Kind of random, but the bit around 6:01, where something like "tohu vahohu" is being said, made me laugh because it reminded me of this weird/funny German word "Tohuwabohu" which means something like 'utter chaos'. I just looked it up and, lo and behold, it actually stems from this verse/hebrew expression.
@@Ultrapro011 I'm not sure about Germans from Germany, but a number of yiddish/hebrew words made it into the dialect of Vienna. Meschugge is most certainly one of them.
Intresting, the Tiberian reading sound close to the Jewish Yemenite reading ( I'm a yemenite jew ). We have a family member who was born in Yemen who has a deep understanding of the Hebrew language and the Yemenite pronunciation and of course the history of the Piutim.
Remember our Yemenite pronunciation is possibly more accurate. We follow the original Babylonian supralinear niqudoth, not the Tiberian sublinear niqudoth. But our Yemenite sages adopted the Tiberian niqudoth to be able to communicate easier with other Jews, but what our sages did is assign Yemenite Babylonian niqudoth pronunciation onto the Tiberian niqudoth. So Tiberian doesn't necessarily mean it's more accurate than Yemenite. The Tiberian pronunciation in this video is also very flawed, not accurate, like how the man reading pronounced a vav instead of waw like we do.
This sounds unreal but also very beautiful, and special. I have been dying to hear the ancient Hebrew language. Thank you for taking the time to create this video.
To me personally it sounds ominous and a bit weird. I think that is because the content creator might have been using autotune and some other stuff that I cannot guess on in order to bring life to an ancient outdated version of a language way before our time.
Guys, HERE is The Savior YaH The Heavenly FATHER (Genesis 1) HIMSELF was Who they Crucified/Pierced for our sins and “HERE IS THE PROOF” From the Ancient Egyptian Semitic: "Yad He Vav He" is what Moshe (Moses) wrote, when Moses asked YaH His Name (Exodus 3) Ancient Egyptian Semitic Direct Translation Yad - "Behold The Hand" He - "Behold the Breath" Vav - "Behold The NAIL"
Hi there, I am an Israeli of Yemenite origins and have looked at this video to check out the accuracy of the analysis you have made. I believe that it is very good and even proves what most Jews believe, which is that the current Jewish Yemenite pronunciation is the most authentic and also that it dates back to the time of King Solomon and even prior to that. This video actually starts with an image of a Yemenite Jew with a scroll. The explanation of the tao and zade is in alignment with how Yemenite Jews pronounce these characters. Also, the last reading by Alex is getting closer to the way Yemenite Jews are reading the Bible today than to how current Hebrew is pronounced. I believe that adding to the video a clip from an authentic Yemenite reader will solidify the analysis done so far. Best wishes
@LMNM800 It says nothing about "original Jews" or "most authentic form of Judaism". It says a lot about the Hebrew that is used by the Yemenite Jews being closer to the old Hebrew. How are you even coming to these conclusions?
@@paradox_1729 Authentic isn't really the correct phrasing, I think 'most accurate' is a better descriptor, 'authentic' in this context certainly implies all other jews are frauds, which I don't even need to go into detail about how meshuganeh it sounds.
Thanks to all of you for your contributions to the possible understanding of this important topic. I am not a linguist; much as I would want to be. Therefore, I depend on others for my advancement in the field of Biblical studies. 💞
BS. Hebrew came from the Hebrides (north of Britain). Judaism came from the Jutes of England, they worshipped the planet Saturn (Star of David, "St David"). Israel = Is + Ra + El = Ishtar + Mithra + Elohim = Venus + Sun + Saturn (worshipped 3 gods, mother, son, father) Same gods the Egyptians worshipped but European names, Isis, Horus, Osiris = Venus, Sun, Saturn
In the ancient version I feel there is still a touch of influence of modern Hebrew pronunciation especially in the R and Waw... The ancient version sounds to me closer to Aramaic and that makes sense... Still a few letters are pronounced in the modern way...
If you check out the free e-books you'll see the reconstructions are based on the detailed descriptions of Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ, a Masoretic Treatise from the 11th century. Each letter has about 10 pages of analysis, including the ר and ו.
It's possible that these influences come from the Persians in the second temple period. It's likely that it sounded even more different in the first temple period
You're right, the Resh and Waw used hear are off from what Ancient Hebrew would have sounded like. Note well, this video isn't Ancient Hebrew, it's the Hebrew from the European Middle Ages. Ancient Hebrew would have sounded WAY different
It's my understanding that the Yeminite pronunciation is the closest to Biblical Hebrew. And indeed the tav w/o a dagesh is a 'th' sound. My guess is that (in Ashkenaz) it evolved to the 's' sound.
