# Who vocalizes curses properly?



## trigel

For example, how does לעזאזל sound to you when correctly vocalized (laazazel)?


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## arielipi

What do you mean by how does it sound to me?


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## Tararam

LA-A-ZA-ZEL
I believe you are wondering about people pronouncing it LA-ZA-ZEL?


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## C_J

I pronounce it laaz'a*zel*, or la*ʿ*az'a*zel* when I feel like it.

An  example that's virtually always mispronounced, would be many of the plural imperatives, and some female imperatives (including curses). For some reason people really seem to strugle with them... 
The pattern that's used usually with qal: סתום > סְתְ*מי*!> סְתְ*מו*! שתוק! > שְתְ*קי*! > שְתְ*קו*! I heard some people also use *שְתוֹ*קי! > *שְתוֹ*קוּ!/*סְתוֹ*מי! *סְתוֹ*מוּ ! (which is incidentally correct... in Aramaic...)
hitpa'el: תְפַּ*קֵד*<תְפַּקְ*דוּ*, nif'al: often conjucated as if it were pi'el: "להיכנס" - כנס!> כנסו

And I don't think that most people will immediately understand what התפקדנה/סתומנה/שתוקנה/היכנסנה! even mean (but then again, these are optional)...

I didn't include correct pronunciations here, because I assume that everyone here already knows them.


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## trigel

No, I don't have any questions about the correct pronunciation and I'm aware that people commonly pronounce לעזאזל like le-azazel or l-azazel סתמי as 'stmi, not sitmi, etc. Sorry for being unclear. I was asking about the connotation the correct pronunciation of curses has.

EDIT: Wait, "many plural imperatives and some female imperatives"? Are plural imperatives really misvocalized more frequently than feminine singular imperatives?


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## arielipi

Its not weird to hear correct pronunciation of curses.


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## C_J

trigel said:


> No, I don't have any questions about the correct pronunciation and I'm aware that people commonly pronounce לעזאזל like le-azazel or l-azazel סתמי as 'stmi, not sitmi, etc. Sorry for being unclear. I was asking about the connotation the correct pronunciation of curses has.
> 
> EDIT: Wait, "many plural imperatives and some female imperatives"? Are plural imperatives really misvocalized more frequently than feminine singular imperatives?



The connotation the correct pronunciation of curses has? In comparison to the connotation the incorrect pronunciation has?

I know that this is kind of weird, but since more people seem to use imperatives now, it looks like they manage to remember and use the singular ones correctly more often than they do with the plural ones... Which are often then substituted by 2nd plural future instead (so technically, plural imperatives are pronounced correctly more often than the female ones ).
This creates a pattern like  שנה>שנה>תשנו, סגור>סיגרי>תסגרו. Some of these are very common: לך>לכי>תלכו 
Many people believe that imperatives are rude incomparison to 2nd future forms, so maybe this is what causing this weird usage.

BTW, I'm only pointing out some general observations from my personal experience. Non standard pronunciations vary greatly between various groups and even geographically. I know this is funny, considering how small Israel is, but I noticed some peculiar differences; for instance, some areas pronounce tzire predominantly as "ey" (tey, bey*tza*, bey*tzim* תה, ביצה, ביצים) while others eliminate all instances of "ey" altogether (te, *be*tza, *be*tzim) making ביצה and בצע homophones.


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## trigel

> Many people believe that imperatives are ruse incomparison to 2nd future forms, so maybe this is what causing this weird usage.



LOL, when the future, not the imperative is used to tell someone to die. I thought the future imperative didn't have the soft connotation anymore, it's just "the imperative" now.



> some areas pronounce tzire predominantly as "ey" (tey, bey*tza**, bey**tzim*)


Is there any rule on when an "e" in a loanword is a segol or a tzere or is it completely arbitrary? And some people are shifting stress to penultimate in all words? If so then WTF...


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## C_J

trigel said:


> LOL, when the future, not the imperative is used to tell someone  to die. I thought the future imperative didn't have the soft connotation  anymore, it's just "the imperative" now.



Well, not in this example, but rather in גש!/תיגש, סגור/תיסגור, and the  like. That's why it's also commonly used with נא/אנא in formal settings.  My lashon teacher would say "אנא פתחו את הספר בעמ' 24/בנות, צאנה מיד  !"



trigel said:


> Is there any rule on when an "e" in a loanword is a segol or a tzere or is it completely arbitrary?



Yes, there are rules: http://hebrew-academy.huji.ac.il/hahlatot/TheTranscription/Documents/ATAR2.pdf



trigel said:


> And some people are shifting stress to penultimate in all words? If so then WTF...



LOL IKR? Luckily, it's not like they shift the stress in _all_ words, it's just common in some cases where they dropped the tzire... Maybe this is a Mizrahi/Yemenite influence, like "tzirey" is Ashkenazi...

The standard pronunciation is "te, bey*tza*, bey*tzim*" by the way.


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## Albert Schlef

I'm curious:

How have you people had it ingrained in you that it's pronounced LA-azazel and not LE-azazel?

