Zaarin wrote:my chief--actually, only--exposure to Modern Hebrew is Ofra Haza
If you like her, I could recommend also Gila Bashari, for example.
Yng wrote:I know I've read in a few places that there is a distinct (low-prestige) and more classically Semitic-sounding Sephardi accent - is this a thing which is now disappearing, or is it characterised by other features? I wasn't under the impression it had emphatics (though I guess some would make sense if people knew the liturgical pronunciation of liturgical Hebrew before they learnt Modern Hebrew and carried features over), but I swear it had some Semitic-y features like perhaps having 3ayn or something... Can you enlighten further??
Oy. I have so many things to say, but this is getting out of hand, so I’m making this as concise as I can.
Yes, the ‘Mizrahi’( not Sephardi)-accented variant of Modern Hebrew is low-prestige, is disappearing from normal speech registers, and doesn’t have emphatics, unless perhaps, as I noted above and you say, the speaker has
such poor Hebrew that they prefer their own native language’s pronunciation of a particular Hebrew word which had been preserved in their native language (Judeo-Arabic, Jewish Neo-Aramaic) with an emphatic.
The Sephardi variant of liturgical Hebrew is kind of a non-entity, as ‘Sephardic liturgy’ covers both sides of the Mediterranean from Portugal to Persia and has influences from tens of native languages. But yes, you are right, the liturgical variant which was influenced by Judeo-Spanish does not have emphatics, though it does preserve both /ʕ/ and /ħ/, and also has a flapped [ɾ] for MH /ʁ/. This was also the variant chosen for revival as the national language in the 1880s, but due to complex societal reasons (in short, association with refugees from the Middle East), it has lost some of its prestige, such that it’s now low-prestige in ordinary speech registers (it’s mostly spoken by older generations).
However, it is still considered “more beautiful” than standard Israeli MH, and is still the only appropriate variant for certain genres of music, for example, where it is very much alive. Extremely unhelpfully, this variant of Israeli MH is today called a ‘Mizrahi’ accent, and its relation to Judeo-Spanish is forgotten.
The actual Mizrahi (Arabic- and Aramaic-influenced) variants of liturgical Hebrew
may still have emphatics, at least for those very few Jews who still speak better Arabic/Aramaic than Modern Hebrew, but the vast majority of Mizrahim don’t have emphatics even in liturgy, since the vast majority of them were born in Israel and speak the ‘Mizrahi’ variant of MH described in the preceding paragraphs, not any variant related to their own liturgical tradition. In addition, consider
this song in the Yemenite liturgical variant, by a native Arabic-speaker; his emphatics are very much more purely pharyngeal than what you find in Arabic, and don’t much affect the vowels, which is part of a general tendency in liturgical Hebrew (having many more distinct vowels than Arabic), and probably contributed to their current loss. The Mizrahim tend to be very proud of their pharyngeals though, and like to use them on purpose to make a statement about their non-Ashkenaziness, because there is naturally a certain classism against Israelis of poorer, less-educated (Middle Eastern) backgrounds and in favor those of wealthier (European) backgrounds, and equally naturally a great deal of pride among Mizrahim in not being European - cf.
this fun song,
This Isn’t Europe, Honey, which scolds/mocks gay Israelis for becoming over-Europeanized, while (hilariously) being performed in very standard, non-‘Mizrahi’, Israeli MH* (by a singer born in Yemen).
tl;dr
1. Emphatics are not found in MH, but may exist in Mizrahi liturgical variants (especially Yemenite).
2. If they still exist, they’re harder to spot because they don’t affect vowels.
3. Pharyngeals are found in ‘Mizrahi’-accented MH, which is actually the Sephardic liturgical variant.
4. This ‘Mizrahi’-accented MH is dying with the older generations, but still very alive in traditional music.
5. Standard Israeli MH is identical to the above, but the pharyngeals are lost due to IE-language influence and classism.
*Incidentally, and more on-topic, it contains the slang word
wej “facepic” (< Arabic
wajh “face”), which demonstrates MH’s restored /w/.
Yng wrote:Edit: I'd guess ma3afan is an Arabic borrowing or influenced by the Arabic word (< m3affen 'rotten') which probably explains the 3ayn there.
Neat, I didn’t know the source. That also explains its un-Hebrew maCaCaC shape.
ETA: An example of
‘Mizrahi’-accented MH. Note the pharyngeals, but everything else is standard Israeli (uvular rhotic, deletion of glottals, voicing assimilation in consonant clusters) - shows how far the pharyngeals still are from actual death.
