pronounced as /notice/Modern Hebrew has 25 to 27 consonants and 5 to 10 vowels, depending on the speaker and the analysis.
Hebrew has been used primarily for liturgical, literary, and scholarly purposes for most of the past two millennia. As a consequence, its pronunciation was strongly influenced by the vernacular of individual Jewish communities. With the revival of Hebrew as a native language, and especially with the establishment of Israel, the pronunciation of the modern language rapidly coalesced.
The two main accents of modern Hebrew are Oriental and Non-Oriental. Oriental Hebrew was chosen as the preferred accent for Israel by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, but has since declined in popularity. The description in this article follows the language as it is pronounced by native Israeli speakers of the younger generations.
According to the Academy of the Hebrew Language, in the 1880s (the time of the beginning of the Zionist movement and the Hebrew revival) there were three groups of Hebrew regional accents: Ashkenazi (Eastern European), Sephardi (Southern European), and Mizrahi (Middle Eastern, Iranian, and North African). Over time features of these systems of pronunciation merged, and at present scholars identify two main pronunciations of modern (i.e., not liturgical) Hebrew: Oriental and Non-Oriental. Oriental Hebrew displays traits of an Arabic substrate.[1] Elder oriental speakers tend to use an alveolar trill pronounced as /[r]/, preserve the pharyngeal consonants pronounced as //ħ// and (less commonly) pronounced as //ʕ//,[2] preserve gemination, and pronounce pronounced as //e// in some places where non-Oriental speakers do not have a vowel (the shva na). A limited number of Oriental speakers, for example elderly Yemenite Jews, even maintain some pharyngealized (emphatic) consonants also found in Arabic, such as pronounced as //sˤ// for Biblical pronounced as //tsʼ//. Israeli Arabs ordinarily use the Oriental pronunciation, vocalising the ‘ayin as pronounced as //ʕ//, resh (ר) as [r] and, less frequently, the ḥet as pronounced as //ħ//.
Non-Oriental (and General Israeli) pronunciation lost the emphatic and pharyngeal sounds of Biblical Hebrew under the influence of European languages (Slavic and Germanic for Ashkenazim and Romance for Sephardim). The pharyngeals pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ are preserved by older Oriental speakers.[1] Dialectally, Georgian Jews pronounce pronounced as //ʕ// as pronounced as /link/, while Western European Sephardim and Dutch Ashkenazim traditionally pronounce it pronounced as /link/, a pronunciation that can also be found in the Italian tradition and, historically, in south-west Germany. However, according to Sephardic and Ashkenazic authorities, such as the Mishnah Berurah and the Shulchan Aruch and Mishneh Torah, pronounced as //ʕ// is the proper pronunciation. Thus, it is still pronounced as such by some Sephardim and Ashkenazim.
The classical pronunciation associated with the consonant Hebrew: ר rêš was a flap pronounced as /link/, and was grammatically ungeminable. In most dialects of Hebrew among the Jewish diaspora, it remained a flap or a trill pronounced as /link/. However, in some Ashkenazi dialects of northern Europe it was a uvular rhotic, either a trill pronounced as /link/ or a fricative pronounced as /link/. This was because most native dialects of Yiddish were spoken that way, and the liturgical Hebrew of these speakers carried the Yiddish pronunciation. Some Iraqi Jews also pronounce rêš as a guttural pronounced as /link/, reflecting Baghdad Jewish Arabic.
Though an Ashkenazi Jew in the Russian Empire, the Zionist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda based his Standard Hebrew on Sephardi Hebrew, originally spoken in Spain, and therefore recommended an alveolar pronounced as /link/. However, just like him, the first waves of Jews to resettle in the Holy Land were Ashkenazi, and Standard Hebrew would come to be spoken with their native pronunciation. Consequently, by now nearly all Israeli Jews pronounce the consonant Hebrew: ר rêš as a uvular approximant (pronounced as /[ʁ̞]/),[3] which also exists in Yiddish.[3]
Many Jewish immigrants to Israel spoke a variety of Arabic in their countries of origin, and pronounced the Hebrew rhotic consonant pronounced as //ʁ// as an alveolar trill, identical to Arabic Arabic: [[ر]] , and which followed the conventions of old Hebrew.[4] In modern Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi poetry and folk music, as well as in the standard (or "standardised") Hebrew used in the Israeli media, an alveolar rhotic is sometimes used.
