On the Rudiments of Hebrew

BOOK.

Concerning the Shva. The shva is a Hebrew vowel sign indicating a very short vowel sound or no vowel at all.

shuth qur zok poz iph nis lem iech hhet hesd gad ab

[Hebrew text: א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת] The Hebrew alphabet: Aleph, Beth, Gimel, Daleth, He, Vav, Zayin, Heth, Teth, Yod, Kaph, Lamed, Mem, Nun, Samekh, Ayin, Pe, Tsade, Qoph, Resh, Shin, Tav.

From these alphabets and vowel points, construct syllables in this way: aleph with patha a short 'a' vowel is a; beth with patha is ba; gimel with patha is ga; daleth with camez a vowel pronounced as 'o' in the Ashkenazi tradition Reuchlin followed is do; he with camez is ho; vau with zere a long 'e' vowel is ve; zain with zere is ze; heth with segol a short 'e' vowel is he; teth with segol is te; iod with segol is ie; caph with holem an 'o' vowel is co; lamed with holem is lo; mem with holem is mo; nun with hatefcamez a very short 'o' vowel is no; samech with hatef camez is so; aleph and vau with surek a 'u' vowel is u; ain and vau with surek is u; ain with kibuz another 'u' vowel is u; pe with kibuz is pu; sade with kibuz is zu; qof with kibuz is qu; sin with sheua shva is sh; taf Tav with seua is th.

To make the entrance to further things easier for you, it will first be necessary to test your strength. Prepare your mouth and your pen. Persist constantly so that, after the recognition of the elements and the science of syllables, you may arrive at the pronunciation of words. This will happen if you first exercise yourself diligently in the connection of many syllables. They say Demosthenes placed pebbles in his mouth to repeat the Greek letter rho the letter 'r', which he could not pronounce for a long time due to a speech impediment. Through unwearied study and immense labor, he repeated it often until, through long usage, nothing hindered him from speaking that rho. When this finally happened, he is said to have cried out in Greek: heurika to rho rhetoreumenon original: "eurika to rho reroreumenon", meaning "I have found the spoken rho". This shows that persistent labor overcomes all things.

Let us return therefore to the syllables, and let us test what they produce when joined together. If you say aleph with patha and beth, the result is ab. Beth with patha and gimel is bag. Gimel with patha and daleth is gad. He with patha and sdain Reuchlin's phonetic spelling for Zayin is hasd. I note it this way so you hold it accurately in your memory, as you heard in the summary of the elements that there are two types of z. One is very soft, called zain. To show this softness and gentleness of pronunciation, I have written sdain for zain. Jerome The 4th-century scholar and translator of the Bible into Latin did this before me. When he had to write the name of the Book of Ezra with a zain, he wrote Esdre; that is, he used sd for zain. The other z is harsh and is called zade Tsade, which is pronounced like ts, as in ezem, almost like etsem, or ez, like ets.

Remember therefore that you have two z sounds, namely zain and zade: one soft, the other hard. You have two s sounds, namely samech and sin. Two t sounds, thau and teth. Even softer than both of these is d, that is, daleth. For this reason, many even hiss the letter daleth slightly. What we call iod Yod, they call ius. Also qof and caf, and softer than both of these, gimel. There are two aspirations, he and heth. The first breathes out gently; the second pants strongly. There are two a sounds, namely aleph and ain. The first is in the mouth; the second is in the throat. Remember all these things often, so that you may trust them more faithfully...

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