Verse:Irta/Hebrew
The history of Rabbinic Judaism in Irta is much like in our own world. The Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible, the Mishnah, the Talmud and the major Kabbalah texts are identical to ours; the Shulchan Aruch prescribes the same laws. (Basically everything about Hasidism stays the same except with Ăn Yidiș rather than Yiddish.)
However, many accents of Irta Hebrew, except Tiberian Hebrew which is identical to our timeline's Tiberian Hebrew, preserve phonological distinctions that our Hebrew lost by Post-Exilic Hebrew times.
Irta Modern Hebrew
Used as a Jewish vernacular in Irta America, Canada and Jewish communities in the Levant (the State of Israel isn't a thing in Irta)
Should 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 ivris tsarfåsis which may also refer to the traditional Tsarfati reading of Hebrew) and is sometimes made fun of.
The standard variety today is an artificial compromise accent between Irta Yevani Hebrew and Tsarfati Hebrew, with an Ăn Yidiș-influenced accent and grammar; it does not merge patach and qamatz gadol unlike Irta Yevani 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 or our Israeli Hebrew.
- 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 z̪ x~χ t̪ʰ~θ j kʰ x~χ l m n s̪ (ʔ) pʰ f t̪s̪ʰ kʰ ɻ~ɹˠ ʃ t̪ʰ~θ t̪ʰ~θ]
- Vowels: /i e ɛ a QG QQ o u (shva na) ḤP ḤS ḤQ/ = [i e̞ e̞ æ ɑ~ɒ o̞ o̞ u Ø~ə æ e̞ o̞]
- Qamatz gadol has the same quality as our Connemara Irish á [ɑː] and patach with the same quality as our Connemara Irish stressed a [a̟ː~æː].
- /r/ is alveolar or retroflex and usually an approximant.
- tav~tet /t̪ʰ/ and dalet /d̪/ have postvocalic allophones [θ] and [ð] (which don't correspond to dagesh)
- Irta Modern Hebrew pronounces he mappiq (final /h/) and doesn't have the /-ah/ > /-ha/ metathesis like our Israeli Hebrew.
- Intonation is similar to our Scottish Gaelic
Grammatically, it 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 ăni is a focus construction 'It's not me that...', and אין אני eyn ăni in non 3rd person are solemn.
- Irish/Ăn Yidiș calques in some common expressions
- The following are used instead of בבקשה bevakasha:
- עם רצונך im rătzonxa (lit. 'with your will', a calque of lă dă-thel) or אם זה רצונך im ze rătzonxa (mă șe dă-thel e) 'please'
- זה חייך ze xayéxå (lit. 'it's your life', like șe dă-bhethă) 'you're welcome'
- זה/הנה לך ze/hinė lăxå (lit. 'this is to you', like șa did) 'here you go'
- רצון איתי råtzon iti 'I like' (tel lum), עדיף איתי ådif iti 'I prefer' (fyor lum)
- More formally ani rotze bă- = 'I like, I am pleased with', ani xofetz bă- 'I want'
- Conversely using the verb אהב ahav 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.
- håyå råcon iti 'I'd like'
- אפשר איתי efšår iti 'I can' (efșăr lum)
- You might hear yeš li [LANGUAGE] for 'I speak [LANGUAGE]':
- A: Kabėl es tėrutzi, him yėš lăxa Azelis? 'Excuse me, do you speak English?'
- B: Yėš./Ėn. 'I do./I do not.'
- The following are used instead of בבקשה bevakasha:
- Question particles (ha2im pronounced him, ha- 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. haim šomėr åxixå atå? 'Are you your brother's keeper?' can be answered in the following ways (This is also true of sentences with a present tense verb):
- šomėr åxi '(Yes, I am) my brother's keeper.' or lo šomėr åxi '(No, I am) not my brother's keeper.'
- hin(e)ni 'Yes, I am.' or ėnéni/ėni 'I am not.'
