Which pronounciation in hebrew is correct? I might be biased but I think The chassidic and sfardic pronouciations have problems. With the sefardi one I have two questions . One, what is the difference between kumatz and patach. They are both pronounced ahh. And two, what is the difference between beiz and veiz.

As for chassidish, they pronounce kumatz as oow (shoot).No other region of the world pronounced it that way. Yekkes, litvish and sfardim don't do it that way so it would seem that it is wrong. Also a tzeyrey (as in birayshis) is pronounced like apatach (vayihi). Also a shoorok (ruach, reeach) is identical to a chiyrik (ki tov).

Anyone have any observation on this?

What do you mean by correct?

They all are! (Well except the chassidish )

"Chassidisheh" havuros (not really, but what's referred to here) was spread across at least as many regions as other (Poland, Galicia, Ukraine, most of Hungary, Romania, Bessarabia and Yugoslavia). Chirik and shuruk are (or at least should be) pronounced differently; if you listen to an old guy from Europe daven by the omud you'll hear the difference.

True sphardic (and Yemenite) pronunciation has kometz as "oh", and of course you know about the very shart language Rabeinu Bechaye wrote about someone who is machlif kometz bepatach.

I thought each shevet had their own nussach and their own havara. ??

Wasn't the chassidish pronunciation orginally instituted with the specific intent of being incorrect? (To "not be like" the maskilim who were punctilious in matters of dikduk.)

Which reminds me of the supposed incident wherein a maskil asked a chassidish rebbe why the Hebrew alphabet needs a samech, sin, and suf, when they all sound same. The rebbe responded simply, "K'silim masai yaskilu...."

I thought the only problem was with the Israeli pronunciation.
They use some kind of simplified sefardic pronunciation... they don't differentiate between the patach and the komets, and the aspirated and non-aspirated tav, but unlike 'authentic' sefardic pronunciation, they don't pronounce the aleph and the ayin, nor do they differentiate between the kof and the chet.
It's like ivrit combined all the flaws of the different pronounciations...

Isn't the Teimani havara the most correct?

Many people do say that the Teimani pronunciation is closest to the Biblical one, but not identical. They have preserved many sounds which don't exist in Sephardi and Ashkenazi Hebrew. The changes in the two are fairly easy to understand when you look at context--Jews living in Arabic speaking countries preserved sounds which also existed in Arabic (the full range of gutterals) while Ashkenazim didn't.

Modern Israeli pronunciation is gradually blurring the differences between letters. I've read that the heh is moving into the same "space" as alef and ayin.

None of them are right.

(or maybe they are all right)

So we do what our ancestors did until ancient recordings are discovered which can finally put this issue to rest.

Honestly how can anyone expect there NOT to be drastic differences in pronunciation after being dispersed around the world for 2000 years?

Just look at the US, Boston vs NY vs virginia vs Texas.
Then there is toronto and kali-fornia

Even better, different places and neighborhoods in NY have different accents.

Sfardi kametz is an "aw" sound; patach is an "ah."
Also, sfardi pronouce Ayinim as a glottal stop.

I posted the reconstructed biblical pronounciation somewhere, it's what Bennoach types with (vav as a "w," asperation rather than fricativization for the paired consonants - beit / veit; pei / fei, etc. and kuf as quf, like in arabic, are the big ones, adn the vowels like sfardit).

No, but the rebbes were very particular about not changing the havure, even if minim brought "evidence" that their version may be more historically correct.

why is "evidence" in quotes?

Because it was
a) tainted
irrelevant
c) speculative .

Hypothetically. Why, unquote it if you have real evidence, will you ?

My Siddur has a pronunciation guide in the Introduction which covers the basic rules of Sephardic Grammar. The Kamets and the Patakh are both pronounced "Ah." But, my siddur is very careful to denote the Kamets Hatoof with a larger sized Kamets that is pronounced "Oh" as in 'for.' My siddur then proceeds to give rules for the four instances that the Kamets is actually a Kamets Hatoof.

There is certainly a difference between beit and veit in my Sephardi Siddur ("Western Sephardi"). Maybe the Mizrachim have their own pronunciation rules. I know that many Mizrachim like to write Eruv as Erub. But, there is a difference in my Siddur, so many someone more knowledgable about dikduk can explain which Sephardi or Mizrachi countries don't distinguish between beit and veit and which do.

It is also interesting to note that the Hay in words like Havdalah is silent and correct Sephardi pronunciation (if there is such a thing) would be Avdalah or Rosh Ashanah.

Of course the Ashkenazim are correct in all issues. They are 1st class citizens!