A pronunciation sounding all over more like its Arabic and Aramaic cousin tongues. - Agree about the vav more likely having been a wauw. - The guttural 'French' or 'German' R of modern Hebrew, is more than likely a phonetic interference from the diaspora. I feel that the rolling R of Arabic and Aramaic is most probably the original sound.
Since Ashkenazy Jews lived originally in France and Germany more than other countries their R became dominant, the odd thing about it is that most Jews communities that never left Eretz Israel (there are some ) spoke R like in Arabic, Sephardic communities that came since 15 century spoke R like Ladino or Spanish, Jews that came from 19th century and so on Spoke R like in Russian , Romanian, Polish and Hungarian which is also rolled , Hebrew that was spoken in Media back in 50ies, 60ies and 70ies of last century had a rolled R (most TV and Radio speakers that spoke a French R were forced to roll their R whine speaking publicly ) all that during the 80ies changed , still most Israelis originate from places that spoke a rolled R and still adapt the French one - the reason may be interesting.
@@MFPhoto1 He is speaking about the 5-8th century when Jews from Italia went to the Rhine region in the Frankish Empire. These Jews started speaking Old French then moved into German lands where they adopted German which became Yiddish. These Italo-Frankish-German Jews became known as Ashkenazim spread from France to Russia as opposed e.g. to Italkim (stayed in Italy), Romaniotes (Eastern Roman Empire), or Sephardim (Iberia).
They really need to redo the Israeli modern hebrew. It sounds way to influenced by German/Yiddish and it's a damn disgrace. We are middle eastern and live in the middle east not the ghettos of Poland or Germany. You want to speak like that find, do it at home but imo it sounds ridiculous and is frankly a catastrophe. The real jews are mizrahi and sephardi I'm sorry but that's the hard truth.
Shalom. I am a Federally Certified Court Interpreter (Spanish/English) and I speak other languages as well. My understanding is that when Eliezer ben Yehuda modernized Hebrew, the Sephardi pronunciation was chosen. Spanish, or Ladino, has no guttural REISH. None of the Middle East languages have that sound either, especially Aramaic, sister language to Hebrew per my Iraqi colleagues who still speak it. Since there is nothing recorded from a thousand years ago, you have no way of proving that the Hebrew REISH is guttural. I therefore propose that when Yiddish speaking refugees arrived in Israel, they slowly changed the pronunciation since they were unable to "roll" the Rs. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Check out the free e-book in the video description. There you will find a lengthy discussion of ר, which actually had 3 different pronunciations in Tiberias ca. 1000. I think you will enjoy the depth of the analysis.
@@BiblicalCulture I don't know why people always refer back to Tiberian pronunciation. It was noted down in the 8th - 10th century AD, at a time when Hebrew was a dead language for a long time, not spoken for at least 400 years or more. Additionally it is evident that it was heavily influenced by Aramaic and that the vowel system was radically, radically different from previous iterations of Hebrew. So this notion that people living in the biblical period sounded like it was noted down in Tiberian pronunciation is just not credible, considering that it's 800 years after the destruction of the Temple and 1900 years after Moses supposedly existed. Tiberian pronunciation is a liturgical pronunciation, not how spoken language was pronounced.
I feel it only fair if I tell you thanks and thanks many times I'm a student of Hebrew and your video just helped me out big time ( thanks to Jesus in heaven)
Vav is Waw. ...most if not all scholars (Jewish and non-jewish) of biblical Hebrew agree that Waw is the correct pronunciation of what many call Vav today...
@@taher_abdelhameed that's also how the Romans pronounced their w sound eventually, 2000 years ago... So by 800 CE, the Jews might have already had it.. long before they were exposed to Germans.
@@Abilliph yeah but actually even back in AD 39, which is what I assume you're referencing is that pronouncing a v as a v instead of as a w was limited to the lower classes and consequently ridiculed by some Roman writers. However, in that part of the Roman empire they spoke and wrote Greek, not Latin
The nusach sounds Mizrachi. The Mizrachim, in my opinion, specifically the Yemini, have the closest pronunciation to the Tiberians. Friends from Syria would always say Shabbath, instead of Shabbat. Of course the Ashkenazim have Shabbos(is). Havdollah (Ashkenazim), Havdallah (Sephardim and Israeli), Habdallah (Mizrachim). This was very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
I have never heard a Syrian Jew saying Shabbath, with the "th" sound at the end of the word. Also, by the Mizrahim, it's Habdalah - no need for the double L. I don't believe that the Lamed comes with a Dagesh.
