Linguifex

Verse:Irta/Modern Hebrew

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Irta Modern Hebrew

Irta Modern Hebrew is used as a Jewish vernacular in America's West Coast, Canada and the Levant (the State of Israel isn't a thing in Irta). Hebrew has 5 million speakers on Irta Earth and 8 million in Cualand. It's a product of the Tsarfati Haskalah, unlike later secular Ăn Yidiș culture.

Irta Modern Hebrew is intended to be mutually intelligible with our Modern Hebrew speakers, though it may sound a bit flowery. In Cualand it's called "French Hebrew" (or עברית צרפתית /iv'ɹiθ tsʌ̹ɹfʌ̹'θiθ/ which may also refer to the traditional Tsarfati reading of Hebrew) and is sometimes made fun of.

The standard variety today arose from an artificial compromise accent between Irta Yevani Hebrew and Tsarfati Hebrew, with an Ăn Yidiș-influenced accent and grammar. The accent would sound much like Israeli Hebrew with a Hiberno-English accent to people in our timeline, but it does not merge patach and qamatz gadol unlike our timeline's Modern Hebrew. Formal Hebrew is less of an Ăn Yidiș relex, and recent spoken Hebrew's more of an English relex and is becoming closer to Cualand Hebrew (our Modern Hebrew with an approximately Icelandic accent) or our Israeli Hebrew.

Today most native speakers of Hebrew are non-Tsarfati Jews. It's more common for Tsarfatim to be native Ăn Yidiș speakers (in part due to the secular Ǎn Yidiș movement and in part due to the large Haredi population).

Phonology

  • Consonants: /ʔ b v g ɣ d ð h w z ħ tˁ j k x l m n s ʕ p f sˁ q r ʃ t θ/ = [(ʔ) b~p⁼ v g~k⁼ ɣ~ʁ d̪~t̪⁼~ð d̪~t̪⁼~ð h v z x~χ t̪ʰ~θ j kʰ x~χ l m n s (ʔ) pʰ f t̪s̪ʰ kʰ ɹ(ˠ) ʃ t̪ʰ~θ t̪ʰ~θ]
  • Vowels: /i e ɛ a QG QQ o u (shva na) ḤP ḤS ḤQ/ = [i e̞ e̞ ä ä o o u Ø~ɨ æ~a e̞ o̞]
  • /r/ is alveolar and usually an approximant. Some speakers may pronounce it as [ɾ(ˠ)] or [r(ˠ)].
  • /r/ = [ʀ] and the pharyngeal values for heth and ayin are used in solemn speech (to imitate Tiberian Hebrew, though TibH doesn't always use it)
  • tav~tet /t̪ʰ/ and dalet /d̪/, which are dental stops unlike in our timeline's Modern Hebrew, have postvocalic allophones [θ] and [ð] (which don't correspond to lack of dagesh); this feature arose via hypercorrection and because some of the founder population's Ăn Yidiș dialects had the same feature. /t̪ʰ d̪ s/ may be weakly velarized.
    • Really snobby prescriptivists would insist that leniting dageshed tav, tet or dageshed dalet is incorrect, but basically no one would actually succeed at the "correct" pronunciation; they'd at best fail to lenite (which is like our Israeli Hebrew).
  • /h/ is usually not dropped even in colloquial speech.
  • Since Ăn Yidiș has final /h/, Irta Modern Hebrew pronounces he mappiq (final /h/) and doesn't have the /-Vɑh/ > /-Vhɑ/ metathesis like our Israeli Hebrew.
    • הַכְצַעֲקָתָהּ /haxtsaakʰɒˈθɒh/ 'is it that bad/serious?' (expression from the Bible; lit. 'is it as its outcry')

Examples of non-traditionally lenited /d t/

  • /aˈθɒ/ 'thou (m)'
  • /iˈθi/ 'with me'
  • /leiˈθim/ 'sometimes'
  • /kaˈðuɹ/ 'ball'
  • /eθ/ 'pen', homophonous with 'time' and 'accusative marker' as in our timeline
  • /ʃiˈðuɹ/ 'broadcast'

Intonation

Before stressed syllables in a prosodic unit, pitch is high.

  • End of declaratives: similar to Russian neutral declarative intonation
    • falling during last stressed syllable
    • low after the last stressed syllable, if any syllables come after that
  • Questions and pauses
    • Starting on a focused constituent or the last stressed syllable, pitch is like Mandarin tone 3: low and possibly with creaky voice, and low-rising in isolation and list intonation.