The following table lists the consonant phonemes of Israeli Hebrew in IPA transcription:
| Labial | Alveolar | Palato- alveolar | Palatal | Velar/ uvular | Glottal | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/2 | ||||||
| Affricate | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/4* | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/1 | pronounced as /ink/3 | pronounced as /ink/2 | ||||
| Nasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||||||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||||||
* Phoneme was introduced through loanwords.
1 In modern Hebrew pronounced as //ħ// for ח has merged with pronounced as //x// (which was traditionally used only for fricative כ) into pronounced as //χ//. Some older Mizrahi speakers still separate these (as explained above).
2 The glottal consonants tend to be elided, which is most common in unstressed syllables. In informal speech it may occur in stressed syllables as well, whereas careful or formal speech may retain them in all positions. In modern Hebrew pronounced as //ʕ// for ע has been absorbed by pronounced as //ʔ//, which was traditionally used only for . Again, some speakers still separate these.
3 pronounced as //ʁ// is usually pronounced as a uvular approximant pronounced as /link/, and sometimes as a uvular trill pronounced as /link/, alveolar trill pronounced as /link/ or alveolar flap pronounced as /link/, depending on the background of the speaker.[5]
4 While the phoneme pronounced as //tʃ// was introduced through borrowings,[6] it can appear in native words as a sequence of pronounced as //t// and pronounced as //ʃ// as in Hebrew: rtl=yes|תְּשׁוּקָה pronounced as //tʃuˈka//.
For many young speakers, obstruents assimilate in voicing. Voiceless obstruents (stops/affricates pronounced as //p, t, ts, tʃ, k// and fricatives pronounced as //f, s, ʃ, χ//) become voiced (pronounced as /[b, d, dz, dʒ, ɡ, v, z, ʒ, ʁ]/) when they appear immediately before voiced obstruents, and vice versa. For example:
pronounced as //n// is pronounced pronounced as /link/ before velar consonants.
| Letter | Example word | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | Hebrew | IPA | Hebrew | English | |
| pronounced as //p// | pronounced as //ˈpe// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|פֶּה | mouth | ||
| pronounced as //m// | pronounced as //ma// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|מָה | what | ||
| pronounced as //f// | pronounced as //oˈfe// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|אוֹפֶה | baker | ||
| pronounced as //t// | pronounced as //ˈtan// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|תַּן | jackal | ||
| pronounced as //ts// | pronounced as //ˈtsi// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|צִי | fleet | ||
| pronounced as //s// | pronounced as //ˈsof// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|סוֹף | end | ||
| pronounced as //n// | pronounced as //ˈnes// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|נֵס | miracle | ||
| pronounced as //tʃ// | pronounced as //tʃuˈka// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|תְּשׁוּקָה | passion | ||
| pronounced as //ʃ// | pronounced as //ʃaˈna// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|שָׁנָה | year | ||
| pronounced as //j// | pronounced as //ˈjom// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|יוֹם | day | ||
| pronounced as //k// | pronounced as //ˈkol// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|כֹּל | all | ||
| pronounced as //χ// | pronounced as //eχ// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|אֵיךְ | how | ||
| pronounced as //ħ// | pronounced as //ˈħam// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|חַם | hot | ||
| Letter | Example word | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IPA | Hebrew | IPA | Hebrew | English | |
| pronounced as //ʔ// | pronounced as //ʁeʔaˈjon// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|רֵאָיוֹן | interview | ||
| pronounced as //b// | pronounced as //ˈben// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|בֵּן | son | ||
