Sephardi Hebrew (or Sepharadi Hebrew; Hebrew: עברית ספרדית|Ivrit Sefardit, Ladino: Ebreo de los Sefaradim) is the pronunciation system for Biblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use by Sephardi Jews. Its phonology was influenced by contact languages such as Spanish and Portuguese, Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino), Judeo-Arabic dialects, and Modern Greek.
There is some variation between the various forms of Sephardi Hebrew, but the following generalisations may be made:
This last difference is the standard shibboleth for distinguishing Sephardi from Ashkenazi, Yemenite, and Tiberian Hebrew. The differentiation between kamatz gadol and kamatz katan is made according to purely phonetic rules, without regard to etymology, which occasionally leads to spelling pronunciations at variance with the rules laid down in Biblical Hebrew grammar books. For example, כָל (all), when unhyphenated, is pronounced "kal", rather than "kol" (in "kal 'atsmotai" and "Kal Nidre"), and צָהֳרַיִם (noon) is pronounced "tsahorayim", rather than "tsohorayim". This feature is also found in Mizrahi Hebrew, but is not found in Israeli Hebrew. It is represented in the transliteration of proper names in the Authorised Version, such as "Naomi", "Aholah" and "Aholibamah".
Consonants
| Name | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Letter | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pronunciation | pronounced as /link/, ∅ | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/, ∅ | pronounced as /link/, [<nowiki/>[[Voiced labial–velar approximant|w]]] | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, ∅ | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ |
| Name | ||||||||||||||||
| Letter | ||||||||||||||||
| Pronunciation | ∅ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | [{{IPAlink|ä}}(ː)] | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | [{{IPAlink|e}}(ː)] | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | [{{IPAlink|i}}(ː)] | [{{IPAlink|o}}(ː)], [{{IPAlink|o}}(ː)]~[{{IPAlink|u}}(ː)] | pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ | [{{IPAlink|u}}(ː)], pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/~pronounced as /link/ |
Sephardim differ on the pronunciation of bet raphe (bet without dagesh). Persian, Moroccan, Greek, Turkish, Balkan and Jerusalem Sephardim usually pronounce it as pronounced as /[v]/, which is reflected in Modern Hebrew. Spanish and Portuguese Jews traditionally[1] pronounced it as pronounced as /[b ~ β]/ (as do most Mizrahi Jews), but that is declining under the influence of Israeli Hebrew.
That may reflect changes in the pronunciation of Spanish. In Medieval Spanish (and in Judaeo-Spanish), b and v were separate, with b representing a voiced bilabial stop and v realized as a bilabial fricative [β]. However, in Renaissance and modern Spanish, both are pronounced pronounced as /[β]/ (bilabial v) after a vowel (or continuant) and pronounced as /[b]/ otherwise (such as after a pause).
There is also a difference in the pronunciation of tau raphe (tau without dagesh):
Closely related to the Sephardi pronunciation is the Italian pronunciation of Hebrew, which may be regarded as a variant.
In communities from Italy, Greece and Turkey, he is not realized as pronounced as /[h]/ but as a silent letter because of the influence of Italian, Judaeo-Spanish and (to a lesser extent) Modern Greek, all of which lack the sound. That was also the case in early transliterations of Spanish-Portuguese manuscripts (Ashkibenu, as opposed to Hashkibenu), but he is now consistently pronounced in those communities. Basilectal Modern Hebrew also shares that characteristic, but it is considered substandard.
In addition to ethnic and geographical distinctions, there are some distinctions of register. Popular Sephardic pronunciation, such as for Spanish and Portuguese Jews, makes no distinction between pataḥ and qameṣ gadol [a], or between segol, ṣere and shewa na [e]: that is inherited from the old Palestinian vowel notation. In formal liturgical use, however, many Sephardim are careful to make some distinction between these vowels to reflect the Tiberian notation. (That can be compared to the attempts of some Ashkenazim to use the pharyngeal sounds of ḥet and ayin in formal contexts, such as reading the Torah.)
In brief, Sephardi Hebrew appears to be a descendant of the Palestinian tradition, partially adapted to accommodate the Tiberian notation and further influenced by the pronunciation of Judeo-Arabic dialects and Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino).
The origins of the different Hebrew reading traditions reflect older differences between the pronunciations of Hebrew and Middle Aramaic current in different parts of the Fertile Crescent: Judea, the Galilee, Greater Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, and Lower Mesopotamia ("Babylonia"). In the time of the Masoretes (8th-10th centuries), there were three distinct notations for denoting vowels and other details of pronunciation in biblical and liturgical texts. One was the Babylonian; another was the Palestinian; still another was Tiberian Hebrew, which eventually superseded the other two and is still in use today. By the time of Saadia Gaon and Jacob Qirqisani, Palestinian Hebrew had come to be regarded as standard, even in Babylonia. That development roughly coincided with the popularisation of the Tiberian notation.
The accepted rules of Hebrew grammar were laid down in medieval Spain by grammarians such as Judah ben David Hayyuj and Jonah ibn Janah and later restated in a modified form by the Kimhi family; the current Sephardic pronunciation largely reflects the system that it laid down. By then, the Tiberian notation was universally used though it was not always reflected in pronunciation. The Spanish grammarians accepted the rules laid down by the Tiberian Masoretes, with the following variations:
There are further differences:
When Eliezer ben Yehuda drafted his Standard Hebrew language, he based it on Sephardi Hebrew, both because this was the de facto spoken form as a lingua franca in the land of Israel and because he believed it to be the most beautiful of the Hebrew dialects. However, the phonology of Modern Hebrew is in some respects constrained to that of Ashkenazi Hebrew, including the elimination of pharyngeal articulation and the conversion of pronounced as //r// from an alveolar tap to a voiced uvular fricative, though this latter sound was rare in Ashkenazi Hebrew, in which uvular realizations were more commonly a trill or tap, and in which alveolar trills or taps were also common.