Language and Tradition
The Hebrew Language Tradition of the Jews of Southern Yemen: Phonetics and Mishnaic Hebrew
XXXIV
This book, stemming from a PhD dissertation under the advising of Prof. Moshe Bar Asher, offers a description of the traditional Hebrew of the Jews of southern Yemen. The description is based on a lengthy and intensive field work consisting of recording their reading of biblical, rabbinic, and liturgical literature. As S. Morag's The Hebrew Language Tradition of the Yemenite Jews (Jerusalem, 1963) focuses mainly on central Yemen, especially the city of Sanaa, the study of the southern Yemen phonological tradition remained a desideratum, which the current book aims at fulfilling. Thus, the first part of the book includes addenda et corrigenda to the description of the southern Yemen phonological system. One major innovation in this regard is the different pronunciations of the holam, along with several phonological matters missing in Morag's book, such as the principles of the mobile shewa and the primary and secondary accents (the ga'aya). The second part consists of a description of the traditional reading of the Mishna in southern Yemen, including a very meticulous comparison to the mainstream tradition of central Yemen, and to some other non Yemenite traditions. In chapter 2, some phonological matters concerning the Tiberian Hebrew are discussed, such as the conditions for gemination (doubling), different issues related to the gutturals, and the principles of the dagesh lene in the bgdkpt consonants. The largest chapter of this book, chapter 3, consists of a detailed description of over 1200 Mishnaic nominal forms as realized traditionally. Organized alphabetically, this list includes post-biblical nouns, biblical nouns pronounced differently in their Mishnaic occurrence, and inflections of biblical nominal forms not attested in the Bible. The entries offer oral information based on six main informants and vocalized manuscripts from southern Yemen. Every entry has been compared to the data available from reliable informants, existing recordings, vocalized manuscripts and printed editions from central Yemen, along with other circumstantial. evidence. The material was systematically compared to other linguistic traditions, such as the Babylonian, and to almost all the vocalized manuscripts and printed editions ever used in southern Yemen. In chapter 4, several topics are discussed with regard to the traditional reading of the Mishnah: Various participle forms, the punctuation of relative ש, pausal forms, the definition of nominal forms, ketiv and qere in Mishnaic reading, and the like. The database analysis reveals that the southern Yemen tradition is certainly a Yemenite one, correlating very well with the central Yemen tradition. Yet, in some details it rather correlates with ancient traditions of Mishnaic Hebrew on the one hand, and with vocalized printed editions, including mistakes and inconsistency, on the other. A fundamental outcome of this work is that the Yemenite Rabbinic Hebrew tradition should be examined within its regional backdrop and variations. Needless to say, that this work has been a rescue mission of a tradition not extensively recorded and of which the number of individuals familiar with is rapidly decreasing. This work, based on recordings and vocalized manuscripts from southern Yemen, ensures that the memory of this tradition is perpetuated for future generations. Introduction The Research on the Language Traditions The Research on the Yemenite Tradition The Research on the Southern Yemenite Tradition The Communities in this Paper Shar'ab Aden The Jews of Southern Yemen and the Printed Books Research Methods The Corpus The Informants Presentation of the Results and an Analysis Phonology in the Reading of the Bible Preface The Sound System The Consonants The Vowels Stress in the Reading of the Bible Primary Stress Secondary Stress Secondary Stress in Closed Syllables Gemination Furtive Patah Phonology in the Reading of the Mishnah Gemination ר Gemination in אהח"ע Gemination in In shva and in מ in shva י Gemination in מה Gemination after Gemination of Dehik The Influence of the Gutturals The Vocalization of a Prefix before a Guttural The Gutteral Vowel Furtive Patah Changes in Verbs with Gutturals The Vocalization of Definiteness before Gutturals and before ר Fricative and Plosive בגדכפ"ת Letters Plosive בגדכפ"ת Letters Not Following the Tiberian Tradition Fricative בגדכפ"ת Not Following the Tiberian Tradition Analysis and Conclusions Stress in the Reading of the Mishna The Noun in the Tradition of Mishnaic Hebrew Some Participial Forms The Vocalization of the Relative Pronoun ש The Vocalization of ובכ"ל in Pretonic Position Pausal Forms Participles with First Person Pronouns Feminine Participles with Object Suffixes Absolute Forms in Construct State Construct Forms in Absolute State Joining של to the Following World Second Person Suffixes Definiteness of Nouns Ketiv and Qere in the Reading of the Mishna The Southern Yemenite Tradition – A Summary Phonetics The Reading Tradition of Mishnaic Hebrew Some Notes on Noun Morphology Characteristics of the Southern Yemenite Tradition Insights on the Central Yemenite Traditions Conclusive Remarks Bibliography and Abbreviations Index of Words
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