| pronounced as //v// | pronounced as //ˈnevel// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|נֵבֶל | harp | ||
| pronounced as //d// | pronounced as //ˈdelek// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|דֶּלֶק | fuel | ||
| pronounced as //z// | pronounced as //ze// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|זֶה | this | ||
| pronounced as //l// | pronounced as //ˈlo// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|לֹא | no | ||
| pronounced as //dʒ// | pronounced as //dʒiˈʁafa// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|גִּ׳ירָפָה | giraffe | ||
| pronounced as //ʒ// | pronounced as //ˈbeʒ// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|בֵּז׳ | beige | ||
| pronounced as //w// | pronounced as //ˈpinɡwin// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|פִּינְגְּוִין | penguin | ||
| pronounced as //ɡ// | pronounced as //ɡam// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|גַּם | also | ||
| pronounced as //ʁ// | pronounced as //ˈʁoʃ// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|רֹאשׁ | head | ||
| pronounced as //ʕ// | pronounced as //ʕim// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|עִם | with | ||
| pronounced as //h// | pronounced as //ˈhed// | Hebrew: rtl=yes|הֵד | echo | ||
Standard Israeli Hebrew (SIH) phonology, based on the Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation tradition, has a number of differences from Biblical Hebrew (BH) and Mishnaic Hebrew (MH) in the form of splits and mergers.[7]
The consonant pairs pronounced as /link/–pronounced as /link/ (archaically pronounced as /link/), pronounced as /link/–pronounced as /link/ (archaically pronounced as /link/), and pronounced as /link/–pronounced as /link/ (archaically pronounced as /link/) were historically allophonic, as a consequence of a phenomenon of spirantisation known as begadkefat under the influence of the Aramaic language on BH/MH. In Modern Hebrew, the above six sounds are phonemic.
The full inventory of Hebrew consonants which undergo and/or underwent spirantisation are:
| letter | stop | fricative | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bet | Syriac: ܒ | pronounced as /link/ | becomes | pronounced as /link/ in Biblical/Mishnaic, evolved into pronounced as /link/ in Standard Israeli Hebrew | |
| gimel | Syriac: ܓ | pronounced as /link/ | becomes | pronounced as /link/ in Biblical/Mishnaic, reverted to pronounced as /link/ in Standard Israeli Hebrew | |
| dalet | Syriac: ܕ | pronounced as /link/ | becomes | pronounced as /link/ in Biblical/Mishnaic, reverted to pronounced as /link/ in Standard Israeli Hebrew | |
| kaph | Syriac: ܟ | pronounced as /link/ | becomes | pronounced as /link/, in Biblical/Mishnaic, evolved into pronounced as /link/ in Standard Israeli Hebrew | |
| pe | Syriac: ܦ | pronounced as /link/ | becomes | pronounced as /link/ in Biblical/Mishnaic, evolved into pronounced as /link/ in Standard Israeli Hebrew | |
| taw | Syriac: ܬ | pronounced as /link/ | becomes | pronounced as /link/ in Biblical/Mishnaic, reverted to pronounced as /link/ in Standard Israeli Hebrew | |
However, the above-mentioned allophonic alternation of BH/MH pronounced as /link/–pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/–pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/–pronounced as /link/ was lost in Modern Hebrew, with these six allophones merging into simple pronounced as //t, d, ɡ//.
These phonemic changes were partly due to the mergers noted above, to the loss of consonant gemination, which had distinguished stops from their fricative allophones in intervocalic position, and the introduction of syllable-initial pronounced as /link/ and non-syllable-initial pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ in loan words. Spirantization still occurs in verbal and nominal derivation, but now the alternations pronounced as //b//–pronounced as //v//, pronounced as //k//–pronounced as //χ//, and pronounced as //p//–pronounced as //f// are phonemic rather than allophonic.
