Tiberian Hebrew



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 c. 750–950 CE under the Abbasid Caliphate. They wrote in the form of Tiberian vocalization, 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.

Consonants
Tiberian Hebrew has 29 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:
 * Before the labial vowels (בומ״ף) and shva (אְ), the waw-conjunctive (ו) was read as אוּ rather than וֻ  (as is the case in some eastern reading traditions).


 * 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:
 * "Normal" Resh pronounced thus (according to Eldar, as a uvular sound ) in all other instances (except for the circumstances described below): אוֹר
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * 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

 * 1) marginal

The vowel qualities have phonemic status: אָשָׁם הוּא אָשֹׁם אָשַׁם (Lev. 5:19) and אָשֵׁם 'guilty', אִם 'when' and אֵם 'mother'. has phonemic value in final stressed position רְעֶה רְעִי רָעָה, מִקְנֶה מְקַנֵּה, קָנֶה קָנָה קָנֹה, 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. Vowels in open or stressed syllables had allophonic length (such as in יְרַחֵם, which was previously short).

The Tiberian tradition possesses three reduced (ultrashort, hatuf) vowels of which  has questionable phonemicity. , 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'.

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 sheva 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 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):


 * 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.
 * 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.
 * 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,  ).
 * The sheva under the first of two identical consonants, preceded by metheg. Examples:  Gen. 14:7;   Exodus: 15:10.
 * The sheva under a consonant with dagesh forte or lene. Examples:  Isaiah 9:3;   Ezekiel 17:23.
 * 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.
 * 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.
 * 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:


 * It would change its sound to imitate that of the following guttural.  Numbers 3:17;   Numbers 5:28.
 * It would be pronounced as ḥireq before consonantal yodh. Examples:  Jeremiah 21:1;   in Maimonides' autograph in his commentary to the Mishnah.

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: "If one argues that the dalet of 'Mordecai' (and other letters in other words) has hatef qames, tell him, 'but this sign is only a device used by some scribes to warn that the consonants should be pronounced fully, and not slurred over'."

The names of the vowel diacritics are iconic and show some variation: "The names of the vowels are mostly taken from the form and action of the mouth in producing the various sounds, as פַּתַ֫ח opening; צֵרֵ֫י a wide parting (of the mouth), (also שֶׁ֫בֶר) breaking, parting (cf. the Arab, kasr); חִ֫ירֶק (also חִרֶק) narrow opening; ח֫וֹלֶם closing, according to others fullness, i.e. of the mouth (also מְלֹא פּוּם fullness of the mouth). קָ֫מֶץ also denotes a slighter, as שׁוּרֶק and קִבּוּץ (also קבוץ פּוּם) a firmer, compression or contraction of the mouth. Segôl (סְגוֹל bunch of grapes) takes its name from its form. So שָׁלֹשׁ נְקֻדּוֹת (three points) is another name for Qibbúṣ. Moreover the names were mostly so formed (but only later), that the sound of each vowel is heard in the first syllable (קָמֶץ for קֹמֶץ, פַּתַח for פֶּתַח, צֵרִי for צְרִי); in order to carry this out consistently some even write Sägôl, Qomeṣ-ḥatûf, Qûbbûṣ."