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In Hebrew, when is a letter is considered a vowel?
Of the four letters aleph, vav, he, yud (י , ה , ו , א ) , they are sometimes considered vowels (that is,vowels = consonantal vowels; I don't mean the niqqudot), and sometimes consonants . They are, for example, considered consonants at the beginning of the word. But it would seem to me that all other times they would be considered (consonantal) vowels, except when the vav is pronounced like a "v". But this is apparently not right. For example, in מרהיבות, is the ה considered a consonant, and the י a vowel? Or, in the words
אהבה
אומרים
הזדמנות
ישיבה
ותיק
האזינו
יהירות
הוראה
except for the first letters of the words, aren't all instances of י , ה , ו , א considered vowels?
Please note the emphasis in my using the word "vowel" for "consonantal vowels". As one person remarked, these letters are not vowels per se, but they sometimes were considered "consonantal vowels" to distinguish their pronunciation from the usual pure consonants. For example, the yud in a masculine plural is pronounced differently to the yud at the beginning of a word. Compare the two yud sounds in ילדים . The first yud has a "ye" sound to it (and hence is considered a consonant), and the second one doesn't (and hence is considered a consonantal vowel).
So, please, only serious answers who really know the linguistics behind the language.
ah, and someone (who knows linguistics, but did not explain it fully) said that they are "consonantal vowels" if they are read out. I did not understand this comment.
3 Answers
- MercLv 610 years agoFavorite Answer
"in מרהיבות, is the ה considered a consonant, and the י a vowel? "
Right.
"אהבה"
The first (right-most) ה is a consonant!
"יהירות"
The ה here too is a consonant!
It's always so: If the ה isn't the last letter in the word, it's a consonant! (and you're to utter an "h" sound: מרהיבות is pronounced /marhivot/, not /marivot/.)
The ה is a vowel only when it's the last letter (although a terminal ה may also be a consonant, like in the word גבוה (tall)).
I suspect I know what's your problem. Many Hebrew speakers are sloppy. They neglect to utter the "h", so when you listen to them you hear אהבה pronounced as /ava/ instead of /ahava/. Since you don't hear the "h" you think "Ah, so it's must be a vowel!" But that's incorrect.
A very similar sloppiness is to neglect to pronounce the א consonant when it's in the middle of a word. The way to pronounce משאלה is /mish'ala/, not /mishala/. I suspect English speakers would have a difficulty with this because they aren't used to this א consonant (in the middle of a word, at least).
To sum it up:
If you ever get to hear Israeli teenagers, you'll notice that they don't quite pronounce the consonants ה and א, but you shouldn't follow their bad example.
==
"But it would seem to me that all other times they would be considered vowels"
Not so. There are plenty of examples where א ה ו י in the middle of a word are consonants: שאל (asked), בהמה (beast), מזוודה (suitcase), בעיה (problem).
==
"They are, for example, considered consonants at the beginning of the word."
Right. א ה ו י at the start of a word are consonants.
(Well, it's almost right: there's one case I know of, where an initial ו isn't a consonant: "books" is ספרים. "and books" is וספרים, which is pronounced /oosfarim/, and this initial /oo/ is a vowel. But 99% of Hebrew speakers are being sloppy and pronounce it /vesfarim/.)
- robert CLv 710 years ago
there are no vowels in the hebrew language , and i am sure there were on punctuation marks in the original , there maybe now
