Hi Uri, On Mon, 12 Aug 2013 11:10:31 -0700 (PDT), Uri Hurwitz <[email protected]> wrote: > > Dear Will, > > ... > A few people are dragged into this irrelevant subject on this > list. I obviously do not degrade this fascinating topic which I > follow all the time. However , since you commented on it, let me > correct you in an important sense. You described the debate > surrounding the pronunciation of the modern spoken language. Yet one > must keep in mind that since then followed three generations whose > first language was Hebrew. Such speakers were and are subjects to > the same forces which affect other living languages.
I am puzzled as to why you think you are "correcting" me - as far as I know, I didn't write anything to the contrary. If I have been unclear, I apologise. My point was that the transition from ancient/Biblical Hebrew to Modern Hebrew does not represent a smooth natural transition such as that seen in (for example) Greek. You are quite right that since Hebrew has now been used as a natively spoken language for several generations now, it behaves as any other natural language does, and I wouldn't want to imply otherwise. >> Even more to the point, the >> pronunciation of Modern Hebrew does not represent a natural >> continuation of the Mishnaic/Mediaeval tradition, but a conscious >> choice to prefer, for example, BH forms over MH, and the conscious >> choice of preferring the Sephardic pronunciations of taw (without >> daghesh) and qamets over the Ashkenazic values. -- Will Parsons _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