One of the ways of determining correct pron. is to look at ancient transliterations.
The authentic iraqi (Bavli) pron. (rarely used these days) seems to fit the bill for very close to manner of pron. second temple era (taking into account that pron.might well or probably did alter over the period from Exodus to late second temple-therefore no "Authentic" pron exists)
Furthermore the notion that the manner in which Ancient Israelites pronnounced their hebrew(or did anything) is "more Authentic" than the way say, Jews in Eastern Europe did is highly debatable. It is an Idea brought forward by the early Zionists. Why is one period of history more valid than the other?
Do Italians feel the need to speak their modern latin as ancient Romans did-do the English feel they are only authentic if they speak English from the middle ages?
At any rate the iraqi's say-thaph-and waw-and Komets-and subtley distinguish between most vowels and letters.
Other interesting pron. are the Syrian and persian (the Syrians say Shabath-the Kometz like the word "At"-and the Persians- Shabboth)
The Chassidish actually-Polish/Ukrainian pron. follows tendencies of the Polish and Ukranian languages to pronnounce O-oo and Oo-i
The city of Lvov(in russian)-in Polish pronnounced Lvoov and Ukrainian Lviv.

And to you I ask according to the Ashkenazic Havara what is the difference between the pronounciation of an Aleph and an Ayin, A gimel or Daled without a dagesh to one with a dagesh?

What is the difference between a Tes and a Tov?

What is the difference between the pronounciation of a Ches and a Chaf?

What is the difference betwen the pronounciation of a samech and a Tsof?

Temani is actually known to be the most precise.

http://chayas.com/pronounceparchi.htm

I heard from someone that like at Kerias Yam Suf there were 12 seperate passageways, one for each tribe, there were also 12 different pronunciations of Loshen Kodesh. In that case all the different pronounciations could be correct. (I do believe he said that the Israeli pronounciation isn't one of them, but the sources, I don't have..). Anyone else heard this?

The West Wing

JOSH
So how do you tell the difference between...?

BARTLET
Do you guys know what a "shibboleth" is?

SAM
It's a catch phrase isn't it?

JOSH
A cliché.

BARTLET
It's from the Bible. "Then said now unto him, say now “shibboleth" and he said "sibboleth"
for he could not frame to pronounce it right." It was a password, the way the army used to
distinguish true Israelites from impostors sent across the river Jordan by the enemy.

JOSH
Sir...

BARTLET
I'm having one of the Chinese refugees flown here. I'll meet with him tonight.

C.J.
[rushes into the room] Mr. President, I can't, you know, indefinitely, with the turkey.

BARTLET
Yep.

JOSH
Excuse me, Mr. President, what are you going to ask the Chinese refugee?

Bartlet puts on his coat with C.J.'s assistance.

BARTLET
I'm going to ask him to say "Shibboleth."

CUT TO: INT. LEO’S OFFICE - DAY
Leo is looking off intently with his hand near his mouth. The door opens and Margaret enters.

MARGARET
Leo?

LEO
She's here?

MARGARET
Yeah.

LEO
Okay.

Margaret leaves. Leo gets up and walks around to the other side of his desk.
His sister, JOSEPHINE McGARRY, enters.


[Shoftim 12:6 - Melech]

What's the source, and is there a link between more recent pronunciations and any one of the supposedly 12 different pronunciations.

What I have learned from the Rambamist pont of view is that in respect to prayer and reading Torah (at least in public), a certain pronunciation is required by halakhah.

huh? West wing? what has that got to do with it.

Nothing.

What ancient transliterations besides for some words in the Septuagint and Origen's Hexapla, both limited, exist for Hebrew?

Like I said, the sources I don't have... I was hoping someone here would know about it. Recent pronunciations: depends on what you call recent. This is the reason people have a problem with the Israeli pronunciation: it's recently developped.



So what pronunciation would that be? Or is this the whole question?... As far as I know, the only problem is when mixing, for example by using a asheknazic siddur and the sefardic pronunciation...

Sepharadim do distinguish between bet with a dagesh and bet without a dagesh (but there is no letter "vet")... it's basically impossible to write out in English, but a bet is the same as the Ashkenazi one, and a bet with a dagesh is more from the back of the throat. It's the same in Arabic.

1) the problem with ancient transliterations is that we do not know if pronunciation of greek, persian, etc could have changed

2) bennoach- we dont hold by the rambam alone. i know that he requires a differentiation between aleph and ayin and shin and sin in order to lein publicly, but this is not general halocha. jews govern themselves based on a book called the shulchan oruch which takes the opinions of various rishonim and categorizes them into normative halocha. if a few teimanim here and there do not hold by the S'O, and instead by rambam alone, that is not normative judaism.

aside from that, i had also heard that teimani pronunciation is probably most similar to what was done in the beis hamikdash

or at least in Bavel.

I thought they weren't in Bavel. I may be wrong.