Loanwords

  • Patach is used for most instances of /a/ or /æ/ in loanwords.
  • Qamatz gadol as opposed to patach is used for English LOT and THOUGHT, Irish and Hivantish á, Riphean ā and Korean or Anbirese eo. IE and Arabic feminine -a and -tsyå (-tion) in Latin loans are also borrowed with it, as in our timeline; this has some precedent in Mishnaic Hebrew as -a words were borrowed with final hei; strategia > astrateghya
  • Factors attributable to German influence and not explainable otherwise are missing.
    • Greek s doesn't turn to z unless it was realized as [z] in Greek; so dinosaur is dinosaur, not dinozaur.
    • -sis words become -se, -soth or -sis, -soth (e.g. tesis, tesot 'thesis'; cf. our ModH anime, animot)
  • Celtic (Irish, Ăn Yidiș, Brythonic), Sinitic and Korean /kʰ tʰ/ are borrowed as כּ תּ as opposed to ק ט
    • Notably not English; aspiration in Irta English is a recent phenomenon and only occurs in some dialects

Transcribing foreign stops

  • voiced = g, voiceless = q: English and other Azalic languages, French‚ Latin, Riphean
  • voiced = g, voiceless = k: Japanese, Turkish‚ Celtic, Sinitic, Knench
  • voiced = g, unaspirated = q, aspirated = k: Arabic, Greek, Korean, Thai, Sanskrit?

Syntax

Grammatically, Irta Modern Hebrew is SVO like our Israeli Hebrew, but sometimes prefers Ăn Yidiș syntax, e.g.

  • much more willing to use אין for negation in the present tense; (איני, אינך in non-3rd person, אין הוא, אין היא in 3rd person); in our IH these forms are formal/written (bc Gaelic negation comes before subject pronouns). /(ze) lo æ'ni/ is a focus construction 'It's not me that...', and אין אני /en æ'ni/ in non 3rd person are solemn.
  • Irish/Ăn Yidiș calques in some common expressions
    • The following are used instead of בבקשה for 'please':
      • עם רצונך /im ɹətsʰonˈxɑ/ (lit. 'with your will', a calque of lă dă-thel) or אם זה רצונך /im ze ɹətsʰonˈxɑ/ (mă șe dă-thel e) 'please'
      • זה חייך /ze xæ'jexɑ/ (lit. 'it's your life', like șe dă-bhethă) 'you're welcome'
      • הנה לך /hi'ne xæ'jexɑ/ (lit. 'this is to you', like șa did) 'here you go'
    • רצון איתי /ɹɑtsʰon i'θi/ 'I like' (tel lum), עדיף איתי /ɑ'ðif i'θi/ 'I prefer' (fyor lum). 'to want' uses לרצות, just like in our timeline.
      • More formally /æ'ni ɹo'tsʰe bə-/ = 'I like, I am pleased with', ani xofetz bă- 'I want'
      • Conversely using the verb אהב /ɑ'hæv/ is a little formal (more so than English love) and is the equivalent of German lieben. It's more common to hear חבב chavav for family, friends and lovers.
    • /hɑjɑ ɹɑ'tsʰon i'θi/ 'I'd like'
    • אפשר איתי /efʃɑɹ i'θi/ 'I can' (efșăr lum)
    • You might hear /jeʃ li [LANGUAGE]/ for 'I speak [LANGUAGE]':
      • A: /kʰæ'bel eθ tʰeɹutsʰi, him jeʃ ləxɑ ɑzɑliθ/ 'Excuse me, do you speak English?'
      • B: /jeʃ/ 'I do.'/ /en/ 'I do not.'
  • Question particles (/hæim~him/, /hæ-/ in more formal contexts) are usually retained. Questions don't have a different intonation from declarative sentences. Question marks are not usually used. Yes-no questions are usually answered by repeating the verb in the affirmative/negative. Present-tense copular questions (which have no verb), e.g. /him ʃo'meɹ ɑ'xixɑ æ'θɑ/ 'Are you your brother's keeper?' can be answered in the following ways (This is also true of sentences with a present tense verb):
    • /ʃomeɹ ɑχi/ '(Yes, I am) my brother's keeper.' or lo šomėr åxi '(No, I am) not my brother's keeper.'
    • /hinə'ni/ 'Yes, I am.' or /e'neni~e'ni/ 'I am not.'
    • /hen/ 'indeed' or /lo/ 'no' (the least common)
  • It also prefers some coincidentally Gaelic-sounding words, e.g. אַךְ /æx/ 'but' and שָׂשׂ /sɑs/ 'happy' (sounding like Judeo-Gaelic ach 'but' and sostă 'satisfied') instead of the synonyms אֲבָל /ævɑl/ and שָׂמֵחַ /sɑ'meæx/. כה /kʰo/ is as common as כל כך /kʰol'kʰɑx/ for 'so (ADJ)'.
  • Tenses are similar to our Modern Hebrew tenses but the /hɑ'jɑ ox'el/ construction is more common.
    • הוא היה אוכל = Past imperfective/progressive/conditional (corresponds to V'e ăg ith)
    • הוא אוכל = Present
    • הוא אכל = Past perfective
    • הוא יאכל = Future
  • Loazit /-tsʰjɑ/ '-tion' is borrowed directly from Latin -tiō, via Ăn Yidiș/Tsarfati Hebrew -țyo
  • It's also as focus-prominent as Ăn Yidiș and Irish. Irishy cleft constructions are common.
  • ani "I" is sometimes pronounced [ɪni]; this is a regionalism and is rare nowadays
  • As in Goidelic, the relativizer and the complementizer are consistently distinguished (unlike in Mishnaic Hebrew); ש is always a relativizer
  • The impersonal may sometimes be formed by treating the 3rd person passive form of the verb as an impersonal form (though the 3rd person plural form can also be used as in our Modern Hebrew): 'We're being watched' can be either נצפה בנו nitspå bånu (normative nitspe) or צופים בנו tsofim bånu. This option doesn't exist when the verb is a "deponent verb" (inherently passive or mediopassive).
    • Direct objects of a passive-as-impersonal verb can be marked with eth, though it is nonnormative usage: נאכל את המרור בסדר פסח ne'exål eth ha måror ba sedher pesax (or אוכלים את המרור... oxlim eth ha måror...) 'One eats the maror at the Passover seder'. (cf. yeš li et... in our Modern Hebrew)

