Hebrew phonology
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Contents
Basic Hebrew alphabet
- See main article Hebrew alphabet
Consonants of modern Israeli Hebrew
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar Postalveolar sounds (with the exception of /ʃ/) are not native to Hebrew, and only found in borrowings. | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | The pairs (/b/, /v/), (/k/, /x/), (/p/, /f/), written respectively by the letters bet (ב), kaf (כ) and pe (פ) have historically been allophonic. In Modern Hebrew, however, all six sounds are phonemic, due to mergers involving formerly distinct sounds (/v/ merging with /w/, /k/ merging with /q/, /x/ merging with /ħ/), loss of consonant gemination (which formerly distinguished the stop members of the pairs from the fricatives when intervocalic), and the introduction of syllable-initial /f/ through foreign borrowings. | ʔ | |||||||||||||
| Fricatives | |||||||||||||||
| Affricates | |||||||||||||||
| Nasals | m | n | |||||||||||||
| Laterals | l | ||||||||||||||
| Approximants | |||||||||||||||
Note: dagesh and mappiq symbols, the dots in otherwise identical letters, are often omitted in writing. For instance, בּ is often written as ב. The use or omission of such marks is usually consistent throughout any given context.
- א alef silent (traditionally, [ʔ] when before a vowel)
- בּ bet [b]
- ב vet [v] ([b] among Egyptian Jews)
- גּ gimel [ɡ] ([dʒ] among some Teimanim)
- ג ghimel [ɡ] ([ɣ] among Teimanim, Mizrachim and some Sephardim)
- ’ג djimel [ʤ] (used only in loanwords)
- דּ dalet [d]
- ד dhalet [d] ([ð] among Teimanim, Mizrahim and some Sephardim)
- ה he [h], silent in word-final position.
- הּ he silent (traditionally [h] the dot in the middle is called mappiq, not dagesh)
- ו vav [v] ([w] among Teimanim and some Mizrahim)
- ז zayin [z]
- ’ז zhayin [ʒ] (used only in loanwords)
- ח het [χ] (ħ among Oriental Hebrew speakers)
- ט tet [t] ([t̴] among Teimanim)
- י yod [j]
- כּ kaf [k]
- ךּ kaf sofit [k]
- כ chaf [χ]
- ך chaf sofit [χ]
- ל lamed [l]
- מ mem [m]
- ם mem sofit [m]
- נ nun [n]
- ן nun sofit [n]
- ס samex [s]
- ע ayin silent, like א ([ʕ] among Oriental Hebrew speakers)
- פּ pe [p]
- ףּ pe sofit [p]
- פ fe [f]
- ף fe sofit [f]
- צ tzadi [ʦ]
- ץ tzadi sofit [ʦ]
- ’צ tshadi [ʧ] (used only in loanwords)
- ק qof [k] (pronounced [q] by many Israelis as well as speakers hailing from the Arab world, [g] by some Teimanim)
- ר reish [ʁ] ([r] among Oriental Hebrew speakers)
- שׁ shin [ʃ]
- שׂ sin [s]
- תּ tav [t]
- ת thav [t] (θ among Teimanim, Mizrahim and some Sephardim, [s] by some Ashkenazim)
Vowels of modern Israeli Hebrew
- ִ hiriq /i/
- ֵ tsere /e/ (traditionally /e /)
- ֶ segol /e/ (traditionally /ɛ /)
- ַ patakh /a/
- ָ qamats /a/ (traditionally /ɔ/) (according to complex stress rules, this vowel is sometimes pronounced /o/ as well. In positions where it is pronounced /a/ in "Standard Modern Israeli Hebrew", it is still pronounced /ɔ/ by some Ashkenazim and Teimanim)
- holam /o/
- ׂ holam hhaser /o/
- וּ shuruq /u/
- ֻ qubuts /u/
- ְ shva /e/ and silent (traditionally /ə /) (silent when under a letter at the end of a syllable)
- ֱ hataf segol /e/ (traditionally also /ə /)
- ֲ hataf patach /a/ (traditionally also /ə/)
- ֳ hataf qamatz /o/
See also
Notes on writing
- The phoneme /v/ is represented by two letters: vet (ב, unemphasized bet) and vav (ו). Although modern Hebrew pronunciation does not differentiate between the two, the latter is historically weaker due to its being a semi-vowel (/w/).
- The phoneme /k/ is represented by two letters: kaf (כ) and quf (ק). Although modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation doesn't differentiate between the two, the latter is pronounced by some speakers like an Arabic /q/.
- The phoneme /t/ is represented by two letters: tet (ט) and tau (ת, compare to the Greek theta θ and tau τ). As mentioned earlier, the former was once pronounced with emphasis. However, it seems that the letter tau, when intervocalic and non-doubled (i.e. without dagesh) once represented a fricative phoneme /θ/. For example, what in Modern Hebrew sounds as "Beit Lexem" was transcribed (through Greek, which is ill-equipped to represent /h/) into English from Old Hebrew as "Bethleem", also demonstrating note number 5. The traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation of tau without dagesh as "s" appears to be a continuation of this former distinction.
- Similar to Modern Arabic, old Hebrew had the phonemes /ʦ/ and /t/ (written by the letter tet) emphasized. Currently, the only community of Hebrew-speakers which expresses this in speech are Yemenite Jews, whose Hebrew is much-influenced by Arabic phonetics (or rather not influenced by Yiddish and other European languages); however the emphasis led to several types of phonetic change that still exist. The exact nature of the emphatic feature is a matter of debate; the most commonly suggested possibilities are pharyngealization (as in Arabic) and glottalization (as in Ethiopic).
- In the speech of Ashkenazi modern Hebrew speakers, the phoneme /χ/ is represented by two letters: xet (ח) and khaf (כ). Xet is presumed to historically have been a voiceless pharyngeal fricative (like Arabic ح). The voiceless pharyngeal fricative pronunciation /ḥ/ is found in the speech of many Teimanim, Mizrachim and Sephardim, who, like Ashkenazim, pronounce khaf as /x/.
Other Notes
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