Sephardi Hebrew (orSepharadi Hebrew;Hebrew:עברית ספרדית,romanized: Ivrit Sefardit,Ladino:Ebreo de los Sefaradim) is the pronunciation system forBiblical Hebrew favored for liturgical use bySephardi Jews. Itsphonology was influenced by contact languages such asSpanish andPortuguese,Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino),Judeo-Arabic dialects, andModern Greek.

There is some variation between the various forms of Sephardi Hebrew, but the following generalisations may be made:

• The stress tends to fall on the lastsyllable wherever that is the case inBiblical Hebrew.
• The letter ע (`ayin) is realized as a sound, but the specific sound varies between communities. One pronunciation associated with the Hebrew ofWestern Sephardim (Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Northern Europe and their descendants) is avelar nasal ([ŋ]) sound, as in Englishsinging, but other Sephardim of the Balkans, Anatolia, North Africa, and the Levant maintain the pharyngeal sound ofYemenite Hebrew orArabic of their regional coreligionists.
• /r/ is invariably alveolar trill or tap (like Spanish r), rather than uvular (the r common to several German and Yiddish dialects, or better known as the French r).
• /t/ and /d/ are more often realized asdentalplosives, rather thanalveolar.
• There is always a phonetic distinction betweenת‎ (tav) andס‎ (samekh).
• The Sephardi dialects observe theKimhian five-vowel system (a e i o u), either with or without distinctions ofvowel length:
  • Tsere is pronounced[e(ː)], not[ei] as may be found inAshkenazi Hebrew
  • Holam is pronounced[o(ː)], not[au] or[oi] as may be found in Ashkenazi Hebrew
  • Kamats gadol is pronounced[a(ː)], not[ɔ] as in Ashkenazi, Yemenite, or Tiberian Hebrew

This last difference is the standardshibboleth for distinguishing Sephardi from Ashkenazi, Yemenite, and Tiberian Hebrew. The differentiation betweenkamatz gadol andkamatz katan is made according to purely phonetic rules, without regard to etymology, which occasionally leads tospelling pronunciations at variance with the rules laid down inBiblical 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 inMizrahi Hebrew, but is not found inIsraeli Hebrew. It is represented in the transliteration of proper names in theAuthorised Version, such as "Naomi", "Aholah" and "Aholibamah".

Consonants

Vowels

Sephardim differ on the pronunciation ofbet raphe (ב‎,bet withoutdagesh). Persian, Moroccan, Greek, Turkish, Balkan and Jerusalem Sephardim usually pronounce it as[v], which is reflected in Modern Hebrew.Spanish and Portuguese Jews traditionally^[1] pronounced it as[b~β] (as do mostMizrahi Jews), but that is declining under the influence of Israeli Hebrew.

That may reflect changes in the pronunciation ofSpanish. InMedieval Spanish (and inJudaeo-Spanish),b andv were separate, withb representing a voiced bilabial stop andv realized as a bilabial fricative [β]. However, in Renaissance and modern Spanish, both are pronounced[β] (bilabial v) after a vowel (orcontinuant) and[b] otherwise (such as after a pause).

There is also a difference in the pronunciation oftau raphe (ת‎,tau withoutdagesh):

• The normal Sephardi pronunciation (reflected in Israeli Hebrew) is as an unvoiced dentalplosive ([t]);
• Greek Sephardim (like someMizrahi Jews, such as Iraqis and Yemenites) pronounced it as avoiceless dental fricative ([θ]);
• Some Spanish and Portuguese Jews and Sephardim from the Spanish-Moroccan tradition pronounce it as avoiced dental plosive[d] orfricative[ð] (seelenition).

Closely related to the Sephardi pronunciation is theItalian pronunciation of Hebrew, which may be regarded as a variant.

In communities from Italy, Greece and Turkey,he is not realized 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 toHashkibenu), buthe 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 betweenpataḥ andqameṣ gadol [a], or betweensegol,ṣere andshewa na [e]: that is inherited from the oldPalestinian 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 ofḥet andayin 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 ofJudeo-Arabic dialects andJudaeo-Spanish (Ladino).

