Page:Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (1910 Kautzsch-Cowley edition).djvu/56

 of sounds on Hebrew itself, and partly from the tradition of the Jews.

The pronunciation of Hebrew by the modern German Jews, which partly resembles the Syriac and is generally called ‘Polish’, differs considerably from that of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, which approaches nearer to the Arabic. The pronunciation of Hebrew by Christians follows the latter (after the example of Reuchlin), in almost all cases.

The oldest tradition is presented in the transcription of Hebrew names in Assyrian cuneiform; a later, but yet in its way very important system is seen in the manner in which the LXX transcribe Hebrew names with Greek letters. As, however, corresponding signs for several sounds are wanting in the Greek alphabet, only an approximate representation was possible in these cases. The same applies to the Latin transcription of Hebrew words by Jerome, according to the Jewish pronunciation of his time.

On the pronunciation of the modern Jews in North Africa, see Bargès in the ''Journ. Asiat., Nov. 1848; on that of the South Arabian Jews, J. Dérenbourg, Manuel du lecteur'', &c. (from a Yemen MS. of the year 1390), Paris, 1871 (extrait 6 du Journ. Asiat. 1870).

2. With regard to the pronunciation of the several gutturals and sibilants, and of and, it may be remarked:—

1. Among the gutturals, the glottal stop is the lightest, corresponding to the spiritus lenis of the Greeks. It may stand either at the beginning or end of a syllable, e.g.,. Even before a vowel is almost lost to our ear, like the h in hour and in the French habit, homme. After a vowel generally (and at the end of a word, always) coalesces with it, e.g.  for an original qārăʾ, Arab. qărăʾä; see further,,.

before a vowel corresponds exactly to our h (spiritus asper); after a vowel it is either a guttural (so always at the end of a syllable which is not final, e.g. nähpakh; at the end of a word the consonantal  has a point—Mappîq—in it, see ), or it stands inaudible at the end of a word, generally as a mere orthographic indication of a preceding vowel, e.g. ; cf. and.

is related to, but is a much stronger guttural. Its strongest sound is a rattled, guttural g, cf. e.g., LXX , ; elsewhere, a weaker sound of the same kind, which the LXX reproduce by a spiritus (lenis or asper), e.g.  ,. In the mouth of the Arabs one hears in the former case a sort of guttural r, in the latter a sound peculiar to themselves formed in the back of the throat.—It is as incorrect to omit the