Sephardi Hebrew language

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The Sephardi Hebrew language is an offshoot of Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jewish practice. Its phonology was influenced by contact languages such as Ladino, Portuguese, Dutch, Turkish and Arabic.

Phonology of Sephardi Hebrew

There is a great deal of variation between the various forms of Sephardi Hebrew, but as a general rule, the Sephardi dialects have the Kimhian five-vowel system (a e i o u), either with or without distinctive vowel length. The stress tends to fall on the last syllable wherever this is the case of Biblical Hebrew, and there is always a phonetic distinction between ת (thav) and ס (samekh), whether thav be pronounced as a voiceless dental fricative ([θ], typical of Greek Sephardim and many Sephardim in Arabic-speaking countries), as a voiced dental fricative ([ð], typical for some older forms of Iberian Hebrew, as well as for Italian Hebrew), or as an unvoiced dental plosive ([t], typical of most European forms of Sephardi Hebrew).

Influence on Israeli Hebrew

When Eliezer ben Yehuda drafted his Standard Hebrew language, he based it on Sephardi Hebrew, both because this was the de facto spoken form as a lingua franca in the land of Israel and because he believed it to be most beautiful of the Hebrew dialects. However, the phonology of Modern Hebrew is further constrained to that of Ashkenazi Hebrew, including the elimination of pharyngeal articulation and the conversion of /r/ from an alveolar flap to a voiced uvular fricative.

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