Aramaic-speaking pronunciation?

squee100
Posts:45
Joined:2018-11-29, 23:49
Real Name:Nathan Tracey
Aramaic-speaking pronunciation?

Postby squee100 » 2018-12-15, 4:04

Do Aramaic-speaking Jews pronounce the vowels of Hebrew like those of Jewish Neo-Aramaic?
jewishneoaramaic.gif
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.

User avatar
Drink
Posts:180
Joined:2017-05-03, 18:46
Gender:male
Location:New England
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Aramaic-speaking pronunciation?

Postby Drink » 2018-12-16, 18:04

I don't know which dialect of Jewish Neo-Aramaic you're showing. There are many very different dialects.

But from the ones I am most familiar with, which are the ones from Iraqi Kurdistan, the answer is no. The Hebrew pronunciation of Neo-Aramaic speaking Jews from Iraqi Kurdistan was pretty much the same as that of other Iraqi Jews; this pronunciation had been brought from Spain by Sephardi Jews, and was not the original Hebrew pronunciation of Babylonia.
שתה וגם גמליך אשקה

squee100
Posts:45
Joined:2018-11-29, 23:49
Real Name:Nathan Tracey

Re: Aramaic-speaking pronunciation?

Postby squee100 » 2019-01-04, 21:11

Drink wrote:I don't know which dialect of Jewish Neo-Aramaic you're showing. There are many very different dialects.

But from the ones I am most familiar with, which are the ones from Iraqi Kurdistan, the answer is no. The Hebrew pronunciation of Neo-Aramaic speaking Jews from Iraqi Kurdistan was pretty much the same as that of other Iraqi Jews; this pronunciation had been brought from Spain by Sephardi Jews, and was not the original Hebrew pronunciation of Babylonia.

Okay. One thing though, you say that Iraqi Hebrew pronunciation maintains vowel length distinctions, but the pronunciation from Spain apparently had already lost such distinctions (as evidenced by the Palestinian vowel pointing having only five non-schwa symbols).

Also, is Baghdad Jewish Arabic (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Jewish_Arabic) more like the Aramaic described above or Yiddish and Ladino in terms of its relationship to the local pronunciation of Hebrew? Do Iraqi Jews refer to the letters as described when refering to Hebrew (not Baghdad Jewish Arabic)?

User avatar
Drink
Posts:180
Joined:2017-05-03, 18:46
Gender:male
Location:New England
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Aramaic-speaking pronunciation?

Postby Drink » 2019-01-06, 4:40

squee100 wrote:Okay. One thing though, you say that Iraqi Hebrew pronunciation maintains vowel length distinctions, but the pronunciation from Spain apparently had already lost such distinctions (as evidenced by the Palestinian vowel pointing having only five non-schwa symbols).

That's a very naive argument. None of the vocalization systems indicated vowel length, yet we know that vowel length existed in at least some places. Furthermore, we know that consonant length existed, yet Palestinian vocalization does not mark it, and we also know that begedkefet distinctions existed, yet Palestinian vocalization does not mark it.

Vowel length existed in classical Latin and Greek, yet they did not mark it. Same goes for many, many languages.

squee100 wrote:Also, is Baghdad Jewish Arabic (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Jewish_Arabic) more like the Aramaic described above or Yiddish and Ladino in terms of its relationship to the local pronunciation of Hebrew? Do Iraqi Jews refer to the letters as described when refering to Hebrew (not Baghdad Jewish Arabic)?

I don't understand the distinction. What I mentioned above regarding Aramaic would not apply to Yiddish or Ladino. All I said was that the phonology of the Hebrew used by the Aramaic speaking Jews did not evolve the same way as their Aramaic dialect. That's only a sensible statment because Hebrew and Aramaic started off with similar phonologies, which is not the case for Old German or Old Spanish.
שתה וגם גמליך אשקה


Return to “Hebrew (עברית)”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests