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Is wikipedia wrong when it suggests that the hebrew schwa/shva has never been pronounced as 'ə'?

Looking at these two wikipedia links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwa
"The word schwa is from the Hebrew word shva (שְׁוָא IPA: [ʃva], classical pronunciation: shəwāʼ [ʃəˑwɒːʔ]), designating the Hebrew niqqud vowel sign shva (two vertical dots written beneath a letter): in Modern Hebrew, it indicates either the phoneme /e/ or the complete absence of a vowel. (The Hebrew shva is also sometimes transliterated using the schwa symbol ə, but the schwa vowel has never been pronounced that way, neither in Modern Hebrew nor in any earlier pronunciation, such as the Tiberian vocalization. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shva "It is transliterated as "e", "ĕ", "ə", "'" (apostrophe), or nothing. Note that usage of "ə" for shva is questionable: transliterating modern Hebrew Shva Nach with ə or ' is misleading, since it is never actually pronounced [ə] – the vowel [ə] does not exist in modern Hebrew – moreover, the vowel [ə] is probably not characteristic of earlier pronunciations either (see Tiberian vocalization → Mobile Shwa = Shwa na')."

Isn't it the case that Ashkenazim and Sephardim/Mizrahim, pronounce it as (ə)

Modern israeli hebrew might pronounce it as (e)

Here are some examples that come from audio records of somebody reading from the Torah.

One is ashkenazi one is sephardi but it doesn't matter because either way I think it makes my point that they do a vocal shva like a shwa (ə).

These examples come from Genesis chapter 1

https://clyp.it/5mlbt1wv Yehee
The word has two syllables, Yuh-Hee The first syllable has the hebrew shva/shwa. I put it to you that the sound you hear there listening to that first syllable, is (ə) the IPA Schwa.

https://clyp.it/w0qzxcba Pnei Tehoim
Here we have two words, Pnei, then Tehoim. The first word Pnei, has two syllables, Puh-Nai There is a hebrew shva on the first syllable. I put it to you that the sound on the Puh of Puh-Nai, is (ə) the IPA Schwa.
The second word Tehoim, has two syllables, Tuh-hoim The first syllable has a hebrew shva. I put it to you that again, the sound there on the first syllable of tehoim, is (ə) the IPA Schwa.
(source- https://torahreading.dafyomireview.com/cd/torah-ashkenaz/01-Bereshit-01-PBereshit-Part01.mp3 )

https://clyp.it/l0qg1kq3 Mrachefet
Here we have a word Mrachefet, the first syllable has a vocal shva, and same as all my other examples, it seems to me that that first syllable has the sound (ə) the IPA Schwa.

Wikipedia could be trying to say that the hebrew shva isn't pronounced as (ə) in any pronunciation, not modern hebrew , not earlier than modern hebrew. Or it could be saying it's not modern and not ancient, but is not denying that ashkenazi and sephardi/mizrahi pronunciation is as (ə). But it seems to me to suggest that it's not pronounced like that and is just a wrong transcription.

If we look on google books at a classic book on biblical hebrew "A grammar of biblical hebrew" by Paul Joüon (Author), T. Muraoka (Author) here We see that it says

On page 47 $8 the authors write "The vocalic shva usually transliterated with either [small superscript e] or [upside down e], something like the 'a' in english about.

on page 50, the end of $8, marked f, it says "In Contemporary Israeli pronunciation there is no phonemic distinction between slient shva and vocal shva pronounced e, the latter being a positional and non-obligatory allophone. Thus [gdolim] is perfectly normal and acceptable alongside [gedolim] for גְּדוֹלִים Similarly, e is heard as a rule at morpheme boundaries, e.g. מְדבר [medaber], יְדבר [yedaber], בְּספר [besefer], וְגָדוֹל [vegadol]"

So that book says no doubt talking about how the shva na (vocal shva) is pronounced, that it's pronounced "something like the 'a' in english about."

And funnily enough the wikipedia article on shwa admits that is how shwa is pronounced "'a', as in about [əˈbaʊt]"

Funnily enough there is a shva/shwa on the first syllable of the word shva/shwa(the hebrew vowel / half vowel known as shva/shwa), and wikipedia describes the pronunciation of shva/shwa as [ʃəˑwɒːʔ]) in "classical pronunciation".

So for wikipedia to say " the schwa vowel has never been pronounced that way, neither in Modern Hebrew nor in any earlier pronunciation" seems wrong and even contradictory. If by earlier it means earlier than modern. If by earlier wikipedia means pre classical thus simply it isn't stating about ashkenazi and sephardi/mizirahi pronunciation of shva, and it's trying to suggest that they have deviated from an original/earlier pronunciation .

