to a real word I've met yet ('flower' in West Slavic languages).
BTW, have you noticed the lengthening of the vowel in ha- and ta-, when the aborigine is lacking a word? There's a certain point in haaaaaaa-, where there's only one way out - it's doomed to end in -ze. The funny thing is, you invariably sense this earlier than the observed him-/herself.
Example: (pointing to some object) "Ten li taaaaa-ze."
To be authentic, you have to master this routine.
Ashkenazzi qomets is at best taboo, and at worst unheard of.
Better unheard of than despised for ideology and lack of knowledge.
Initial hei obligatorily (?) dropped.
h, ĥ, ? and [zero] are allophones for א, ה as well as י before i and sometimes e. ע has the same plus ע, which is much less frequent for (theoretical/original) א. Before front vowels, add non-syllabic i and occasionally j.
In addition, ה has x or χ or their voiced counterparts in the pronunciation of East Slavic native speakers.
In addition, ה has x or χ or their voiced counterparts in the pronunciation of East Slavic native speakers.
Yes, one of the ugliest features (to my ears) of Russian Hebrew. (Did 19th-century Yiddish-speaking Jews in Russia do this?)
And what is the difference between /x/ (eks) and /χ/ (chi)?
Btw, do Americans say ameriqai and Israelis ameriqani? Or is that just me?
I say Amerikoni (or, VERY rarely, Ameriqoni), and I am American.
Ernest Klein ע"ה writes in his Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Speakers of English (Carta: Jerusalem, 1987), p. 37, s.v. אֲמֶרִיקָנִי:
The נ in אֲמֶרִיקָנִי is euphonic cp. שֵׁלָנִי (Num. 26:20), patronymic formed from שֵׁלָה. The form אֲמֶרִיקָאִי, as un-Hebraic, should be avoided.
Ohwell... half the time in Israel i was using the Arabic form amrīkī anyway :-P .
/x/ = velar voiceless fricative
/χ/ = uvular voiceless fricative
/ħ/ = pharyngeal voiceless fricative
/h/ = glottal voiceless fricative
What about some American Hebrew speakers speaking Ashkenazis/Ivris rather than Ivrit ?
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