Sephardi Hebrew - Variants

Variants

Sephardim differ on the pronunciation of bet raphe (ב, bet without dagesh). Persian, Moroccan, Greek, Turkish, Balkan and Jerusalem Sephardim usually pronounce it as, and this is reflected in modern Hebrew. Spanish and Portuguese Jews traditionally pronounced it as (as do most Mizrahi Jews), though this is declining under the influence of Israeli Hebrew.

This may reflect changes in the pronunciation of Spanish. In medieval Spanish (and in Ladino), b and v were separate phonemes, with the same sounds as in English. In Renaissance and modern Spanish, the sounds of the two letters have assimilated, and both are pronounced (bilabial v) when following a vowel (or continuant) and as otherwise (after a pause). Jews from Spanish-speaking countries in South America, including Ashkenazim, tend to reflect this rule in their pronunciation of Hebrew, and in Israel are sometimes taken for Sephardim for this reason.

There is also a difference in the pronunciation of taw raphe (ת, taw without dagesh) .

• The normal Sephardi pronunciation (reflected in modern Israeli Hebrew) is as an unvoiced dental plosive ;
• Greek Sephardim (like some Mizrahi Jews, e.g. Iraqis and Yemenites) pronounced it as a voiceless dental fricative ;
• Some Spanish and Portuguese Jews and Sephardim from the Spanish-Moroccan tradition pronounce it as a voiced dental plosive fricative, see lenition.

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

In communities from Italy, Greece and Turkey, he is not realized as, but as a silent letter. This is due to the influence of Italian, Ladino and (to a lesser extent) Greek, all of which lack the sound. This was also the case in early transliterations of Spanish-Portuguese manuscripts (e.g. Ashkibenu as opposed to Hashkibenu), but today he is consistently pronounced in these communities. (Basilectal Modern Hebrew shares this characteristic, but it is considered substandard.)