# אין



## dcx97

Hello,

An Israeli asked me, "מה חדש?" (What's new?)
I replied, "אין חדש." (There is nothing new.)
He said he couldn't understand me. I kept repeating myself, and eventually he figured out what I was trying to say.
He told me the word אין is pronounced "en" and rhymes with כן (yes), and that I was wrong to pronounce it "eyn". However, my textbook says it is pronounced "eyn" and gives no other pronunciation. What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance.


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## shalom00

I fail to see the difference.


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## dcx97

Do you think אין rhymes with כן?


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## shalom00

Yes. When you write "eyn", how do you mean that it is pronounced? I read "eyn" as a long "a" sound, same as אין and כן.
Am I missing something?


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## dcx97

Take a look at this.


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## shalom00

If I understood the French well enough, I don't agree. It is pronounced like veille.


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## dcx97

That's exactly what they're saying. They go on to say that אין should not rhyme with "peine".


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## shalom00

I understood the French to say it should not be pronounced neither like veille nor like peine.
I also think the difference between them is minor.


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## dcx97

No, it says that it should be pronounced like _veille_, not like _peine_.

Here is a native speaker's pronunciation:

Pronuncia di אין: come pronunciare אין in Ebraico, Yiddish

As you can tell, it does _not_ rhyme with כן.


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## shalom00

I really don't think the difference is significant.
I think the difference between people with different accents or who come from different places is more significant.


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## dcx97

If the difference were not significant I don't think my textbook would have gone out of its way to point it out.


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## Drink

The question is also who is speaking. Roughly speaking, older Ashkenazi speakers will say "eyn", while Sephardi speakers and younger Ashkenazi speakers will say "en".


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## dcx97

Oh, I see. I guess the pronunciation that rhymes with כן is more colloquial.


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## Drink

dcx97 said:


> Oh, I see. I guess the pronunciation that rhymes with כן is more colloquial.



I don't think it has anything to do with colloquialness.


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## dcx97

Thanks.


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## elroy

Most of the time I hear “en.”  “Eyn” is less common.


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## dcx97

I see. I guess the "ey" sound is gradually disappearing, at least in the colloquial language. I remember listening to an old recording of Hebrew speakers where they were pronouncing
איך אומרים...בעברית?
as
"eykh omrim (word) beivrit?"

Nowadays you'll hardly ever hear anyone pronounce the first word as "eykh". Everyone says "ekh". The same thing has happened to אין, I guess.


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## ystab

The pronunciation of Tsere Male (םֵי) varies as mentioned above. Yet there are some words that modern pronunciation tends to be "ey", like ביצה, שיבה and in construct: בני ישראל, פני מלאך


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## Drink

Even tsere chaser is sometimes "ey" in modern pronunciation, such as in תשע.


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## dcx97

Thanks.


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## Ali Smith

Can אין (there is no.../il n'y a de...) be used as a substitute for לא (no)?

אין הנחתום מעיד על עיסתו

I would have expected הנחתום לא מעיד על עיסתו.


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## Drink

In traditional grammar, אין is used to negate nominal predicates (including the active participle used as the present tense of a verb), while לא is used to negate finite verbs (i.e. non-participle forms).

Example:

אינני יודע, but לא ידעתי
אין האיש הזה יכול, but האיש הזה לא יוכל

In Modern Hebrew, there is a tendency to use לא for both of the above.


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## Ali Smith

Oh, I didn't know that. Thank you!
But why didn't the author place אין between הנחתום and מעיד?


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## Drink

As in my examples, אין must come before the subject, or be suffixed with a pronoun. Both of the following work:

- אין הנחתום מעיד
- הנחתום איננו/אינו מעיד


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