Cualand Hebrew

Retcon balagan 'mess' from Cualand ĂnY bală gan

Cualand Hebrew is the default vernacular variety of Hebrew in Crackfic Tricin. It's basically our timeline's Modern Hebrew with a Cualand English accent and without the Slavic and Arabic slang and with Netagin and Eevo slang; it's influenced more by Wiebic than Irta Modern Hebrew which is more influenced by Ăn Yidiș. Tsarfati Tricians may use the Irta Hebrew accent (but not Irta Hebrew grammar which sounds flowery to Cualand speakers). In Trician liturgical use, Cualandian Hebrew is the most common, followed by Tsarfati Hebrew and Tiberian Hebrew.

  • qamatz gadol and qamatz qatan are the same for some speakers, for most speakers QG=patach and QQ!=patach, for a small minority QG=QQ!=patach
  • Coronal stops are alveolar, rather than dental as in Irta Earth
  • As in Irta Modern Hebrew, a new phoneme emerges, /θ̠/, which is a lenited form of both tav and tet but it doesn't pattern like the other begadkefat consonants
  • heth and ayin as in Modern Hebrew, a minority pronounces heth as ħ when it derives from PSem ħ, but not when it comes from PSem x
  • different casual pronunciations - et ha becomes /ɛθ̠ə/; though in some parts of Cualand the first vowel gets dropped as in our timeline
  • resh is an alveolar flap as in Broad Cualand English
  • vav and lenited beth become the Hawaiian v~w phoneme, for modern speakers it's /v/
  • tzere and segol are sometimes distinguished in some older Cualand accents as /e:/ and /ɛ/, but these are merged in modern accents. Even in older accents, tzere is realized as /ɛ/ in closed syllables, such as /lɛv/ "heart" and /zɛɾ/ "wreath". Tzere is never a diphthong in Cualand.
  • In older Cualand dialects there was a distinction between segol from PSem *a, pronounced /æ/ and segol from PSem *i, pronounced /ɛ/, but these have been merged in the modern language.

Names in non-Hebrew Jewish languages written in the Hebrew alphabet, such as Ăn Yidiș, are usually spelled as in the original language, as in Irta Modern Hebrew. Some Irtan nationality names are also used instead of our names.

Names

Names in non-Hebrew Jewish languages written in the Hebrew alphabet, such as Ăn Yidiș, are usually spelled as in the original language.

  • עורב /orev/, calque of Inþar, common in Cualand (coincidentally a name in the Bible; we have Anat in our timeline so it's ok)

Diminutives on names are different from our timeline, Irta Hebrew speakers use diminutives from Ăn Yidiș such as -in, -ån, -inån, -ak, -akån, -len.

