Re: The sound of the letter "resh" in Hebrew


Harlan Messinger wrote:
CatalinaIslandView wrote:
On May 4, 9:38 am, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On May 4, 10:18 am, CatalinaIslandView <isla...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

I am learning to read biblical Hebrew and am having trouble
pronouncing the "resh." I am not even sure which sounds I'm hearing. I
speak fluent Spanish and Italian and can easily make a rolled sound
but it is not the same. Can someone explain physically how to make the
sound?
For Biblical Hebrew, it doesn't matter in the slightest how you
pronounce it; it's a dead language with no speakers. Do you use the
Ashkenaic, Sephardic, or some other pronunciation of the vowels? Then
use whichever r is used in the system you've adopted.

For Israeli Hebrew, it's typically a velar or uvular trill.

Actually it matters quite a bit to me as I will be reading during
services and I would like to get the closest approximation of an
Israeli pronunciation possible.

I think Peter was treating your question as though it were, "How is
Biblical Hebrew pronounced?" The fact that it's Biblical rather than
Modern Hebrew is irrelevant. A person who speaks Hebrew will ordinarily
pronounce Biblical Hebrew in the same way as he pronounces Modern
Hebrew. Your question really amounted to, "How is the resh pronounced in
Hebrew?" The answer is that it depends on whose Hebrew: modern Israeli
(which is essentially Sephardic), Ashkenazic, Yemenite, or other.
No, Peter was treating my question as so many questions are treated
here, as an opportunity for some
ball-busting. Since I am a woman I have neither the balls for it, not
the interest in it.
It was an extremely simple question about a more native speaker accent
v. an American one and quite understandable I would assume to such
erudite
readers as one finders here. The differences of pronunciation between
various Hebrew speakers
are minute compared to the "r" pronounced by a native speaker of
English. It would be quite obvious
by my post that as a beginner I frankly don't give a damn about how a
Yemeni would
pronounce the "resh" compared to anyone else but simply would like a
more native pronunciation.
The Israeli Hebrew teacher (whom I just called) at the University of
Judaism said there
is almost negligible difference between Ashkenazi and Sephardic
pronunciation
compared of course to an English speaker's pronunciation which sounds
quite different.
(she said the Separdic pronunciation adds a guttural sound in addition
to the trilled sound
which is what I've been hearing and couldn't reproduce.)
It was not a difficult question to understand especially when coming
from an obvious
non-linguist-I simply wanted to know the mechanics for a Hebrew "r"
from any dialect.
It would be like asking me the mechanics for producing the trilled
"rr" in Spanish and then I
tell you instead about how in the north of Spain the "rr" is actually
pronunced like a
French "r" so which one are you asking about etc. For ***'s sake.

.

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