Modern Hebrew phonology

Modern Hebrew has 25 to 27 consonants and 5 vowels^[1], depending on the speaker and the analysis.

Hebrew has been used primarily for liturgical, literary, and scholarly purposes for most of the past two millennia. As a consequence, its pronunciation was strongly influenced by the vernacular of individual Jewish communities. With the revival of Hebrew as a native language, and especially with the establishment of Israel, the pronunciation of the modern language rapidly coalesced.

The two main accents of modern Hebrew are Oriental and Non-Oriental.^[2] Oriental Hebrew was chosen as the preferred accent for Israel by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, but has since declined in popularity.^[2] The description in this article follows the language as it is pronounced by native Israeli speakers of the younger generations.

According to the Academy of the Hebrew Language, in the 1880s (the time of the beginning of the Zionist movement and the Hebrew revival) there were three groups of Hebrew regional accents: Ashkenazi (Eastern European), Sephardi (Southern European), and Mizrahi (Middle Eastern, Iranian, and North African). Over time features of these systems of pronunciation merged, and at present scholars identify two main pronunciations of modern (i.e., not liturgical) Hebrew: Oriental and Non-Oriental.^[3] Oriental Hebrew displays traits of an Arabic substrate.^[4] Elder oriental speakers tend to use an alveolar trill [r], preserve the pharyngeal consonants /ħ/ and (less commonly) /ʕ/,^[5] preserve gemination, and pronounce /e/ in some places where non-Oriental speakers do not have a vowel (the shva na). A limited number of Oriental speakers, for example elderly Yemenite Jews, even maintain some pharyngealized (emphatic) consonants also found in Arabic, such as /sˤ/ for Biblical /tsʼ/. Israeli Arabs ordinarily use the Oriental pronunciation, vocalising the ‘ayin (ע‎) as /ʕ/, resh (ר) as [r] and, less frequently, the ḥet (ח‎) as /ħ/.

The following table lists the consonant phonemes of Israeli Hebrew in IPA transcription:^[9]

* Phoneme was introduced through loanwords.

^{1 [9][10]} In modern Hebrew /ħ/ for ח has merged with /x/ (which was traditionally used only for fricative כ) into /χ/. Some older Mizrahi speakers still separate these (as explained above).^[9]

² The glottal consonants tend to be elided,^[11] which is most common in unstressed syllables. In informal speech it may occur in stressed syllables as well, whereas careful or formal speech may retain them in all positions. In modern Hebrew /ʕ/ for ע has been absorbed by /ʔ/, which was traditionally used only for א‎. Again, some speakers still separate these.^[9]

³ /ʁ/ is usually pronounced as a uvular approximant [ʁ̞], and sometimes as a uvular trill [ʀ], alveolar trill [r] or alveolar flap [ɾ], depending on the background of the speaker.^[11]

⁴ While the phoneme /tʃ/ צ׳‎ was introduced through borrowings,^[12] it can appear in native words as a sequence of /t/ ת‎ and /ʃ/ שׁ‎ as in תְּשׁוּקָה /tʃuˈka/.

For many young speakers, obstruents assimilate in voicing. Voiceless obstruents (stops/affricates /p, t, ts, tʃ, k/ and fricatives /f, s, ʃ, χ/) become voiced ([b, d, dz, dʒ, ɡ, v, z, ʒ, ʁ]) when they appear immediately before voiced obstruents, and vice versa. For example:

• לִסְגֹּר /lisˈɡoʁ/ > [lizˈɡoʁ] ('to close'), /s/ > [z]
• זְכוּת /zχut/ > [sχut] ('a right'), /z/ > [s]
• חֶשְׁבּוֹן /χeʃˈbon/ > [χeʒˈbon] ('a bill'), /ʃ/ > [ʒ]
• מַדְפֶּסֶת /madˈpeset/ > [matˈpeset] ('a printer'), /d/ > [t]
• אַבְטָחָה /avtaˈχa/ > [aftaˈχa] ('security'), /v/ > [f]

/n/ is pronounced [ŋ] before velar consonants.^[13]

Modern Hebrew has a simple five-vowel system.