- hėn 'indeed' or lo 'no' (the least common)
- It also prefers some coincidentally Gaelic-sounding words, e.g. אַךְ ach 'but' and שָׂשׂ sås 'happy' (sounding like Judeo-Gaelic ach 'but' and sostă 'satisfied') instead of the synonyms אֲבָל avål and שָׂמֵחַ såmėax. כה ko is as common as כל כך kol kåx for 'so (ADJ)'.
- Tenses are similar to our Modern Hebrew tenses but the håyå oxėl construction is more common.
- היה הוא אוכל = Past imperfective/progressive/conditional (corresponds to V'e ăg ith)
- הוא אוכל = Present
- הוא אכל = Past perfective
- הוא יאכל = Future
- Loazit -cyå '-tion' is borrowed directly from Latin -tiō, via Ăn Yidiș/Tsarfati Hebrew -țyo
- Prepositions can be weird, esp 3al and 3im (mapped to Irish ar and le)
- 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
Names in non-Hebrew Jewish languages written in the Hebrew alphabet, such as Ăn Yidiș, are usually spelled as in the original language.
- kaderekh = 'directly', matched to Irish díreach
- Ireland = אירין Ėrin (stressed on the 2nd syllable like our Polin)
- Irish person = איריני, איריניה, אירינים ėrini, ėriniyå, ėrinim
- Irish language = אירינית ėrinís
- Hivantish = hivandi, hivandiyå, hivandim; hivandis
Some Hebrew poets in the 19th century wrote in an adapted form of the Irish dán díreach (or a version of cynghanedd?); they assumed penultimate stress like some of our Modern Hebrew poets.
The 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]
Yevani Hebrew
Also Togarmite Hebrew
- 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~ŋ p⁼ f ts⁼ k⁼ r ʃ t⁼ θ]
- Vowels: /i e ɛ a QG QQ o u (shva na) ḤP ḤS ḤQ/ = [i e̞ e̞ ä ä o̞ o̞ u e̞ ä e̞ o̞]
Tsarfati Hebrew
Modern Tsarfati Hebrew (עברית צרפתית ivrís zarfosís; "Tsarf-osis" is a common pun in Cualand for using a Tsarfati accent or Irta Modern Hebrew grammar) has been influenced by Ăn Yidiș (Judeo-Gaelic), but it's a result of a restandardization to Tiberian niqqud; some Hebrew loans in Ăn Yidiș keep relics of an older, non-Tiberian based reading.
Tsarfati Hebrew is similar to our Ashkenazi Hebrew, except
- Tiberian /e(:) ɔ(:) o(:) u(:)/ are pronounced as Ăn Yidiș ey o u ü (reflexes of Middle Irish aoi/é, á, ó/u, ú; /ej o u y/ in Standard Ăn Yidiș)
- Shva na3 is ă /ə/ in careful pronunciation (dropped whenever possible in Hebrew loans in Ăn Yidiș, however)
- undageshed gimel is pronounced like Ăn Yidiș gh
- /r/ is an alveolar flap/trill or a retroflex approximant like Hiberno-English R
- dageshed bet, dageshed gimel, and dalet (whether dageshed or not) are pronounced as unaspirated /p t k/
- dageshed tav, daleth, teth are dental [t̪ʰ t̪ t̪]
- sin/undageshed tav can be dental [s̪] or alveolar [s]
- both zayin and tsade are /ts⁼/; samekh is /tsʰ/
- kuf and tet are unaspirated /k/ and /t/
- /p t k/ are aspirated
- The most conservative Tsarfati readings keep geminate nun, lamedh and resh distinct from their non-geminated counterparts, pronouncing these as reflexes of Old Irish broad /N/, slender /L/ and broad /R/.
