Tiberian Hebrew is the canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) committed to writing by Masoretic scholars living in the Jewish community of Tiberias in ancient Galilee under the Abbasid Caliphate. They wrote in the form of Tiberian vocalization,Tiberian Hebrew Phonology: Focussing on Consonant Clusters, Andries W. Coetzee which employed diacritics added to the Hebrew letters: vowel signs and consonant diacritics (nequdot) and the so-called accents (two related systems of cantillation signs or te'amim). These together with the marginal notes masora magna and masora parva make up the Tiberian apparatus.
Although the written vowels and accents came into use in around 750 CE, the oral tradition that they reflect is many centuries older, with ancient roots.
Sources
Today's Hebrew grammar books do not teach the Tiberian Hebrew that was described by the early grammarians. The prevailing view is that of David Qimḥi's system of dividing the graphic signs into "short" and "long" vowels. The values assigned to the Tiberian vowel signs reveals a Sephardi tradition of pronunciation (the dual quality of qameṣ () as , ; the pronunciation of simple shewa () as ).
The phonology of Tiberian Hebrew can be gleaned from the collation of various sources: The Aleppo Codex of the Hebrew Bible and ancient manuscripts of the Tanakh cited in the margins of early codices, all of which preserve direct evidence in a graphic manner of the application of vocalization rules such as the widespread use of reduced vowels where one would expect simple shewa, thus clarifying the color of the vowel pronounced under certain circumstances. Most striking is the use of reduced ḥireq in five words under a consonant that follows a guttural vocalized with regular ḥireq (as described by Israel Yeivin) as well as the anomalous use of the rafe over letters that do not belong to or . The explicit statements found in grammars of the 10th and the 11th centuries, including the Sefer haq-Qoloth of Moshe ben Asher (published by N. Allony); the Sefer Diqduqe haṭ-Ṭe'amim ( Grammar or Analysis of the Accents) of Aaron ben Moses ben Asher; the anonymous works entitled Horayaṯ haq-Qorē (G. Khan and Ilan Eldar attribute it to the Karaite Jew Aaron of Jerusalem); the Treatise on the Schwa (published by Kurt Levy from a genizah fragment in 1936), and Ma'mar hash-Shewa (published from Genizah material by Allony); the works of medieval Sephardi grammarians, including Abraham ibn Ezra and Judah ben David Hayyuj. In the case of the latter two, it is evident that the chain of transmission is breaking down or that their interpretations are influenced by local tradition. Ancient manuscripts that preserve similar dialects of Hebrew or Jewish Palestinian Aramaic vocalized with Tiberian niqqud that reveal a phonetic spelling rather than a phonemic spelling. They include the so-called "pseudo-Ben Naphtali" or "Palestinian-Sephardi" vocalized manuscripts, which generally conform to the rules enumerated below, such as pronouncing shewa as before consonantal yod, as in . Other traditions include Palestinian vocalization and (to a lesser extent) Babylonian (Mesopotamian) vocalization. Each community (Palestinian, Tiberian, Babylonian) developed systems of notation for pronunciation in each dialect, some of which are common among the traditions. Karaite transcriptions of Biblical text using the Arabic alphabet but vocalized with Tiberian signs, especially important for syllable structure and vowel length, which is marked in Arabic by matres lectionis and the sign sukun. Various oral traditions, especially Karaite and Yemenite Hebrew, have both preserved old features that correspond to Tiberian tradition, such as the pronunciation of schwa according to its proximity to gutturals or yod.
Phonology Consonants Tiberian Hebrew had at least 23 consonantal phonemes, represented by 22 letters. The sin dot distinguishes between the two values of , with a dot on the left () being pronounced the same as the letter Samekh. The letters (begadkefat) had two values each: plosive and fricative.
+ Tiberian Hebrew consonantsLetters. TiberianHebrew.com Labial Dental Denti-alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal plain emphatic Nasal Stop voiceless voiced Fricative voiceless voiced Trill Approximant
The following are the most salient characteristics of the Tiberian Hebrew consonantal pronunciation: Before the labial vowels () and shewa (), the waw-conjunctive () was read as (as is the case in some eastern reading traditions.Vav. TiberianHebrew.com
The threefold pronunciation of resh . Even though there is no agreement as to how it was pronounced, the rules of distribution of such pronunciation is given in Horayaṯ haq-Qorē:Resh. TiberianHebrew.com "Normal" Resh pronounced thus as a uvular sound (according to Eldar) in all other instances (except for the circumstances described below): The "peculiar" resh before or after Lamed or Nun, any of the three being vocalized with simple shewa and resh after zayin , daleth , samekh , sin , taw , ṣade , ṭeth , any of them punctuated with simple shewa: , . Because of the proximity of a dental consonant, resh was pronounced as an alveolar trill, as it still is in Sephardi Hebrew. There is still another pronunciation, affected by the addition of a dagesh in the Resh in certain words in the Bible, which indicates it was doubled : . As can be seen, this pronunciation has to do with the progressive increase in length of this consonant (). It was preserved only by the population of Ma'azya (), which is in Tiberias. A possible threefold pronunciation of taw . There are three words in the Torah, Prophets, and Writings in which it is said that "the Taw is pronounced harder than usual". It is said that this pronunciation was halfway between the soft () and the hard taw ():
Vowels
+Tiberian Hebrew phonemic vowels Front Back Close Close-mid Open-mid Open Reduced 1 marginal
The vowel qualities have phonemic status: (Lev. 5:19) and 'guilty', 'when' and 'mother'. has phonemic value in final stressed position , but in other positions, it may reflect loss of the opposition : . By the Tiberian period, all short vowels in ultimately-stressed syllables had lengthened, making vowel length allophonic.In fact, all stressed vowels were first lengthened in pause, see , as can be seen by forms like Tiberian < *, pausal < * < * < *. The shift in Tiberian Hebrew of * > * occurred after that lengthening but before the loss of phonemicity of length (since words like with allophonically long show no such shift). Vowels in open or stressed syllables had allophonic length (such as in , which was previously short).That is attested to by the testimony of Rabbi Joseph Qimḥi (12th century) and by medieval Arabic transcriptions: . There is also possible evidence from the cantillation marks' behaviour and Babylonian pataḥ: .