Also since that grammar book by Muraoka says "In Contemporary Israeli pronunciation ........Thus [gdolim] is perfectly normal and acceptable alongside [gedolim] for גְּדוֹלִים " it seems it's saying that in modern hebrew, guh-dolim i.e. with the ə is acceptable and normal, alongside e(apparently modern israeli pronunciation pronounces vocal shva as eh like the e in 'bed').

So, is wikipedia wrong on that, and have I got that right?

barlop
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    I don't understand the second-to-last paragraph. "[gdolim]" doesn't contain ə at all, does it? Even though [gdo] may sound like it starts with "guh" to an English speaker, that doesn't mean that schwa has to be phonetically present between the [g] and the [d]. – brass tacks Jan 10 '19 at 05:26
  • @sumelic so do you think that book is just ambiguous then when it says [gdolim] as distinct from [gedolim]? – barlop Jan 10 '19 at 16:32
  • Modern Hebrew definitely doesn't have schwa, but has merged it (when pronounced) with the vowel [ɛ]. Btw as a native speaker [gɛdolim] sounds wrong; for me only [gdolim] is acceptable. – TKR Jan 10 '19 at 19:03
  • @sumelic whilst English speakers really tend to spread foreign consonant clusters over two syllables, a consonant cluster [ɡd] seems relatively problematic to me in any language. To me, It seems to conflict with the sonority hierarchy. And if the [ɡ] is released at all there has to be a syllabic element. If it isn't released, [ɡ͡d] seems more appropriate. – unknown_person_1000 Jan 10 '19 at 20:30
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    @tobiornottobi Modern Hebrew allows lots of unwieldy-looking clusters that disregard the sonority hierarchy: [gd kt pt bd dg tk] etc. and even non-voicing-congruent ones like [pg kd]. – TKR Jan 10 '19 at 22:37
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    @tobiornottobi most Slavic languages also have no issues with [gd] onset or even far "worse" ones, e.g. the Polish city of Gdańsk. – Mark Beadles Jan 10 '19 at 23:33
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    @tobiornottobi: I don't think release implies the presence of a phonetic vowel. (I don't know about "syllabic element", since I think that's harder to define in phonetic terms.) – brass tacks Jan 11 '19 at 00:08
  • @tobiornottobi would you say that the English word "staff" has a schwa? I notice that the IPA of it on https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/staff has no schwa – barlop Jan 11 '19 at 00:19
  • @barlop the [st] cluster doesn't have a vowel because [s] doesn't need to be released. – unknown_person_1000 Jan 12 '19 at 09:21
  • And true, I see a problem with my argument. What I considered to be a "syllabic element" may be voiceless. – unknown_person_1000 Jan 12 '19 at 09:30
  • @MarkBeadles I have listened to "gdolim" and "Gdańsk" on forvo and I don't consider such "consonants clusters" to be consonant clusters. The consonants are simply not in contact. – unknown_person_1000 Jan 12 '19 at 09:35
  • @TKR same thing ^ – unknown_person_1000 Jan 12 '19 at 09:35
  • You may consider it one syllable or a cluster phonologically, but phonetically I would heavily disagree. When the plosives are released, then there is something in between them, some potentially continuous element. After voiced plosives the voicing is continued with no constriction => phonetic vowel – unknown_person_1000 Jan 12 '19 at 09:40
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    @tobiornottobi Phonologically they're certainly clusters. Phonetically their realization varies and I haven't looked at spectrograms, but I and most speakers pronounce them with minimal separation between the stops; to the point of the OP, there's definitely nothing there that one would normally transcribe with [ə]. – TKR Jan 12 '19 at 18:02
  • @TKR When you say "Modern Hebrew allows lots of unwieldy-looking clusters" <-- okay so i'll put shva in quotation marks here as we mean consonant cluster and not ə.. Do you mean A)When the "shva" is at the end of a syllable? B)When the "shva" is at the beginning of a syllable? C) both? – barlop Feb 05 '19 at 04:34
  • @barlop I was referring to syllable-initial clusters. Syllable-final clusters are more limited. – TKR Feb 05 '19 at 17:12

2 Answers2

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Wikipedia is correct that the Masoretic pronunciation of shva was [ă], not [ə̆]. The fact that shva was pronounced with the quality [ε] or [e] across all the European variants of Hebrew (and Israeli Hebrew, in which it is [e] when pronounced) and [a] in Tiberian allows for the possibility that they might have both derived from a vowel quality [ə], but that is not unambiguous evidence for (or against) such a pronunciation as a phoneme at any specific point of time before the Masoretic pronunciation. However, to say the vowel was never pronounced [ə] is a more extraordinary claim that is hard either to support or falsify.