Pretty interesting because the vowels are following the same pattern as the Thai language, but the Thai language is a tonar language & have the vowels abov the consonants depending on if its rising or falling pronounciation.
After reviewing some of the comments here, some by people with a good understanding of Hebrew, i was surprised that no one caught some of the obvious mistakes in the connections he tries to make between different facts; some of them are clear mistakes in logic: 1. the Masoretic text tells us absolutely NOTHING as to how to pronounce consonants, or even how to to pronounce vowels. it merely tells us which vowel a given consonant receives. so it CANNOT not teach us how to say the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet with no dot in the middle, whether it is a Sephardic Tuff, or an Ashkenazic Suff, or a Yemenite Thuff. that we know from the respective traditions. that is his source as well, not the Masoretic Text. Lacking recordings [which didn't exist until about 110 years ago], there are only 2 ways to possibly know how something should be pronounced or once was pronounced: either tradition, or a well-established foreign word appearing in Hebrew, and we figure out the phonetic sound from original foreign source. even the latter is not fool-proof if the foreign language has different sounds which don't exist in Hebrew [note how hard it is to know whether Egyptian names or Persian ones from the Bible like Ajashverosh are pronounced properly]. In today's culture, most Americans erroneously pronounce jalapeno like blue Jay, because they don't know that the letter J in Spanish is like the Hebrew chet and should be pronounced Chalapeno just like Chanukka. and we won't even start on the lost pronunciation in English of diacritical mark above the n. other similar ways to identify within the language itself exist but we won't get into that here. 2. All Ashkenazim, Sefaradim, and Yemenites have virtually the same Masoretic texts yet vocalize the vowels differently. That's proof that the Masoretic text teaches NOTHING about vowel pronunciation. See for example the vowls differences which the Yemenite and Ashkenazi make , which the Sefaradim just ride rough shod over them, such as differentiating between the tzayre and segol, which the Sefaradim do not. and between the kamatz and pataj. and the yemenites pronounce the segol uniquely. 3. The Masoretic tradition also teaches us NOTHING about how to sing the cantillation; it only teaches us which words get which mark and on what syllable. How each mark is sung musically is different in the many traditions which exist today. Within the Sefardic tradition there are many beautiful and distinct versions. the Ashkenazim have the main one and the German-Yekkish tradition any maybe other ones of which i don't know. the Yemenite is unique. What you heard in the end of video was a pronunciation similar but different from a proper Yemenite pronunciation [mimicking only 2 out of several unique Yemenite differences], while the melody was close to the Ashkenazic.
When old Biblical Hebrew became, it was V not W. If you do a little digging in the right spot, you'll pick up the original sources demonstrating this. Good luck
I would add that in modern Hebrew, the vowels are not often used. Just look at any Israeli newspaper printed in Hebrew. For those totally fluent, it is easier to read. Me? I need the vowels!
Thanks for this great vid. One thing is that actually compared to other languages Hebrew has barely changed. In other words, there's a better chance you'd be able to converse with Moses had he appeared today than a Frenchman or an Englishman would be able to converse with a local Gaul or Britton who lived a thousand years ago.
English is not descended from the language of the Britons, but Welsh, Cornish, and Breton are (English comes mostly from the language of the Germanic Anglo-Saxons). French is mostly based on/descended from Latin not Gaulish, though it has some Gaulish influences.
It is because hebrew is a revived language. It died as a spoken language long before the life of Christ even. That is why. It was not a natural language evolving process
There were changes in the Hebrew language ince before the great eviction o the tribes of Israel. King David himself lamented over the change in language between the Judeans and the Ephraimites. Of which Trojan, And the Gallic (Gaul, Geal, Breton etc ) have originated from. Written language may change very little over time, however oral language is constantly evolving. Including Hebrew. If one looks at the 2 oldest languages Chinese and Hebrew there is little change between them over the past 3000 years. However orally there has been huge changes with there being a number of different languages spun off of Chinese. And several different dialects of Hebrew.
No vowels, that’s why the Oral Torah is so important. They had to learn from each other and pass it down through the generations. Singing also made it easier to remember. The vowel notations and Cantillation marks were written down later, when the Jews were scattered and feared that the Oral tradition might be lost. This is also when all the teachings of the Sages were written down as the Talmud.
@@mauricecohen3830 Zechariah 13:7 King James Version 7 Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.
@@au8363 King James version? you mean the version that was mistranslated to English from an already mistranlated Greek version? Lol. Try harder. For starters, learn biblical Hebrew. You know the original language of the Bible. Or at least Arameic, the spoken language of the time.
