Tiberian Hebrew is the canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) committed to writing by Masoretes 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 Diacritic (Niqqud) and the so-called accents (two related systems of cantillation signs or te'amim). These together with the marginal notes Masoretic Text 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 Hebrew of pronunciation (the dual quality of qameṣ (אָ) as , ; the pronunciation of simple shva (אְ) as ).
The phonology of Tiberian Hebrew can be gleaned from the collation of various sources:
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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 niqqud where one would expect simple shva, 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 בגדכפ"ת or א"ה.
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The explicit statements found in grammars of the 10th and the 11th centuries, including the Sēfer haq-Qoloṯ ספר הקולות of Moshe ben Asher (published by N. Allony); the Sēfer Diqduqē haṭ-Ṭe'amim (ספר דקדוקי הטעמים Grammar or Analysis of the Accents) of Aaron ben Moses ben Asher; the anonymous works entitled Horayaṯ haq-Qorē הורית הקורא (G. Khan and Ilan Eldar attribute it to the Karaite Judaism Aaron of Jerusalem); the Treatise on the Schwa (published by Kurt Levy from a genizah fragment in 1936), and Ma'mar haš-Šəwā מאמר השוא (published from Genizah material by Allony); the works of medieval Sephardic Jews 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.
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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 sheva as before consonantal yod, as in בְּיִ.
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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.
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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.
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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.
The following are the most salient characteristics of the Tiberian Hebrew consonantal pronunciation:
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Before the labial vowels (בומ״ף) and shva (אְ), the waw-conjunctive (ו) was read as וֻ (as is the case in some eastern reading traditions.
[Vav. TiberianHebrew.com [3]]
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The threefold pronunciation of resh ר. Even though there is no agreement as to how it was pronounced, the rules of distribution of such pronunciation is given in הורית הקורא Horayaṯ haq-Qorē:
[Resh. TiberianHebrew.com [4]]
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"Normal" Resh pronounced thus as a uvular sound (according to Eldar) in all other instances (except for the circumstances described below): אוֹר
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The "peculiar" resh before or after Lamed or Nun, any of the three being vocalized with simple sheva and resh after zayin ז, daleth ד, samekh ס, sin שׂ, taw ת, ṣade צ, ṭeth ט, any of them punctuated with simple sheva: יִשְׂרָאֵל , עָרְלָה . Because of the proximity of a dental consonant, resh was pronounced as an alveolar trill, as it still is in Sephardi Hebrew.
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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 : הַרְּאִיתֶם . As can be seen, this pronunciation has to do with the progressive increase in length of this consonant (הָרְאִיתֶם). It was preserved only by the population of Ma'azya (מעזיה), which is in Tiberias.
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A possible threefold pronunciation of taw ת. 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 (): וַיְשִׂימֶהָ תֵּל
Vowels
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marginal
The vowel qualities have phonemic status: אָשָׁם הוּא אָשֹׁם אָשַׁם (Lev. 5:19) and אָשֵׁם 'guilty', אִם 'when' and אֵם 'mother'.[In fact, all stressed vowels were first lengthened in pause, see , as can be seen by forms like Tiberian כַּף < *, pausal כָּף < * < * < *. The shift in Tiberian Hebrew of * > * occurred after that lengthening but before the loss of phonemicity of length (since words like ירחם with allophonically long show no such shift).] Vowels in open or stressed syllables had allophonic length (such as in יְרַחֵם, 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 vowel reduction (ultrashort, hatuf) vowels of which has questionable phonemicity.[See אֳנִי 'ships' אֲנִי 'I', חֳלִי 'sickness' חֲלִי 'ornament', עֲלִי 'ascend!' (Num 21:17) and בַּעֱלִי '(with the) pestle' (Prov 27:22). alternates with frequently and rarely contrasts with it: אֱדוֹם 'Edom' versus אֲדֹמִי '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 (וּבָקְעָה ) and as preceding , (תְדַמְּיוּנִי ). However, it was always pronounced as under gutturals: חֲיִי .
Stress
Tiberian Hebrew has phonemic stress (בָּנוּ֫ 'they built' vs. בָּ֫נוּ 'in us'). Stress is most commonly ultimate, less commonly penultimate, and rarely antepenultimate stress: הָאֹ֫הֱלָה 'into the tent'.
[
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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: עִם־יוֹ֫רְדֵי בוֹר 'with those who go down into the pit' מְטֹ֫עֲנֵי חָ֫רֶב '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
The simple shva 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 chateph vowel), but the rules still apply when there is only a simple sheva (depending on the manuscript or edition used).
When the simple sheva appears in any of the following positions, it is regarded as mobile (na):
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At the beginning of a word, which includes the sheva (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.
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The sheva following these three vowels , except for known types of closed syllables (and preceded or not, by metheg). Examples: Exodus 3:18; Exodus 4:18.
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The second of two adjacent shevas, when both appear under different consonants. Examples: Jeremiah 31:33; Jeremiah 32:9 (except for at the end of a word, ).
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The sheva under the first of two identical consonants, preceded by metheg. Examples: Gen. 14:7; Exodus: 15:10.
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The sheva under a consonant with dagesh forte or lene. Examples: Isaiah 9:3; Ezekiel 17:23.
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The sheva 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.
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In case a quiescent sheva was followed either by a guttural or yodh, 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.
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Any sheva, 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 sheva preceding them. The allophones of the phoneme follow these two rules:
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It would change its sound to imitate that of the following guttural. Numbers 3:17; Numbers 5:28.
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It would be pronounced as ḥireq before consonantal yodh. Examples: Jeremiah 21:1; in Maimonides' autograph in his commentary to the Mishnah.
[These two rules, as well as the rule that metheg changes sheva from an ultrashort to a normal vowel, are recorded by Solomon Almoli in his Halichot Sheva (Constantinople 1519), though he states that these differences are dying out and that in most places vocal sheva is pronounced like segol. In Mizrahi Jews communities such as the Syrian Jews, these rules continued to be recorded by grammarians into the 1900s (such as Sethon, Menasheh, Kelale Diqduq ha-qeriah, Aleppo 1914), but they were not normally reflected in actual pronunciation. The rules about yodh and metheg, though not the rule about gutturals, is still observed by the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam: Rodrigues Pereira, Martin, 'Hochmat Shelomoh.]
It must be said that even though there are no special signs apart to denote the full range of furtive vowels, the remaining four () are represented by simple sheva (ḥaṭaf ḥiriq () in the Aleppo Codex is a scribal oddity and certainly not regular in Hebrew manuscripts with Tiberian vocalization).
All other cases should be treated as zero vowel (quiescent, nah), including the double final sheva (double initial sheva does not exist in this Hebrew dialect), and the sheva in the words and , read by the Tiberian Masoretes as and respectively. This last case has similarities with phenomena occurring in the Samaritan pronunciation and the Phoenician language.
Depending on the school of pronunciation (and relying on musical grounds, perhaps), the metheg sign served to change some closed syllables into open ones, and therefore, changing the vowel from short to long, and the quiescent sheva, into a mobile one.
That is referenced specifically by medieval grammarians:
The names of the vowel diacritics are iconic and show some variation:
Notes
Bibliography