The Masoretic pronunciation of the shva is the best-documented of the early pronunciations. Aharon ben Asher's description (Dikduke Hatte'amim par. 11-14) is the primary source. This is briefly his description of its pronunciation (since the question is about vowel quality, I leave out the cases where the shva is unpronounced, since that is a matter of orthography, not phonology).

  • In general, pronounced [ă] (he treats it as an orthographic variant of chataf pattach). The exceptions are

    • as the first vowel in a word, pronounced [ɛ] (his example: בְּרוּךְ [bɛ̆rux]), unless marked by a ga'ya (בְּֽבוֹא [băβo])

    • before a glottal or pharyngeal consonant, pronounced like the following vowel as the first vowel in the word (בְּהֹנוֹת [bŏhonoθ], תְּאֵהֲבוּ [tĕʔehăβu] or after a geminate consonant (וְנִבְּאוּ [wɛ̆nibbŭʔu], נִדְּחֵי [niddĕħe]), but not in the middle of a word after a non-geminate consonant (פִּינְחָס [pinăħɔs])

    • before [j], pronounced [i] (בְּיוֹם [bĭjom])

So [ə] was not the Masoretic pronunciation of the vowel.

Wikipedia does give /ə/ as a phoneme for the Secunda's version of Hebrew, but I didn't read its source. From the data on Greek transliterations of Hebrew in this article, the Secunda usually transliterates the shva with either α, ε, or both alternately (כְּרוּב for which both χερουβ and χαρουβ are attested), or nothing (כְּסִיל χσιλ, בְּסֻכָּה βσοχχα). There are also a few cases of duplicating the following vowel (מְהֵרָה μηηρα), or preserving a non-reduced vowel (כְּמָרִים χωμαρειμ, cf. singular כֹּמֶר). This dissertation about the Hebrew of the Secunda (p. 311 and following) argues that the shva was possibly phonologically a null vowel that could be realized phonetically as [ə~ε] in certain cases. If so, [ə] would be an allophone of the shva.

I'm not sure what the provenance of your recordings is, but modern audio recordings aren't a good source for older pronunciations than the Tiberian vocalization. [ə] exists as pronunciation of shva, if nothing else, by students who were taught to pronounce it that way. Simialrly, I have heard Americans pronounce the shva as what seems to me to be [ɨ] (apparently also reflected by transliterations such as yirushalayim for ִיְרוּשָלַם). Both pronunciations exist (the latter seems to be from the influence of English, which has [ɨ] as a reduced vowel), but this isn't to say that they are heirs of an older reading tradition.

pinnerup
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b a
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  • Thanks.i'm interested in also in what ashkenazi and sephardi/mizrahi pronunciation of (simple i.e. non-composite, vocal) shva is. I think those recordings cover that. Would you agree that from those recordings, it's [ə] ? (When wikipedia said "early" I figured it might just mean pre modern israeli.. so e.g. including in 1800 or 1900, and 1800 or 1900 is likely the same as ashkenazi and sephardi/mizrahi today) – barlop Jan 10 '19 at 16:21
  • @barlop I am not trained for exact identifications of vowels so I don't want to pass judgment on the recording. Wikipedia has pages for all those varieties if you're interested (e.g. Sephardi Hebrew here). As far as I know, all European pronunciations have [ɛ~e] and Yemenites (and I believe Persians) have [æ] (whether it's pronounced short or not depends on the dialect and point in time; and Ashkenazi Hebrew often omits the vowel entirely) – b a Jan 10 '19 at 17:04
  • thanks, do you have a source for your claim that " Ashkenazi Hebrew often omits the vowel entirely" ? It's impossible to omit it when it's the first letter of a word.. And when it's a silent shva there is no vowel, I don't think i've heard a case of it omitted – barlop Jan 10 '19 at 17:16
  • @barlop Personal experience. It's also omitted entirely in some cases in Israeli Hebrew. For example כְּבַר [kvaʁ] סְתָיו [stav] – b a Jan 10 '19 at 17:25
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    Joshua Blau in his "Phonology and Morphology of Biblical Hebrew" from 2010 writes concerning the pronunciation of the mobile schwa (שוא נע):

    "The mobile šwa, according to Modern (Sephardic) Hebrew and as it is taught at the universities, is a neutral (ultra-)short vowel (ə). It seems likely that this is its original pronunciation, and in this book we have transcribed it accordingly. According to the Tiberian Masoretes its basic pronunciation is ă, identical to ḥaṭaf pataḥ [...]"