The Tiberian tradition possesses three reduced (ultrashort, hatuf) vowels of which has questionable phonemicity.See 'ships' 'I', 'sickness' 'ornament', 'ascend!' (Num 21:17) and '(with the) pestle' (Prov 27:22). alternates with frequently and rarely contrasts with it: 'Edom' versus 'Edomite'. is clearly phonemic but bears minimal functional load. is written both with mobile šwa and hataf patah . , under a non-guttural letter, was pronounced as an ultrashort copy of the following vowel before a guttural ( ) and as preceding , ( ). However, it was always pronounced as under gutturals: .
Stress Tiberian Hebrew has phonemic stress ( 'they built' vs. 'in us'). Stress is most commonly ultimate, less commonly penultimate, and rarely antepenultimate stress: 'into the tent'.It is unclear that a reduced vowel should be considered a whole syllable. For example, a word's stress shifts to a preceding open syllable to avoid it from being adjacent to another stressed syllable skips over ultrashort vowels: 'with those who go down into the pit' 'pierced with a sword'. See
Phonotactics As described above, vowel length is dependent on syllable structure. Open syllables must take long or ultrashort vowels; stressed closed syllables take long vowels; unstressed closed syllables take short vowels. Traditional Hebrew philology considers ultrashort vowels not to be syllable nuclei.
Orthography
letter transliteration ʾ b, g, d, h w z y k, l m n s ʿ p, f q r , t, pronunciation (Modern) pronunciation (Yemenite) pronunciation (Tiberian) pronunciation (Biblical, before 200 BCE) ~ ,,,pronunciation (Biblical, after 200 BCE) ~ ,
niqqud with ב name pathaḥ segol ṣere ḥireq qameṣ ḥolam qubuṣ shuruq pronunciation
niqqud with ב name pathaḥ male segol male ṣere male ḥireq male qameṣ male ḥolam male shuruq male pronunciation
niqqud with א name shewa ḥaṭef pathaḥ ḥaṭef segol ḥaṭef qameṣ pronunciation
niqqud name dagesh rafe mappiq shin dot sin dot pronunciation Gemination of a consonant , or the stop pronunciation of the בגדכפ״ת consonants Fricative pronunciation of the בגדכפ״ת consonants (its use is optional) , being the last letter of a word
The simple shewa sign changes its pronunciation depending on its position in the word (mobile/vocal or quiescent/zero) and its proximity to certain consonants.
In these examples, it has been preferred to show one in the Bible and represents each phenomenon in a graphic manner (a ḥaṭef vowel), but the rules still apply when there is only a simple shewa (depending on the manuscript or edition used).
When the simple shewa appears in any of the following positions, it is regarded as mobile (na):
At the beginning of a word, which includes the shewa (originally the first of the word) following the attached particles bi-,ki-,li- and u- and preceded by metheg (the vertical line placed to the left of the vowel sign, which stands for either secondary stress or its lengthening). Examples: Genesis 2:12; Psalms 74:5. But is not pronounced if there is no metheg; that is, they form a closed syllable. The shewa following these three vowels , except for known types of closed syllables (and preceded or not, by metheg). Examples: Exodus 3:18; Exodus 4:18. The second of two adjacent shewas, when both appear under different consonants. Examples: Jeremiah 31:33; Jeremiah 32:9 (except for at the end of a word, ). The shewa under the first of two identical consonants, preceded by metheg. Examples: Gen. 14:7; Exodus: 15:10. The shewa under a consonant with dagesh forte or lene. Examples: Isaiah 9:3; Ezekiel 17:23. The shewa under a consonant that expects gemination but is not so marked, for example, the one found under . And sometimes even when preceded by the article. Examples: Genesis 12:3; 2 Chronicles 33:18. In case a quiescent shewa was followed either by a guttural or yod, it would turn into mobile according to the rules given below, if preceded by a metheg. Ancient manuscripts support that view. Examples: Proverbs 28:22; Job 1:3. Any shewa, if the sign metheg is attached to it, would change an ultrashort vowel to a short, or normal length vowel. For this, only ancient, reliable manuscripts can give us a clear picture, since, with time, later vocalizers added to the number of methegs found in the Bible.
The gutturals (), and yodh (), affect the pronunciation of the shewa preceding them. The allophones of the phoneme follow these two rules:
It would change its sound to imitate that of the following guttural. Numbers 3:17; Numbers 5:28.