Talk:Sephardi Hebrew

I've been under the impression that there was also a type of Sephardi Hebrew used in everyday speech.

see also: talk pages on Ashkenazi Hebrew language and Mizrahi Hebrew language

Gringo300 10:43, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Modern Israeli Hebrew is often described as "sephardic" (although it is not). Among sfaradim prior to the 1900s, the everyday languages were predominantly Judæo-Arabic and Judezmo (Ladino), and each community's pronunciation of Hebrew more or less reflected that reality... In places where variants of Judæo-Arabic were spoken, the number of consonant phonemes was generally larger and more often parallelled Teimani pronunciation (Sanaani, not overall Teimani) or the phonemic structure of the surrounding Arabic dialects, while in places where Judezmo was the spoken language, phonemes were regularly reduced to more closely match the phonemic structure of the particular Judezmo dialect, so for example, whereas in areas where Arabic speakers regularly differentiated between what are, in Hebrew, teth, taw and thaw, these distinctions might be preserved in the local Sfaradi pronunciation of Hebrew. Judezmo, however, has but a single "t" sound, and so in such communities, the situation that has gained prominence in Israel is found: the three different sounds are all just simply pronounced /t/. Aside from sweeping generalizations, however, it's difficult to tack down boundaries of what constitutes "Sfaradi Hebrew" as opposed to "Modern Israeli Hebrew" or "Mizrachi Hebrew", which is why Sephardi Hebrew language is probably doomed to forever be rather stubby... Tomer ^TALK 00:32, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Need for references about Sephardi pronunciation

I've added the need for a reference in the section "Variants", because the following statements are either contradictory or puzzling:

1.- Moroccan, Greek, Turkish, Balkan and Jerusalem Sephardim usually pronounce it [ie ב] as [v],

2.- Jews from Spanish-speaking countries in South America, including Ashkenazim, tend to reflect this rule [i.e pronounce ב as [β] (bilabial v) when following a vowel and as [b] otherwise] in their pronunciation of Hebrew, and in Israel are sometimes taken for Sephardim for this reason.

Who is going to mistake someone for a Sephardim because he pronounces ב as [b] or [β]? You can mistake him for someone who has modern Spanish as his mother tongue but not for a Sephardim (the vast majority of Sephardim Jews are Jews of Moroccan, Greek, Turkish, Balkan and Jerusalem and their descendants) for the simple reason that most Sephardim pronounce ב as [v].

3.- Spanish and Portuguese Jews traditionally pronounced it as [b] (as do most Mizrahi Jews), though this is declining under the influence of Israeli Hebrew.

If by Spanish and Portuguese Jews it is meant Sephardim, then it contradicts with what has been said above (most Sephardim pronunce [ב] as [v]).

If it is meant Jews who live in Spain and Portugal, I can understand that modern-day Spanish Jews might not distinguish between [b] and [v], because of the influence of modern Spanish. But why would Portuguese Jews fail to make the distinction? Standard Portuguese (like most other European languages and Ladino) does distinguish between [b] and [v]. Insert non-formatted text here