Vocabulary

  • /kʰaðeɹex/ = 'directly', matched to Irish díreach
  • Ireland = אירין /e'ɹin/
  • Irish person = איריני, איריניה, אירינים /eɹi'ni, eɹini'jɑ, eɹi'nim/
  • Irish language = אירינית /eɹi'niθ/
  • Hivantish = /hivan'di, hivandi'jɑ, hivan'dim; hivan'diθ/
  • sfårdith = archaic name for english
  • åzalith = modern term for azalic
  • anglith = english

Original prescriptive accent

Consonants: /ʔ b v g ɣ d ð h w z ħ tˁ j k x l m n s ʕ p f sˁ q r ʃ t θ/ = [ʔ b v g ɣ d ð h v z ħ t⁼ j k⁼ x l m n s ʕ p⁼ f ts⁼ k⁼ r ʃ t⁼ θ]

Vowels: /i e ɛ a QG QQ o u (shva na) ḤP ḤS ḤQ/ = [i e ɛ æ ɑ ɔ o u œ æ ɛ ɔ]

Grammatical simplifications

Similar to those in our Israeli Hebrew; account for patach != qamatz gadol

Definite article is usually always ha

Proclitics don't lenite /d t/: /ha tʰik/ = the bag, /ha dɒɣ/ = the fish

Leniting proclitics lenite /b g pʰ/: /biɣduð/ 'in a troop' would be simplified to /be ɣduð/ but not all the way to /be gduð/

Sample

Esther

1:1

וַיְהִ֖י בִּימֵ֣י אֲחַשְׁוֵר֑וֹשׁ ה֣וּא אֲחַשְׁוֵר֗וֹשׁ הַמֹּלֵךְ֙ מֵהֹ֣דּוּ וְעַד־כּ֔וּשׁ שֶׁ֛בַע וְעֶשְׂרִ֥ים וּמֵאָ֖ה מְדִינָֽה׃

[vajˈhi p⁼iˈme̞ ʔaxaʃve̞ˈɹoʃ || hu ʔaxaʃve̞ˈɹoʃ hamoˈle̞x me̞ˈhoðu ve̞ˈʔað kʰuʃ ˈʃe̞va ve̞ʔe̞sˈɹim ume̞ˈʔɒ me̞ðiˈnɒ]

1:2

בַּיָּמִ֖ים הָהֵ֑ם כְּשֶׁ֣בֶת ׀ הַמֶּ֣לֶךְ אֲחַשְׁוֵר֗וֹשׁ עַ֚ל כִּסֵּ֣א מַלְכוּת֔וֹ אֲשֶׁ֖ר בְּשׁוּשַׁ֥ן הַבִּירָֽה׃

[p⁼ajʌ̹ˈmim hʌ̹ˈhe̞m || kʰe̞ˈʃe̞ve̞θ haˈme̞le̞x ʔaxaʃve̞ˈɹoʃ ʔal kʰiˈse̞ malxuˈθo ʔaˈʃe̞ɹ p⁼e̞ʃuˈʃan habiˈɹɒ]

1:3

בִּשְׁנַ֤ת שָׁלוֹשׁ֙ לְמָלְכ֔וֹ עָשָׂ֣ה מִשְׁתֶּ֔ה לְכָל־שָׂרָ֖יו וַֽעֲבָדָ֑יו חֵ֣יל ׀ פָּרַ֣ס וּמָדַ֗י הַֽפַּרְתְּמִ֛ים וְשָׂרֵ֥י הַמְּדִינ֖וֹת לְפָנָֽיו

[p⁼iʃˈnaθ ʃʌ̹ˈloʃ le̞molˈxo ʔʌ̹ˈsɒ miʃˈt̪ʰe̞ le̞ˈxol sʌ̹ˈɹɒv vaʔavʌ̹ˈðɒv || xe̞l pʰʌ̹ˈras umʌ̹ˈðaj hapʰart̪ʰˈmim ve̞sʌ̹ˈɹe̞ hame̞ðiˈnoθ le̞fʌ̹ˈnɒv]

1:4

בְּהַרְאֹת֗וֹ אֶת־עֹ֨שֶׁר֙ כְּב֣וֹד מַלְכוּת֔וֹ וְאֶ֨ת־יְקָ֔ר תִּפְאֶ֖רֶת גְּדוּלָּת֑וֹ יָמִ֣ים רַבִּ֔ים שְׁמוֹנִ֥ים וּמְאַ֖ת יֽוֹם׃

[p⁼e̞haɹoˈθo ʔe̞θ ˈoʃe̞ɹ kʰvoð malxuˈθo ve̞ˈʔe̞θ je̞ˈkʰɒɹ t̪ʰifˈʔe̞ɹe̞θ k⁼e̞ðulʌ̹ˈθo || jʌ̹ˈmim ɹaˈbim ʃmoˈnim ʔume̞ˈaθ jom]

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