What I meant is that there is some evidence that the Teimani pronunciation is a derivative of the Babylonian. From the Encyclopedia Judaica:

startquote
The Yemenite tradition of biblical Hebrew is to be clearly differentiated from that of post-biblical Hebrew. In reading the Bible, the Yemenites use the Tiberian vocalization and masorah; however, they give the Tiberian vocalization signs the values they had in the traditional Babylonian pronunciation. Thus, no distinction is made in the Yemenite pronunciation between Tiberian pathah and segol since in the Babylonian pronunciation of Hebrew these two vowels were identical. In other words, the Yemenite pronunciation of biblical Hebrew discloses phonological features of the Babylonian tradition, but the morphology of biblical Hebrew in this tradition is Tiberian. Hence it follows that in their pronunciation of biblical Hebrew the Yemenites differ from other communities in aspects which are purely phonetic, but not in the morphology.
The situation is, however, different in the pronunciation of post-biblical Hebrew. The Yemenite reading of post-biblical Hebrew is not based upon vocalized texts, but upon an oral tradition of the vocalization. Therefore, the reading of these texts discloses in the morphology, and not only in the phonology, a number of specific features. Many of those morphological features are originally Babylonian. This is readily proved by comparing the morphology of post-biblical Hebrew as reflected by the Yemenite pronunciation with the morphology of Hebrew as represented by manuscripts of Mishnah and Midrashim possessing Babylonian vocalization.
endquote

Transliterations, though rare, are also into Ancient Persian, and some Hebrew words are transliterations of older Ugaritic or Akkadian words, or loan words from other languages.



Greek definitly changed - modern greek doesn't differentiate between Upsilon, Iota and Eta. However, in the case of Greek, the Ancient Greeks themselves, and the Romans later, wrote about Greek pronounciation. Catullus makes fun of someone because his greek pronounication is wrong, then corrects him, for example. There are many more similar cases.

Here's my two cents on havoros:

There are problems with the Sfardi, Ashkenaz and Chasidish Havaros. There is a halachah in Shulchan Aruch that says that those who pronounce an ayin like an alef or a ches like a chof cannot daven by the omud because of kovod hatzibur. Although later poskim say that doesn't apply when everyone in the tzibbur does that, it's still mefurash that those to tendencies of havorah Ashkenazis are clear bastardizations and beyond any accepted havorah. This doesn't mean to say if you daven like that your not yotze... Then again there are some characters that use havorah Ashkenazis with Sephardi ayin (gutural vowel) and ches sounds. This is just for shtick.
For the Sfardi havarah there is the pronouncing of a kometz like a patach, so the shem Hashem sounds like the plural of Adoni "my lord", so some modern poskim, I'm not sure if it's the Chazon Ish or the Steipler pasken you're not yotze if you daven like that. That's right, not yotze.(other poskim, of course argue, but still...)
The Chasidishe havorah is on purpose incorrect and a reaction to the haskalah, but amazingly doesn't have any halachic problems beyond those of havarah Ashkenzis.
There are other havoros that don't have any of those problems, like the Teimani havorah.
Also in medieval France there was a totally different havorah that pronounced the sov as an F and an ayin like a nasal vowel as those in French, although I don't think they had a separate sound for ches. There is an Italian havorah that pronounces a sov like a D.
Of course the mother of all bastardizations is modern isreali pronounciation. Rabbi Kook paskened this pronounciation should not be used.

so the chazon ish and the steipler gaon would not permit a sefardi to daven from the omud or lein because their pronunciation of ykvk rhymes with guy, rather than boy?

Is that a fact ?

No, it's not a problem with davening by the omud, it's that you're not yotze.
They paskened that Sephardim not change their havarah but only pronounce the shem Hashem in havarah Ashkenazis. I've heard people do that. It's not widespread and is usually used as a political statement (ie anti-Shas Sphardi).

About Rav Kook's psak, yep it's a fact. About israeli havarah being the mother of all bastardizations that's just leaniyus daati, and leaniyus daas of the heimishe velt.

There's a range of opinions, from the Yabi'a Omer 6:11 who is lenient to R. Moshe Shternbuch Shu"t 1:128 and 2:77 who is stringent.

Look at the Iggeroth Moshe Orach Chaim 3:5. He deals there with the concept of a singular pronunciation at Har Sinai.

so how r the sefardim suposed to know they r wrong?

There's never supposed to be bias in teshuvot, but one can't help but notice that Sefardi poskim often favor Sefardi pronounciation and nussach, and Ashkenaz poskim often favor Ashkenaz pronunciation and nussach.

i guess

One should not notice this.

Why shouldn't one notice this?

yeah y?

I dunno.

I'm so confused...

Why doesn't it apply if everyone in the tzibbur does that?

There is no doubt that Marmarosher/Galitzianer havura is the right one and it was used by Adam, Shem, Noach, Abraham and in both Temples.

Well, krum messed that post up. The issue isn't kavod hatzibbur, it's changing the meaning of words.