Gesenius' Hebrew grammar: 17th ed., with numerous corrections and additions, by dr. E. Rödiger. Tr. by T. J. Conant ... With grammatical exercises and a chrestomathy, by the translator.

~ 6. PRONUNCIATION.

36

sort of vowel sound like a. It is the prevailing usage, at present, to pass
over 3 as well as t in reading the language, and in writing its words with
Roman or occidental letters, e. g. '5 Eli, pl.. Amalek. The best representation we could give of it in our letters would be gh or rg, as sDa_,
something like arbagh, Srtv rgamora. The nasal gn or ng pronounciation
of it by the Jews is quite false.
r is the hardest of the guttural sounds. It is a guttural ch, as uttered
by the Swiss [and Welsh], resembling the Spanish x and j. While the
Hebrew was a living language this letter had two grades of sound, being
uttered feebly in some words and more strongly in others.*
'I also the Hebrews frequently pronounced with a hoarse guttural sound,
not as a lingual made by the vibration of the tongue. Hence it is not
merely to be reckoned among the liquids (1, m, n, r), but, in several of its
properties, it belongs also to the class of gutturals. (~ 22, 5.)
2. In sibilant sounds the Hebrew language is rich, more so than the
kindred dialects, especially the Aramaan, which adopts instead of them the
flat, lingual sounds.
t and in were originally one letter t (pronounced without doubt like
sh), and in unpointed Hebrew this is still the case. But as this sound was
in many words very soft, approaching to that of s, the grammarians distinguished this double pronunciation by the diacritic point into O s8h (which
occurs most frequently), and iv s.
i: resembled 0 in pronunciation: it differed from this letter however,
and was probably uttered more strongly, being nearly related to t5. Hence
'a to close up, and '5_' to reward, have different meanings, being distinct
roots, as also bS_ to be foolish, and Sizi to be wise. At a later period
this distinction was lost, and hence the Syrians employed only 0 for both,
and the Arabians only i'. They also began to be interchanged even in
the later Hebrew; as ':_ =M-'_ to hire, Ezr. iv. 5; S.tiD for tt.:O
folly, Eccles. i. 17.
t was like ds (hence in the Septuagint I), as t was fs. [It is best
represented by our z.]
3. p and t differ essentially from 3 and r. The former (as also l) are
uttered with strong articulation, and with a compression of the organs of
speech in the back part of the mouth.
3. The six consonants,
n, I,:, D, I, (rt_.,-t),
have a twofold pronunciation:t 1) a harder, more slender sound
* In the Arabic language, the peculiarities of which have been carefully
noted by the grammarians, the hard and soft sounds of Y and n (as well as the
different pronunciations of ', U:, ), are indicated by diacritic points. Two letters
are thus made from each: from r the softer./din, and the harder A Ghain;
from t the softer ha, and the harder- Kha.
t Sound I as t, n as th in thick; ' as d, i dh as th in that; B asp, 1