In Traditional Hebrew words can end with an H consonant, e.g. when the suffix "-ah" is used, meaning "her" (see Mappiq). The final H sound is hardly ever pronounced in Modern Hebrew. However, the final H with Mappiq still retains the guttural characteristic that it should take a patach and render the pronunciation /a(h)/ at the end of the word, for example, Hebrew: rtl=yes|גָּבוֹהַּ gavoa(h) ("tall").
Modern Hebrew has a simple five-vowel system.
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Low | pronounced as /link/ |
Vowel length is non-contrastive and consecutive identical vowels are allowed in the case of glottal consonant elision, e.g. Hebrew: [[:wikt:שאלה|שאלה]] pronounced as //ʃeʔeˈla/ → [ʃeeˈla]/ vs Hebrew: [[:wikt:שלה|שלה]] pronounced as /[ʃeˈla]/ and Hebrew: [[:wikt:רעם|רעם]] pronounced as //ˈʁaʔam/ → [ˈʁaam]/ vs Hebrew: [[:wikt:רם|רם]] pronounced as /[ʁam]/.[5]
There are two diphthongs, pronounced as //aj// and pronounced as //ej//.
| Phoneme | Example | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as //iʃ// | Hebrew: אִישׁ | 'man' | |
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as //adu'ma// | Hebrew: אֲדֻמָּה | 'red' (f) | |
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as //em// | Hebrew: אֵם | 'mother' | |
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as //oʁ// | Hebrew: אוֹר | 'light' | |
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as //av// | Hebrew: אָב | 'father' | |
In Biblical Hebrew, each vowel had three forms: short, long and interrupted (). However, there is no audible distinction between the three in Modern Hebrew, except that pronounced as //e// is often pronounced pronounced as /[ej]/ as in Ashkenazi Hebrew.
See main article: shva. Modern pronunciation does not follow traditional use of the niqqud (diacritic) "shva". In Modern Hebrew, words written with a shva may be pronounced with either pronounced as //e// or without any vowel, and this does not correspond well to how the word was pronounced historically. For example, the first shva in the word Hebrew: rtl=yes|קִמַּטְתְּ 'you (fem.) crumpled' is pronounced pronounced as //e// (pronounced as //kiˈmatet//) though historically it was silent, whereas the shva in Hebrew: rtl=yes|זְמַן ('time'), which was pronounced historically, is usually silent (pronounced as /[zman]/). Orthographic shva is generally pronounced pronounced as //e// in prefixes such as ve- ('and') and be- ('in'), or when following another shva in grammatical patterns, as in pronounced as //tilmeˈdi// ('you [f. sg.] will learn'). An epenthetic pronounced as //e// appears when necessary to avoid violating a phonological constraint, such as between two consonants that are identical or differ only in voicing (e.g. pronounced as //la'madeti// 'I learned', not pronounced as /
Stress is phonemic in Modern Hebrew. There are two frequent patterns of lexical stress, on the last syllable ( Hebrew: rtl=yes|מִלְּרַע) and on the penultimate syllable ( Hebrew: rtl=yes|מִלְּעֵיל). Final stress has traditionally been more frequent, but in the colloquial language many words are shifting to penultimate stress. Contrary to the prescribed standard, some words exhibit stress on the antepenultimate syllable or even farther back. This often occurs in loanwords, e.g. Hebrew: rtl=yes|פּוֹלִיטִיקָה pronounced as //poˈlitika// ('politics'), and sometimes in native colloquial compounds, e.g. Hebrew: rtl=yes|אֵיכְשֶׁהוּ pronounced as //ˈeχʃehu// ('somehow').