The origins of the different Hebrew reading traditions reflect older differences between the pronunciations of Hebrew andMiddle Aramaic current in different parts of theFertile Crescent:Judea, theGalilee,Greater Syria,Upper Mesopotamia, andLower Mesopotamia ("Babylonia"). In the time of theMasoretes (8th-10th centuries), there were three distinct notations for denoting vowels and other details of pronunciation in biblical and liturgical texts. One was theBabylonian; another was thePalestinian; still another wasTiberian Hebrew, which eventually superseded the other two and is still in use today. By the time ofSaadia Gaon andJacob 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 Sephardi traditions are ultimately related to the medieval Palestinian pronunciation tradition which is represented by the Palestinian vocalization and the Palestino-Tiberian vocalization systems. [...] The Palestinian pronunciation was transferred to Europe, North Africa and most of the Middle Eastern communities. In Iraq and Iran it replaced the Babylonian pronunciation, which was used in these regions during the Middle Ages. It is possible that it was disseminated in the Middle East by Sephardi teachers who settled in the East after the expulsions from Spain and Portugal in the 15th century. According to Morag (1963, 288–289; 2003) there is evidence that the Babylonian pronunciation was in use in Spain in the early Middle Ages, brought there, it seems, by teachers from Babylonia.^[2]

The accepted rules of Hebrew grammar were laid down in medieval Spain by grammarians such asJudah ben David Hayyuj andJonah ibn Janah and later restated in a modified form by theKimhi 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:

1. The traditional Sephardic pronunciation of the vowels (inherited, as it seems, from the old Palestinian system) was perpetuated. Their failure to fit the Tiberian notation was rationalised by the theory that the distinctions between Tiberian symbols represented differences of length rather than quality:pataẖ was shorta,qamats was longa,segol was shorte andtsere was longe.
2. The theory of long and short vowels was also used to adapt Hebrew to the rules of Arabic poetic meter. For example, in Arabic (and Persian) poetry, when a long vowel occurs in a closed syllable an extra (short) syllable is treated as present for metrical purposes but is not represented in pronunciation. Similarly in Sephardic Hebrew ashewa after a syllable with a long vowel is invariably treated as vocal. (In Tiberian Hebrew, that is true only when the long vowel is marked with ameteg.)

There are further differences:

• Sephardim now pronounceshewa na as/e/ in all positions, but the older rules (as in the Tiberian system) were more complicated.^[3]
• Resh is invariably pronounced by Sephardim as a "front" alveolar trill; in the Tiberian system, the pronunciation appears to have varied with the context and so it was treated as a letter with a double (sometimes triple) pronunciation.

WhenEliezer ben Yehuda drafted hisStandard Hebrew language, he based it on Sephardi Hebrew, both because this was thede facto spoken form as alingua franca in the land of Israel and because he believed it to be the most beautiful of the Hebrew dialects.^{[citation needed]} However, the phonology of Modern Hebrew is in some respects constrained to that ofAshkenazi Hebrew, including the elimination ofpharyngeal articulation and the conversion of/r/ from analveolar tap to avoiced 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.

• Almoli, Solomon,Halichot Sheva: Constantinople 1519
• Kahle, Paul,Masoreten des Ostens: Die Altesten Punktierten Handschriften des Alten Testaments und der Targume: 1913, repr. 1966
• Kahle, Paul,Masoreten des Westens: 1927, repr. 1967 and 2005
• S. Morag, 'Pronunciations of Hebrew', Encyclopaedia Judaica XIII, 1120–1145
• Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1996).A History of the Hebrew Language. trans. John Elwolde. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.ISBN 0-521-55634-1.
• Zimmels,Ashkenazim and Sephardim: their Relations, Differences, and Problems As Reflected in the Rabbinical Responsa : London 1958 (since reprinted).ISBN 0-88125-491-6

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