@@yahuahoverman9585 Some people say YAH [YAHua] and others say YUHua, similar to YAHoo- the email account. They have the truth [or much closer than people would imagine] in plain sight.
@@wendyhughes2234I agree, the enemy mocks us by hiding the truth in plain sight, I profess faith in YAHUAH, pronounced, ya-hoo-aa, Yahuah Barak AtA (Yahuah Bless You) 😄
Of course there were vowels. But as Hebrew is an old Semitic language, vowels were not represented in the alphabet, which only had consonants. People knew what the written words were (in context), and did not need vowels written. The same is true in modern Hebrew, which has no written vowels (except for learners and children). Now, just as happened across many languages over the years, there have been vowel shifts. So words today do not always sound the same as they did years ago. That is pretty obvious in English: Shakespearean English sounds different. Chaucerian English is very different and much harder to understand. And so on. As long as the meanings of the words don’t change, what they sound like is not important. But of course word meanings can also change over time.
People learn Japanese by watching anime but I'm now seeing that you can learn Hebrew (or Greek) by reading the Bible in it... same concept... you're just a Bible weeb lol
Proverbs 22:4 “By humility and the fear of the Lord Are riches and honor and life.” Proverbs 22:12 “The eyes of the LORD preserve knowledge, But He overthrows the words of the faithless.” Have faith in Jesus Christ❤️✝️
Japanese in anime is way different from daily Japanese conversation. in Japanese you have Katakana, Hiragana and Kanji to learn, they have different levels too. Its not that easy to use it and engage in a conversation when you saw a Japanese just because you watched anime. If you want to learn Japanese simply go to Japan, learn in a Japanese school and mingle with Japanese everyday.
Thank you for sharing. By the way, what about the r sound in hebrew. In modern hebrew the most common is an uvular fricative. Was there an alveolar trill in older hebrew?
I might be mistaken but if you check out the book under reish ר there is a fascinating quote from a traveler to Tiberias that there were 3 ways to pronounce ר at that time, and the authors consider one to be a trill.
Interesting, thanks for sharing. I noticed the reader also pronounced the aiyn and also the khet as an Arabic ḥa. I'd love to see a theoretical reading of how this would have been pronounced in the Iron Age.
Nice channel, Views of Holy Land! Yes, the gutturals are always interesting. What makes this study so interesting is it's not about the Iron Age, which means less hypotheticals. Thanks for watching.
I’m not very smart to learn Hebrew I remember visiting a church in Kentucky and there was a teacher there that could read and speak Hebrew when he prayed to God he spoke and kinda sung I was amazed but he also translated to us what he said I’m still amazed and want to learn but I don’t have the mind set thanks for this
Learning any language is easier than you think. There’s an excellent book series called, “……….. In Ten Minutes A Day” It’s very basic and elementary. I have Hebrew and Russian. You’ll be surprised how quickly and easily it’s learnable if you stick with it and apply yourself. (As with anything and everything) 😇
@@shabtikaplan only in modern ones (aside from the language spoken in Cyprus before it was really Hellenised as it is today). We don't know about ancient ones
Check out the book chapter on ו. Yemenite practice is extremely important for reconstructing more ancient pronunciation, but not necessarily for Tiberian ca. 1000
Thank you for uploading this segment! This is critical in the field of Numerology where each letter in the English alphabet translates to a number. We have a serious problem!
God makes everything work out perfect. That's why Alex Foreman's name means, "The one who oversees the work of protecting Jewish history." Wow! That's what he did when he translated the original Hebrew language of God's written Word into audio.
The video would be a lot more beneficial if it also provided a brief explanation as to how you came up with the estimated pronunciations of the ancient Hebrew sounds, so that the listener can at least know that this is not merely some theoretical hypothesizing as to what certain experts believe were the ancient sounds.
You have the link for the books. There were medieval treatises about Hebrew pronunciation. These are the primary sources, and they are quoted throughout the books.
Speaking of which, I’m learning it on duolingo right this second ( I suggest learning the sounds the letters make first before the words, it makes learning easier)
Very interesting! Thank you for sharing. Always wanted to hear the Bible being sung/recited. For those who are curious, search 'Quran recitation' and pick any chapter. Notice how similar the Bible (Hebrew) and Quran (Arabic) sound.
This recording is still incorrect. The vav has a w sound like the Yemenite pronunciation. Ask any professor of Hebrew lingusitics at the Hebrew University. Stephen Fassberg for instance. I have corresponded with him and others like Pof. Ashavi and can assure you this is a fact.