Vowel length is non-contrastive and consecutive identical vowels are allowed in the case of glottal consonant elision, e.g. שאלה /ʃeʔeˈla/ → [ʃeeˈla] vs שלה [ʃeˈla] and רעם /ˈʁaʔam/ → [ˈʁaam] vs רם [ʁam].^[11]

There are two diphthongs, /aj/ and /ej/.^[15]

Stress is phonemic in Modern Hebrew. There are two frequent patterns of lexical stress, on the last syllable (milrá מִלְּרַע) and on the penultimate syllable (mil‘él מִלְּעֵיל). Final stress has traditionally been more frequent, but in the colloquial language many words are shifting to penultimate stress. Contrary to the prescribed standard, some words exhibit stress on the antepenultimate syllable or even farther back. This often occurs in loanwords, e.g. פּוֹלִיטִיקָה /poˈlitika/ ('politics'), and sometimes in native colloquial compounds, e.g. אֵיכְשֶׁהוּ /ˈeχʃehu/ ('somehow').^[16] Colloquial stress has often shifted from the last syllable to the penultimate, e.g. כּוֹבַע 'hat', normative /koˈvaʕ/ (Ezekiel 38 5) or /ˈkovaʕ/ (Isaiah 59 17), colloquial (always) /ˈkovaʕ/; שׁוֹבָךְ ('dovecote'), normative /ʃoˈvaχ/, colloquial /ˈʃovaχ/. This shift is common in the colloquial pronunciation of many personal names, for example דָּוִד ('David'), normative /daˈvid/, colloquial /ˈdavid/.^[17]

Historically, stress was phonemic, but bore low functional load. While minimal pairs existed (e.g. בָּֽנוּ /ˈbaːnuː/, 'in/with us' and בָּנֽוּ /baːˈnuː/, 'they built'), stress was mostly predictable, depending on syllable weight (that is, vowel length and whether a syllable ended in a consonant). Because spoken Israeli Hebrew has lost gemination (a common source of syllable-final consonants) as well as the original distinction between long and short vowels, but the position of the stress often remained where it had been, stress has become phonemic, as the following table illustrates. Phonetically, the following word pairs differ only in the location of the stress; orthographically they differ also in the written representation of vowel length of the vowels (assuming the vowels are even written):

In fast-spoken colloquial Hebrew, when a vowel falls beyond two syllables from the main stress of a word or phrase, it may be reduced or elided. For example:^[18]

זֹאת אוֹמֶרֶת

/zot oˈmeʁet/ > [stoˈmeʁet] ('that is to say')

אֵיךְ קוֹרְאִים לְךָ?

/eχ koʁˈʔim le'χa/ > [ˌeχkoˈʁimχa] (what's your name, lit. 'How are you called?')

When /l/ follows an unstressed vowel, it is sometimes elided, possibly with the surrounding vowels:^[19]

אַבָּא שֶׁלָּכֶם

/ˈaba ʃelaˈχem/ > [ˈabaʃχem] ('your father')

הוּא יִתֵּן לְךָ

/hu jiˈten leˈχa/ > [uiˈtenχa] ('he will give / let you')

Syllables /ʁV/ drop before /χ/ except at the end of a prosodic unit:^[20]

בְּדֶרֶךְ כְּלָל

/beˈdeʁeχ klal/ > [beˈdeχklal] ('usually')

but: הוּא בַּדֶּרֶךְ [u ba'deʁeχ] ('he is on his way') at the end of a prosodic unit.

Sequences of dental stops reduce to a single consonant, again except at the end of a prosodic unit:

אֲנִי לָמַדְתִּי פַּעַם

/a'ni la'madeti ˈpaʕam/ > [aˌnilaˈmatipa:m] ('I once studied')

but: שֶׁלָּמַדְתִּי [ʃela'madeti] ('that I studied')