Help talk:IPA/Hebrew

Proposal to make significant improvements to the page

All Most of the changes are based on information I found on wikipedia itself. I can look up the sources again if necessary.
Emdosis (talk) 16:37, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Keep in mind that there are several Hebrew dialects; Ashkenazi, Sephardi and modern Israeli Hebrew have different pronunciation from Biblical Hebrew and from each other. == Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:28, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

If they don't contrast with the existing vowels listed, there's no point in adding them to the key, which adopts broad phonetic transcription (as do all non-English keys, see MOS:PRON). Nardog (talk) 03:55, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

All the proposed additions I've added are either accepted transliterations (even the 'ḏ' I added, as can be seen here) or common transliteration choices like ph in the word 'Sepharadi'. Emdosis (talk) 06:17, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

The article you linked talks about not adding ambiguous phonemes for foreign languages unless they're linked to "a description of the phonology of the language in question". The only phoneme I added so far was /ɔ/, which has a dedicated page. As do all my other proposed phonemes. Emdosis (talk) 06:28, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

My proposals are as follows:
1.1 Removing phonemic symbols from the romanization column in the vowels table
1.2 Removing unsubstantiated romanization letter 'ǩ' from the page (and replacing it with the correct character 'ḵ')
2.1 Adding missing romanization characters for‎ consonants:
 ב: ḇ
 ד: ḏ
‎ ו‎: w & ṿ
 ט: ṭ
 כ: ḵ
 ע: ŋ, ġ
 פ: ph
 צ: z
 ק: ḳ
 שׂ: ś
 ‎ת: ṯ
2.2. Adding missing romanization characters for vowels:
 Zeire: ei/ej, ē
 Shva: '
 Kamatz (both): â (instead of the 'ɔ')
3.1. Adding missing phonemics for consonants
 ט: /tˤ/, /θʼ/
 ע: /ʁ/
 פ: /ɸ/
 שׂ: /ɬ/
3.2 Adding missing phonemics for vowels
 Zeirei: /ei/, /ɛ/
 Segol: /ɛ/
 Shva: /ɛ/
 Cholam: BH: /o̞/ MH: /ɔ/
 Kamatz: BH: /ɑ/
3.3 adding regular 'bay' for Tseirei as it is also pronounced as a /beɪ/
Emdosis (talk) 00:42, 24 March 2024 (UTC) [Latest edit: 22:48, 13 April 2024 (UTC)]

Transliteration Zeire confusing

I find the transliteration Zeire for צֵירֵי (Tsere, Tzeirei) to be confusing in an English wiki, where the German pronunciation of Z is not the norm. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:44, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Diphthongs

• "Yu" /ju/ isn't a diphthong in Hebrew (I think whoever added it to the chart must have been influenced by the historical diphthong of English in words like "few", "use" and "ewe").
• Most of the "diphthongs" except /ao/ which only occurs in loanwords (as do /au/, /eu/ and /ou/ which for some reason aren't mentioned) are just vowels followed by the consonant "י" /j/ (for example, the root of בנוי /banuj/ is b-n-y and the feminine is בנויה /bnuja/ the plural is בנויים /bnujim/ and the feminine plural is בנויות /bnujot/ so the י /j/ here acts like a regular consonant and not like a vowel). it's like counting the "ay" /aj/ of Turkish (like in "Ayran" /ajɾan/) or the "eill" /ɛj/ of french (like in "Marseille" /maʁsɛj/) as diphthongs which Wikipedia doesn't do.
• "ey" /ej/ is a special case and there's a lot of variation in it's pronunciation but usually it occurs in some (but not all) words which have Tzere (usually the ones written with a "י" /j/) because of Ashkenazi influence but even this "diphthong" is treated as a vowel followed by "י" /j/--Nahseb (talk) 16:38, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Split

I think we should split this page because:

• Biblical and Modern Hebrew are too different
• Biblical and Modern Hebrew aren't the only varieties of Hebrew (there are also Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Yemenite etc.)
• Some of the phonemes (like the marginal sounds and the diphthongs) are only relevant to modern Hebrew and some are different phonemes in the two varieties (like /w/ which represents two different phonemes one in biblical Hebrew which became /v/ in Modern Hebrew and one in Modern Hebrew which appears in new loanwords)
• Biblical Hebrew is a liturgical language which like Latin or Coptic can be pronounced in a lot of different ways according to the native language of the speaker and many other factors (and it's reconstructed phonology is very controversial) while modern Hebrew is a living language which changes all the time and is influenced by other languages and all these things make both of them very difficult to write in IPA especially with only one page. --Nahseb (talk) 18:03, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I also want to add that Biblical and Modern Hebrew are usually considered two different languages and there isn't even a consensus about whether Modern Hebrew is a direct descendant of Biblical Hebrew or a completely different language which isn't the case with Ancient and Modern Greek or any other pages. Nahseb (talk) 18:52, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

And Biblical Hebrew was also originally written in a different script (Paleo-Hebrew script) and there is also Samaritan Hebrew and the Samaritan script and all the different niqqud systems besides Tiberian. Nahseb (talk) 20:05, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

My point is that there are too many topics to cover in only one page Nahseb (talk) 20:15, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I have two different suggestions about how we should solve all of these problems:

1. We can make an even bigger chart which will cover all of the different pronunciations, writing systems and niqqud systems of both Biblical and Modern Hebrew

2. We can split this page to at least two different pages and in each one we can add all of the different pronunciations, writing systems and niqqud systems of each language (which for Modern Hebrew shouldn't be a lot) Nahseb (talk) 20:26, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I should also mention that we already have an article for Modern Hebrew phonology and huge sections about phonology in Biblical Hebrew and Tiberian Hebrew and a lot of information about phonology in the articles about Mishnaic Hebrew, Ashkenazi Hebrew, Sephardi Hebrew, Italian Hebrew, Mizrahi Hebrew, Syrian Hebrew, Yemenite Hebrew and Samaritan Hebrew.

We also have a chart of all the different pronunciations of Hebrew in the article about the Hebrew alphabet that we can use as a model. Nahseb (talk) 21:14, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm open to the possibility of a split but not for any of the reasons you listed. Sincerely, Emdosis (talk) 18:56, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

The only argument that would be meet my threshold for persuasion would be one that argues in terms of the charts being to cluttered or too confusing to be read the way it is now. Emdosis (talk) 19:13, 9 September 2024 (UTC)