This isn't presenting Hebrew from 3000 years ago, but from 1000 years ago. At that time in Tiberias the ו had already become a "v". Check out the free e-book for detailed descriptions of each and every letter, especially the ו.
This struck a chord within me because I've been delving into past life memories, and the ancient Assyrian within myself remembers long discourses with the sages. Simply put, we didn't quite see eye to eye, and my royal Assyrian attitude rubbed them the wrong way at times. LMAO
Why does the tiberian pronunciation pronounce reish from the throat like modern Hebrew? Should be alveolar flick as in arabic and most Sephardic pronunciations no?
Gammie check out the book’s fascinating discussion of the letter ר. If I recall correctly, according to at least one traveler there were three ways to pronounce ר in Tiberias during the Masoretic period. Each letter has its own story.
I am surprised that in their "ancient Hebrew," they still pronounced the Waw as a V, and not a W. Also noticing the vowel kamats sounds like a cholam, whereas Aben Ezra remarked the sound was in between the "ah" of the pathach, and the "oh" of the cholam. The Cheth is not to be a fricative of the throat-that is the sound of the Caph. Rather, it is a breathy H sound. He only sometimes pronounces the Resh with a tongue roll, but seems to revert to the American-style R.
There should be a disclaimer - we only hypothise how it sounded using current pronounciation from Yamanite Jews and Samaritans (which were affected by the Arabic in their region) and the Ashkenazi Jews (affected by the languages around them which might have caused the 'TH' sound). Having said that, the video is still important and very interesting. It is well made and gives an example for our best guess.
This book/recording is not really based on contemporary pronunciation. There were a few Masoretic treatises about pronunciation in טבריה. There are plenty of statements in Saadia and Arabic sources too. The book is a great resource.
Pronunciation from the Samaritans?? Where did you get this notion from -- the priest Yefet Kohen at the Samaritan museum, or the chief Samaritan scholar Binyamim Ṣedaqa? They pronounce many of the consonants *wrong.* In fact, In the sum total, Samaritan pronunciation is just as bad as the Ashkenazic.
at least the Yemenite Jews and Samatarians were influenced by a language within the same language family tree as ancient Hebrew. Not only the TH sound, but also the R sound of Ashkenazim (which is now standard in modern Hebrew) is a Germanic sound.
Actually my theory about that is that Ashkenazi Hebrew was more affected by Aramaic than other dialects. The vowels are the most similar to yemenite Hebrew but the thav/tav might be pronounced as a s due to how similar some aramaic words are to Hebrew where a tav gets substituted for a samekh. For example shabbat in judeo-aramaic is shabbasa which may have been shortened to shabbos over time with the Tiberian vowel system applied to the same word
This is for the Masoretic pronunciation of Tiberius ca. 1000. Before that time a “w” makes a lot of sense. If you’re interested check out volume 1 page 171 for more details.
Shalom. I learned that, traditionally, Masoretes were actually Listeners, and they were scribes for not nearly as much of the time. Every one or two thousand years, Hebrew as a readable language comes to balance on a knife edge over whether or not it would go on or become as extinct. Masoretes preserved it and it was at one of these times when Hebrew was in danger of disappearing when the vocal markings were introduced. I do believe that Masoretes though translates to Scribe, so it’s use means scribe but Masoretes were some of the best listeners that humanity has ever produced.
Interesting that in the two older styles, the shva na' at the start of some words was pronounced closer to a patach than the almost-segol sound we hear today.
Essentially every Jewish grammarian from the period state that it should sound like a Patach. It's not really all that surprising. I have a theory that the segol sound used today is an attempt to preserve this pronunciation under the consideration that a segol is also known as a patach katon. However, I'm no scholar, just an interested amateur.
Great video! I’m new to Hebrew but is it likely that “vet” was originally just “bet”? Maybe the word “Shabat” was well preserved instead of “Shavat” due to its cultural importance?
@@theowl2134 Your christian early church fathers totally disregarded Jewish tradition in the understanding of OUR TEXTS and even changed words in their translation but they knew that their followers would not know. They took passages out of context and used them to justify in their pagan messiah that turned into your pagan god. I'm sure your not a Hebrew speaker but as an Israeli I do speak Hebrew and all my over 30 years of Learning all the primary Jewish books, only in Hebrew and Aramaic, I think I understand much better then you.
@@Rajul_Jamil Shalom. Why am I being attacked? I am Jewish in fact. Not Israeli but I learnt to speak Hebrew. All I said was Bet without a dagesh is a Vet.
There is no Sho’mayim, even in the oldest biblical manuscripts. It was always Sha’mayim, if we analyze the diacritical marks. Why would they pronounce it wrongly knowingly?