Sinosphere reading traditions
Chinese Hebrew
Due to convergent evolution, Irtan Chinese/SEA Hebrew is identical to Tsarfati Hebrew pronounced in the Standard Ăn Yidiș accent, except
- samekh = sin = /s/
- Resh is always Mandarin r
- Qamatz is the same as Mandarin o or wo
- /h/, /ħ/ and /x/ are merged
- Epenthetic [ə~ɛ] is common and is always used for coda consonants except /ʔ ʕ/
- Shva na is [a]
Genesis 1:1 ba·rei·XI·se bo·RUO ê·lu·HI·me EI·se ha·xiuo·MA·yi·me va·EI·se huo·O·rê·ze
A Tiberian niqqud-based Chinese Hebrew reading tradition is detailed in the 18th century treatise 塔納赫之正讀法 (Tǎnàhè zhī Zhèngdúfǎ 'The Correct Reading Method for the Tanakh'; might need to change the transcription of Tanakh to the contemporary Mandarin phonology), which may have been translated from Judeo-Mandarin.
Old Tsarfati Hebrew
Old Tsarfati Hebrew was used during Proto-Ăn Yidiș times and is the source of early Hebrew loans in Ăn Yidiș (before the pronunciation was re-standardized according to Tiberian niqqud, resulting in what is today called Tsarfati Hebrew). It is noticeably less conservative than Tiberian Hebrew, for example merging the emphatic series and the voiced series and merging patach with qamatz gadol, even though it keeps some older distinctions lost in Tiberian Hebrew such as samekh vs sin.
It has the following sound changes from PSem:
- emphatics and alveolar /r/ are kept
- ś/s þ š > Basque z, Basque s, š (written as shin left dot, shin middle dot, shin right dot)
- z ð > voiced Basque z, voiced Basque s (the latter becomes Tamil zh or retroflex L in some readings)
- Ayn and ghayn are still merged, as well as ħ and x.
- Qamatz is always /a/ as in Sephardi the and Palestinian traditions.
Comparison
Dror Yikra
Dror Yikra is a medieval Shabbat piyyut, in our timeline one of the earliest piyyutim to use an Arabic-derived meter.
Disclaimer: Piyyutim are thick with biblical allusions so they're a bitch to translate. I'm sure I made mistakes.
[X] denotes "something that has the same reflex as X in our Tiberian Hebrew."
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Hebrew (Tiberian) |
Proto-Tsarfati |
Tsarfati (Standard Ăn Yidiș accent) |
English (What Inthar got from an Israeli site explaining piyyutim) |
Yedid Nefesh
Yedid Nefesh ("Friend of the Soul") is a 16th-century Shabbat piyyut originally from the Sephardi (in the Irta timeline, Yevani) tradition. In our timeline Ashkenazi Jews sing a slightly different version; I use the Ashkenazi version here to illustrate the difference between various Hebrew reading traditions of Ăn Yidiș-speaking Jews in Irta.
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Hebrew (Tiberian) |
Standard Ăn Yidiș accent |
Ballmer Ăn Yidiș accent |
|
English |
Irtan Hebrew poetry
Hebrew dán díreach
Some Irtan Modern Hebrew revivalist poets wrote their Hebrew poetry in meters inspired by the Irish dán díreach.
Assumes penult stress like Hebraeo-Ăn Yidiș
Stanzas are quatrains with a fixed number of syllables per line (usually 7-10)
Alliteration works on a stressed-syllable basis; various meters with patterns of line-final rhyme, alliteration, internal rhyme and non-line-final rhymes between lines
For rhyming, vowels must agree from the stressed syllable onwards, and consonant groups must match (however, in segolates, the vowel of the unstressed final syllable is ignored; so péle 'wonder' and qémaħ 'flour' rhyme)
Rhyming consonant groups:
- Qoph, teth and tsade
- Dageshed beth, gimel and daleth
- Dageshed kaf, pe, and tav
- Undageshed kaf, pe, and tav
- Undageshed beth, gimel, daleth; Undageshed lamedh, mem, nun, resh
- Dageshed l, m, n
- Shin, sin, samekh, zayin
- Aleph, he, heth, ayin, yud, vav (null final belongs to this group)
- ʔáni u-Phángur hallǻbhån,
- kol ʔíš bimălákhto ʕǻbhådh. (pausal form of ʕåbhadh 'he worked')
- "I and the white Pangur,
- Each [of us] has worked in his craft"
- Pángur ėno bi măkanė;
- Hu bă-ša3šu3åv yith3anėgh.
- "Pangur does not envy me;
- He delights in his playing."