     – pinnerup Jan 10 '19 at 20:29
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    This raises the question, however – if the masoretes meant the same sound by schwa and ḥaṭaf pataḥ (and that seems well established), why would they come up with two different signs to represent the same vowel? – pinnerup Jan 10 '19 at 22:21
  • @pinnerup I would add that to the answer if I could find a source for that in an actual description of Spanish Hebrew. Wikipedia (admittedly not the end-all) says it is now /e/ in all positions, but used to be "more complicated." The Kuzari (second treatise) describes it (in a single sentence) as variable. Wikipedia attributes to Shlomo Almoli (whose work I didn't read yet) "complicated" rules which I assume are similar to the Tiberian, but might be worth reading. – b a Jan 10 '19 at 22:46
  • @pinnerup As to why there are different symbols, I can't give an exact or certain explanation, but all of the chataf vowels are nearly allophonic (close to the distribution described by Ben Asher for shva), but there are a few minimal pairs (עֲנִי~עֳנִי). If there are only minimal pairs on guttural consonants, that might explain why only they have special symbols to disambiguate them – b a Jan 10 '19 at 22:53
  • @pinnerup yes I figured so for sephardi hebrew, any sources stating that it's (ə) in ashkenazi hebrew too?(I think it is). And can you verify that in those audio clips that I included in my question, they're doing (ə)? (i'm pretty sure they are but I want to double check). And do you know what "b.a." means when he says in his comment that ashkenazi and modern israeli hebrew sometimes skip vocal shva in e.g. כְּבַר ? I can't see how that is even possible? – barlop Jan 11 '19 at 00:07
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    @barlop In the three clips you give, I think the first one has [ɛ], the second one has [ə] and the third one could be either. That's my impression at least, but I'm no phonetician. A pronunciation of כְּבַר without a vocal schwa is unproblematic; [kvaʁ] is a perfectly possible pronunciation. Even if an initial consonant cluster like [kv-] may be difficult to people whose native language doesn't allow for such initial consonant clusters, there's nothing per se difficult about it. – pinnerup Jan 11 '19 at 11:36
  • You write in your first sentence- "Wikipedia is correct that the Masoretic pronunciation of shva was" <-- looking at both those wikipedia articles, the word masoretic isn't even mentioned in etiher of those wikipedai articles or in my question. Wikpiedia made a sweeping statement about pronunciations earlier than modern hebrew. So that would include ashkenazi, sephardi, masoretic(tiberia, jerusalem, babylonia). and pre-masoretic – barlop Jan 13 '19 at 02:15
  • @barlop I used Masoretic as a synonym for Tiberian. And I acknowledged what you say already at the end of the first paragraph of my answer – b a Jan 13 '19 at 09:35
  • @ba you say as a fact, "shva was pronounced with the quality [ε] or [e] across all the European variants of Hebrew" <-- where is this claim coming from? (besides that you may have suggested yourself that some may pronounce it like a consonant cluster, and i'd agree there), but are you suggesting that euroepan variants don't have (ə) ? If you listen to that pnei tehom recording , then you'd hear as pinner said, the (ə) – barlop Jan 13 '19 at 09:54
  • @barlop I say it only as my observation and would be happy to correct if you could give a written source otherwise for a particular dialect. The dialects that omit the shva preserve it in some cases. In both the Ashkenazi and Israeli Hebrew I am familiar with, [ε] or [e] respectively is used for example when the shva is in between two identical consonants, or in prefixes such as וְ [vε] or [ve] respectively – b a Jan 13 '19 at 10:09
  • @ba why do you take your experience of what you have heard, over the audio recording provided(besides that I was taught and heard the same sound he does)? that recording was from https://torahreading.dafyomireview.com/cd/torah-ashkenaz/01-Bereshit-01-PBereshit-Part01.mp3 You seemed to not take into account the audio recordings as you are not trained in phonetics, but then how have you identified what you have "observed" (which requires the same skill)? – barlop Jan 13 '19 at 10:34
  • @barlop What I cited from experience was the omission of the vowel, not attempting to identify an exact vowel quality. I did deal with [ə] in the last paragraph, but my answer tried to deal mostly with ancient pronunciations in response to Wikipedia's claim, and therefore relied on written more than oral sources. I will look for a better source when I have free time. In the mean time if you can find a written description of a variety of Hebrew with [ə] I would be happy to correct – b a Jan 13 '19 at 10:51
  • @ba Pinner wrote quoting Joshua Blau's book "(ə). It seems likely that this is its original pronunciation" You then reply that it's not a written description of the language. What do you mean. And why are you arguing that you don't pay attention to the recordings because you are speaking of ancient pronunciation, yet you then cite your experience(obviously not ancient) of a vowel being omitted. . – barlop Feb 05 '19 at 03:34
  • @pinnerup I've posted an answer based on all your fantastic input. but you're welcome to post an answer and i'll accept it. Also thanks BA for your research which has helped further the discussion. – barlop Feb 05 '19 at 04:26
  • @barlop You are right that my experience is not ancient and it would have been better if I had quoted an older source, but I don't understand why you think I said that Blau is not a written source for the language. N.B. Coincidentally, yesterday I happened to come upon a review article by Blau (Hebrew, p. 4) in which he says ... – b a Feb 05 '19 at 09:43
  • ... the Sephardic pronunciation has shva identical to segol, i.e. [ɛ]. I just looked up Blau's book and it says (p. 106) that "the actual Sephardic pronunciation" is œ (i.e. IPA ɛ). "This feature must reflect later lengthening of the original ultra-short ə." It seems he takes [ə] as a reconstruction rather than from a living or dead witness (and if so, that is exactly why I don't like taking this as a description of vowel quality. /ə/ may even be a phoneme even in Tiberian Hebrew, but that doesn't mean it was [ə]). – b a Feb 05 '19 at 09:43
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Yeah I think it's wrong, based on Blau, based on the second audio, and based on itself..

