# When did the Ashkenazi pronunciation of soft ת as "s" and אוֹ and אֵ as diphthongs originate?



## Squee100

Just out of curiosity; title says it all.


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## berndf

ת = /s/ is what you expect how a German speaker to pronounce a _th_. The origin of those two diphthongs is not really known. Slavic influence is likely as the phenomenon is absent in Western Yiddish. The the discussion of your other question.


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## Squee100

berndf said:


> ת = /s/ is what you expect how a German speaker to pronounce a _th_. The origin of those two diphthongs is not really known. Slavic influence is likely as the phenomenon is absent in Western Yiddish. The the discussion of your other question.


I asked _when_, not how/why.


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## Drink

I suspect that ת merged with the OHG/MHG "z" (I'm not sure exactly how it was pronounced, but it also derives from /t/, so it might make sense; but I could be wrong). If that's the case then whenever that sound merged with the voiceless "s" is the time you're looking for.

As for those two vowels I have no idea when, but it was probably much later. I strongly disagree with berndf that it could have been due to Slavic influence, since nothing of the sort is found in Slavic. However, diphthongization of long monophthongs is fairly common. Similar changes are found in many other languages. The shift from [oː] to [ɔj], probably went through intermediate stages as follows: [oː] > [øː] > [øy] > [ɔj]. Or perhaps [oː] > [ou] > [oy] > [ɔj], or something like that.


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## Squee100

Can anyone provide/point me to very old (16th century or earlier) examples of Ashkenazi pronunciation (well, transliteration)?


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## Drink

That won't tell you anything. 16th century descriptions will likely be of Western Ashkenazi which did not go through those vowel changes. While the ת = /s/ is certain to have already happened much much earlier.


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## Squee100

I said 16th century _or earlier_; how far back does ת = /s/ go, and can someone provide/point me to a manuscript of the time? I posted this thread just because I was curious about that.


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## Drink

Squee100 said:


> I said 16th century _or earlier_; how far back does ת = /s/ go, and can someone provide/point me to a manuscript of the time? I posted this thread just because I was curious about that.



Linguistics was not very popular in Medieval Europe. The only kinds of evidence there could be are from spellings of loanwords from Ashkenazi Hebrew into non-Jewish languages.


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## berndf

Squee100 said:


> I asked _when_, not how/why.


Oh, sorry.


Drink said:


> I suspect that ת merged with the OHG/MHG "z"


I would think so as well. In modern transcription conventions of MHG it is actually _ȥ_ as in _ûȥ_ or _waȥȥer_. This sound was like the modern _s_. The MHG _s_ was still like the Dutch or Iberian Spanish _s_.


Squee100 said:


> how far back does ת = /s/ go, and can someone provide/point me to a manuscript of the time?


I am not sure how a medieval manuscript would help you. You would not find any explanation how to pronounce ת. The oldest Yiddish text is the Worms Mahzor Worms (_Wormser Machsor_ in German) from the 1270s. The general assumption is that the pronunciation of ת was already like _ȥ_ at that time.


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## Squee100

What's the oldest surviving text describing the pronunciation of Ashkenazi Hebrew/Yiddish?


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## berndf

Squee100 said:


> What's the oldest surviving text describing the pronunciation of Ashkenazi Hebrew/Yiddish?


I don't think any pre-modern such texts exist. You could use the usual methods for reconstructing historic mergers: a) look for spelling mistakes (Semekh-Thav confusions) and b) in poetry look for rhymes that require the merger.


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## Drink

I think I remember seeing somewhere in Google Books a notebook of a Christian learning Hebrew. I don't remember what century it was from, but I'm guessing 17-19th. He may have transliterated words, and maybe that would help?


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## berndf

Drink said:


> I'm guessing 17-19th.


But that is modern. That would not be terribly interesting, would it.


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## Drink

berndf said:


> But that is modern. That would not be terribly interesting, would it.



He's asking what the earliest description would be. Also, I may be wrong about the time frame.


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## berndf

OK. Is it _Johannes Buxtorf _you were looking for? He lived in the late 16th and early 17th century. His correspondence was published in the 19th century. I would be surprised if it contained any linguistic details. Unfortunately you cannot search inside because the OCR didn't work well on the blackletter script.


