# אבא, stress



## ServusMagnaeReginae

What is/was the correct stress in this word?  I am aware that in modern Hebrew the stress is common on the first syllable, but I wondered whether this reflects an Ashkenazi pronunciation.


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## origumi

It's pronounced with stress on the first syllable, I don't think any modern Hebrew speaker has a different way. See for example this (English) Wikipedia article where the stress is marked explicitly. Nevertheless, אבא is Aramaic for "the father" (as also mentioned in the article) and then we need to examine the Aramaic origin. According to this Academia article, סבא (grandfather) was pronounced with stress on the last syllable (and v rather than geminated b, another difficulty). I guess this applies to אבא as well and therefore there's a change from Aramaic (and likely Gemaraic Hebrew, when this word was borrowed) to Modern Hebrew. I don't know when in these 1500 years the stress has changed.

And yet in the popular children song (authored some 80 years ago) we sing אבא הלך לעבודה stressing the last syllable. Why? Either it was modified to meet the rhythm, or suffered over-correction (well, maybe correct correction but against the ubiquitous habit), or a result of good Hebrew/Aramaic knowledge mixed with conservatism.


Added: I see in Onqelos (THE Aramaic version of the Pentateuch) that סָבָא is used as a definite  adjective (= old) while אַבָּא is a definite noun (= father), so my  assumption above that one can be deduced from the other is doubtful.


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## Drink

Based on the traditional vocalization of Jewish Aramaic texts (which may not in fact reflect any actual historical pronunciation), the stress should be on the last syllable. Obviously the Ashkenazi pronunciation shifted it back to the first syllable. Yemenite pronunciation has no distinctive stress, so the only test would be to find out how the Sephardim pronounced this word before Ashkenazi influence.


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## hadronic

Yemenite has no distinctive stress ? But what stress pattern do they use by default, and how do they distinguish pairs like Okhel / oKHEL,  etc.. ?


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## Drink

hadronic said:


> Yemenite has no distinctive stress ? But what stress pattern do they use by default, and how do they distinguish pairs like Okhel / oKHEL,  etc.. ?



Having no distinctive stress means all syllables have about equal weight, similar to French or Czech. As for the words אֹכֶל and אוֹכֵל, they have different vowels: the former has a segol, and the latter has a tzere. In Yemenite Hebrew, the segol merged with the patach and shva na`, so these words are pronounced, respectively, [ʔœχal] and [ʔœχel] (or in some dialects [ʔeχal] and [ʔeχel]). However, in Ashkenazi Hebrew, which almost always has penultimate stress and reduces the post-tonic vowels, these words are pronounced identically as [ˈɔɪχəl], [ˈɔχəl], or [ˈeɪχəl], depending on dialect. Sephardi Hebrew, on the other hand, merges more of the vowels, but preserves the stress, and so they pronounce these words, respectively, as [ˈʔoχel] and [ʔoˈχel].


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## hadronic

No having distinctive stress doesn't mean not having a stress pattern at all. French has a stress pattern (at the phrase level). Arabic also, doesn't have a distinctive (phonemic) stress but does have stress of some sort :  KUtubu - kuTUbuhu (books - his books), entirely predictable from alternance of heavy and light syllables. AFAIK.
So regardless of the different phonems used in Yemenite (thank you for that explanation), what is the actually applied stress on those words ?


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## Drink

hadronic said:


> No having distinctive stress doesn't mean not having a stress pattern at all. French has a stress pattern (at the phrase level). Arabic also, doesn't have a distinctive (phonemic) stress but does have stress of some sort :  KUtubu - kuTUbuhu (books - his books), entirely predictable from alternance of heavy and light syllables. AFAIK.
> So regardless of the different phonems used in Yemenite (thank you for that explanation), what is the actually applied stress on those words ?



Well first of all, Yemenite Hebrew is not used for communication. So it is hard to say what the stress would have been at phrase level in casual speech. In liturgical use, the "phrase"-level stress simply fits the melody or rhythm. Standard Arabic has predictable stress, but the stress is still distinctive (and in fact causes minor vowel reductions such as partial shortening of unstressed long vowels). Many Arabic dialects actually have phonemic stress.

EDIT: If it helps clarify things any further, the words בָּֽנוּ "in us" and בָּנֽוּ "they built" are pronounced identically in Yemenite Hebrew as [bɔnu] (in Modern Israeli Hebrew, they are [ˈbanu] and [baˈnu], respectively).


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## zaw

Given that the א at the end of אבא (my father) and אמא (my mother) is actually the 1st person singular pronoun, shouldn't the words be stressed on the first syllable?


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## Drink

First of all, it is not the first person singular pronoun; this pronoun does not have this form in either Hebrew or Aramaic. Second of all, even if it were, why would that mean it should be stressed on the first syllable?

I was actually reading something about the origins of the usage of אבא, אמא, סבא, and סבתא in Modern Hebrew. The story is actually much more convoluted than it originally seems. I'll try to remember where I read it and post the source.


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