And that's not to say that every pronunciation pronounces it as shwa/(ə). Just to say that some pronunciations pronounce it as (ə). (Infact I think it's pretty common)

Pinner commented

"Joshua Blau in his "Phonology and Morphology of Biblical Hebrew" from 2010 writes concerning the pronunciation of the mobile schwa (שוא נע): "The mobile šwa, according to Modern (Sephardic) Hebrew and as it is taught at the universities, is a neutral (ultra-)short vowel (ə). It seems likely that this is its original pronunciation, and in this book we have transcribed it accordingly. According to the Tiberian Masoretes its basic pronunciation is ă, identical to ḥaṭaf pataḥ [...]""

Pinner also points out regarding the audio sources

In the three clips you give, I think the first one has [ɛ], the second one has [ə] and the third one could be either. That's my impression at least, but I'm no phonetician.

This confirms my thoughts re wikipedia's wrongness. I learnt pronunciation of hebrew from an Ashkenazi, and learnt vocal shva pronounced as [ə]. And the second audio (pnei tehoim), is Ashkenazi.

So while Blau only mentioned (ə) in Modern Sephardi, it's very common in "Modern" Ashkenazi too. I say "modern", but my late barmitzva teacher, trained chazzan and weekly baal koreh, was born in the 1920s).

A pronunciation of כְּבַר without a vocal schwa is unproblematic; [kvaʁ] is a perfectly possible pronunciation. Even if an initial consonant cluster like [kv-] may be difficult to people whose native language doesn't allow for such initial consonant clusters, there's nothing per se difficult about it.

Rather like the English word Staff. The IPA of it has no Shwa It's a consonant cluster of s and t. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/staff

So somebody might say Breishit as opposed to Buh-raishit.

Some of the quotes in the question mention [gdolim] which may be a bit ambiguous 'cos it may not always clear if they mean (ə) or a consonant cluster. But Blau is pretty clear re (ə). And some of the audio presented in the question is clear on the (ə).

So wikipedia definitely contradicts Blau and what we hear in that pnei tehoim clip, and makes a sweeping statement that I don't think anybody here would support.

And,as the questioner(myself) notes, I suppose wikipedia contradicts itself too in that same article, since it itself says "classical pronunciation: shəwāʼ [ʃəˑwɒːʔ])". So it's recognising a vowel of shwa in the word shwa!

Note- b.a. does seem to give a good description for what is the Tiberian masoretic pronunciation, (he said masoretic, there are of course tiberian, jerusalem and babylonian masoretes, but he meant specifically tiberian masoretic), his source being dikduk hateemanim. And he points out that in the Tiberian Masoretic pronunciation, the view is that it wouldn't have been ə, but I was aware of that. The quote I gave from wikipedia does mention the tiberian pronunciation and I wasn't suggesting wikipedia was wrong on tiberian pronunciation.

barlop
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