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## Drink

berndf said:


> OK. Is it _Johannes Buxtorf _you were looking for? He lived in the late 16th and early 17th century. His correspondence was published in the 19th century. I would be surprised if it contained any linguistic details. Unfortunately you cannot search inside because the OCR didn't work well on the blackletter script.



What I was thinking of was a notebook where the author wrote out practice exercises and verb conjugations and things like that. I think near the beginning he wrote out the letters of the alphabet and what sounds they make. I accidentally came across it when searching Google Books for various particular forms of verbs with object suffixes. Maybe I can find it that way again.


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## berndf

Drink said:


> What I was thinking of was a notebook where the author wrote out practice exercises and verb conjugations and things like that. I think near the beginning he wrote out the letters of the alphabet and what sounds they make. I accidentally came across it when searching Google Books for various particular forms of verbs with object suffixes. Maybe I can find it that way again.


Please do so. That would be very interesting.


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## Squee100

Drink said:


> What I was thinking of was a notebook where the author wrote out practice exercises and verb conjugations and things like that. I think near the beginning he wrote out the letters of the alphabet and what sounds they make. I accidentally came across it when searching Google Books for various particular forms of verbs with object suffixes. Maybe I can find it that way again.


I agree with berndf. Please do so; it would indeed be interesting.


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## Drink

I was perusing through Weinreich's _History of the Yiddish Language_, and in the section on the Hebrew component, he talks about various descriptions and evidence of Ashkenazi pronunciation pretty much all throughout history. I don't know where you can find these texts, or what they are (perhaps they're cited in the notes at the end of the book, I'll check that later). Still if you are serious about the history of the Ashkenazi pronunciation, I definitely recommend you take a look at this book.


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## Squee100

Drink said:


> I was perusing through Weinreich's _History of the Yiddish Language_, and in the section on the Hebrew component, he talks about various descriptions and evidence of Ashkenazi pronunciation pretty much all throughout history. I don't know where you can find these texts, or what they are (perhaps they're cited in the notes at the end of the book, I'll check that later). Still if you are serious about the history of the Ashkenazi pronunciation, I definitely recommend you take a look at this book.


It's not available online for free, is it? Also, what about that 17-19th century notebook?


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## Drink

Squee100 said:


> It's not available online for free, is it?



I doubt it. You can check WorldCat to see if it is available in a library near you.



Squee100 said:


> Also, what about that 17-19th century notebook?



I couldn't find it.


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## Squee100

Drink said:


> I couldn't find it.


Could you keep looking? It's okay if not, but I'd still really like to see it.


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## Squee100

The oldest I've found is a reference to the pronunciation _bereſsis boro_ from the source below, which dates to 1570.
M. IOANNE FORTIO AVTORE. I. De Diuina visitatione nostri, qua DEVS antequam poenas meritas irroget, clementer nos ad resipiscendum inuitat II. Breuis admonitio de tribus vocibus, quibus pleriq[ue] Christiani male vtuntur, videlicet his, Alleluia, Osanna, & Noczri. III. Explicatio Intimationis Hebraeae, in qua rationes quaedam ponuntur, ex quibus etiam nemine monente videre licet, quod translationes Sacrorum Bibliorum ex linqua Hebraea in alias, vt nunc sunt, insuffucientes & imperfectae sint, id est, non per omnia vbiq[ue] in omnibus rebus Hebraicam veritatem referentes eiq[ue] absolute correspondentes. IIII. Mysteria quaedam Sacrae Scripturae in vocibus &c. Hebraicis sita, aperiuntur. V. De nomine DEI Tetragrammato, rectene id communiter, Iehova, Ioua, vel Iouem nuncupent. VI. De parte principali Grammatices Habraeae, lectionem veram & propriam ex ipsis Hebraicis fontibus docente

Searching in Hebrew/Yiddish, Latin, and German turned up nothing between 1300 and 1499. Can anyone find a manuscript that old which references the Ashkenazi pronunciation?


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## Squee100

I found one! It's from around 1510:
16th-Century Pattern Book for Scribes


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