[8] Colloquial stress has often shifted from the last syllable to the penultimate, e.g. Hebrew: rtl=yes|כּוֹבַע 'hat', normative pronounced as //koˈvaʕ// (Ezekiel 38 5) or pronounced as //ˈkovaʕ// (Isaiah 59 17), colloquial (always) pronounced as //ˈkovaʕ//; Hebrew: rtl=yes|שׁוֹבָךְ ('dovecote'), normative pronounced as //ʃoˈvaχ//, colloquial pronounced as //ˈʃovaχ//. This shift is common in the colloquial pronunciation of many personal names, for example Hebrew: rtl=yes|דָּוִד ('David'), normative pronounced as //daˈvid//, colloquial pronounced as //ˈdavid//.[9]
Historically, stress was phonemic, but bore low functional load. While minimal pairs existed (e.g. Hebrew: rtl=yes|בָּֽנוּ pronounced as //ˈbaːnuː//, 'in/with us' and Hebrew: rtl=yes|בָּנֽוּ pronounced as //baːˈnuː//, 'they built'), stress was mostly predictable, depending on syllable weight (that is, vowel length and whether a syllable ended in a consonant). Because spoken Israeli Hebrew has lost gemination (a common source of syllable-final consonants) as well as the original distinction between long and short vowels, but the position of the stress often remained where it had been, stress has become phonemic, as the following table illustrates. Phonetically, the following word pairs differ only in the location of the stress; orthographically they differ also in the written representation of vowel length of the vowels (assuming the vowels are even written):
| Usual spelling (ktiv hasar niqqud) | Penultimate stress | Final stress | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| spelling with vowel diacritics | pronunciation | translation | spelling with vowel diacritics | pronunciation | translation | |||
| Hebrew: rtl=yes|ילד | Hebrew: rtl=yes|יֶלֶד | pronounced as //ˈjeled// | boy | Hebrew: rtl=yes|יֵלֵד | pronounced as //jeˈled// | will give birth (m.sg. 3rd person) | ||
| Hebrew: rtl=yes|אכל, אוכל | Hebrew: rtl=yes|אֹכֶל | pronounced as //ˈoχel// | food | Hebrew: rtl=yes|אוֹכֵל | pronounced as //oˈχel// | eating (m.sg.) | ||
| Hebrew: rtl=yes|בקר, בוקר | Hebrew: rtl=yes|בֹּקֶר | pronounced as //ˈbokeʁ// | morning | Hebrew: rtl=yes|בּוֹקֵר | pronounced as //boˈkeʁ// | cowboy | ||
In fast-spoken colloquial Hebrew, when a vowel falls beyond two syllables from the main stress of a word or phrase, it may be reduced or elided. For example:
Hebrew: זֹאת אוֹמֶרֶת
pronounced as //zot oˈmeʁet// > pronounced as /[stoˈmeʁet]/ ('that is to say')
Hebrew: אֵיךְ קוֹרְאִים לְךָ?|rtl=yes
pronounced as //eχ koʁˈʔim le'χa// > pronounced as /[ˌeχkoˈʁimχa]/ (what's your name, lit. 'How are you called?')
When pronounced as //l// follows an unstressed vowel, it is sometimes elided, possibly with the surrounding vowels:
Hebrew: אַבָּא שֶׁלָּכֶם
pronounced as //ˈaba ʃelaˈχem// > pronounced as /[ˈabaʃχem]/ ('your father')
Hebrew: הוּא יִתֵּן לְךָ
pronounced as //hu jiˈten leˈχa// > pronounced as /[uiˈtenχa]/ ('he will give / let you')
Syllables pronounced as //ʁV// drop before pronounced as //χ// except at the end of a prosodic unit:
Hebrew: בְּדֶרֶךְ כְּלָל
pronounced as //beˈdeʁeχ klal// > pronounced as /[beˈdeχklal]/ ('usually')but: Hebrew: הוּא בַּדֶּרֶךְ pronounced as /[u ba'deʁeχ]/ ('he is on his way') at the end of a prosodic unit.
Sequences of dental stops reduce to a single consonant, again except at the end of a prosodic unit:
Hebrew: אֲנִי לָמַדְתִּי פַּעַם
pronounced as //a'ni la'madeti ˈpaʕam// > pronounced as /[aˌnilaˈmatipa:m]/ ('I once studied')but: Hebrew: שֶׁלָּמַדְתִּי pronounced as /[ʃela'madeti]/ ('that I studied')