I mean, it's probably not a word learned from books but from your mother (when she forgets to turn off the gas and burns the food) and I imagine mothers at these instances don't stop to check Leviticus 16:10 for the correct pronunciation...


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## trigel

אנחנו פשוט יודעים שהתנועה הראשונה ב-"עזאזל" היא חטף-פתח...?
</stam>

Or from your literate fathers? Or people really did pronounce more things correctly back then? Or we're just the kind of people who care the most about correct pronunciation of anything and everything...

There might be something similar about encountering "ar*e" deliberately used in an American English text. Is correct pronunciation of curses "special" or "literary" or anything?


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## Tararam

Azazel absorbed the connotation of "hell".
Since there is "only" one "hell", and as we say "La gehenom", the word Azazel often takes the prefix LA.

At least that's the way I see it.

Nonetheless, I shall send my mother a harsh complaint note regarding this issue... 
Oh mother...


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## Albert Schlef

Albert Schlef said:


> I mean, it's probably not a word learned from books but from your mother (when she forgets to turn off the gas and burns the food) and I imagine mothers at these instances don't stop to check Leviticus 16:10 for the correct pronunciation...



On second thought, I now recall that when my mom is angry at my dad she says "LA-azazel ito!!!"

I distincly remember a "LA" because she says it slowly.

Interesting.

So how have our mothers had it ingrained in *them*?

  Perhaps they learned it from *their* mothers? Would this suggest that there was an unbroken chain from Sinai till today? ;-) (just kidding!)



trigel said:


> אנחנו פשוט יודעים שהתנועה הראשונה ב-"עזאזל" היא חטף-פתח...?



Did you say this in jest?


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## Albert Schlef

Tararam said:


> Azazel absorbed the connotation of "hell".
> Since there is "only" one "hell", and as we say "La gehenom", [...]



  Incidentally, why do we say LA-gehenom and not LE-gehenom? After all, we say LE-tel-aviv and not LA-tel-aviv, right? Why dont' we use "gehenom" in the same manner? Isn't "gehenom" simply a name of a place?


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## C_J

Albert Schlef said:


> I'm curious:
> 
> How have you people had it ingrained in you that it's pronounced LA-azazel and not LE-azazel?
> 
> I mean, it's probably not a word learned from books but from your mother (when she forgets to turn off the gas and burns the food) and I imagine mothers at these instances don't stop to check Leviticus 16:10 for the correct pronunciation...



How have you had it ingrained in you that you pronounce "C" as "K" before a/o/u and as "S" before e/i (this is just an example, I'm fully aware that there are exceptions)?
Do you run to check it in the dictionary? Do you remember the rule? Or fdo you infer it from similar examples?

The niqqud of the בכ"ל that occurs before a hataf, is the same as the hataf.


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## trigel

Well then how did you learn that azazel has a xataf...?

And BTW how often did you hear va'ani, va'anaxnu? (Okay you probably learned va'ani from vocalized books and education)


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## Tararam

First off, we say LI-yerushalim.
Secondly, cities/countries don't take definite articles (HA tel-aviv, for example). 

I believe we say LA gehenom because ה"א הידיעה is integrated in it.

Edit: We also say "LA carmel" and "LA golan".
Geographic areas which take the definite article?


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## C_J

Albert Schlef said:


> Incidentally, why do we say LA-gehenom and  not LE-gehenom? After all, we say LE-yerushalayim and not  LA-yerushalayim, right? Why dont' we use "gehenom" in the same manner?  Isn't "gehenom" simply a name of a place?



le-gehenom/la-gehenom depends on context (if there's he hayedia or  not. it's not integrated, compare with: גן עדן. these are not proper nouns), bi-rushalaim (בכ"ל before yod with shwa = בכ"ל gets hiriq, yod  loses shwa and therefore no longer pronounced), le-Tel-Aviv (tel doesn't have hataf, probably tzire).
Ani and anahnu have hataf.

Since  we don't differentiate between vowel length, it's difficult to  know for sure. Hataf can be identified by some signs: nowadays it  occurs mostly in אהח"ע, it cannot appear in a stressed syllable. Many  cases can be ruled out by mishqalim. It's more probable to occur in an open syllable.
Hmm... Unless There are more clues that I can't remember now, I'd say that in this case, memorising is probably how we now it's a hataf.


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## trigel

Why is te tzere?


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## C_J

trigel said:


> Why is te tzere?



Just a hunch I guess. Well, it's not a hataf segol obviously. Also, it's declensions "tilim, tile-" give me the impression that there was a tzere in the original (I don't remember if there's a rule for this though).
I checked it in the dictionary, tel indeed has tzere.


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## trigel

.לא תל, תה


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## Tararam

תה has a segol, doesn't it?


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## C_J

No, te has tzere.
loanwoards are usually marked with the "long" vowel niqqud


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## origumi

Tararam said:


> First off, we say LI-yerushalim.


And we say Li-Yrushalaim.

Regarding לַעֲזָאזֵל - this Biblical concept and word is pronounced as written in the Bible several times.


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