# Pronunciation of Shva in Modern Hebrew



## arielipi

*Moderator note: Split from here **in response to this:*


berndf said:


> Modern Israeli Hebrew has the Spanish 5-vowel system, i.e. quantity doesn't matter; mid-close/mid-open vowels are merged in the middle; no central vowels (Schwa is either mute or /e/).


*End moderator note.


*Objection: Schwa is certainly pronounced. Hi*t*pa'el, or did I not get what you meant?


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## berndf

arielipi said:


> Objection: Schwa is certainly pronounced. Hi*t*pa'el, or did I not get what you meant?


I said "either mute or /e/", e.g. וגם is pronounced /ve'gam/ and not */və'gam/.


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## arielipi

But Hitpael is pronounced /hit'pa'el/
Schwa on t


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## berndf

arielipi said:


> But Hitpael is pronounced /hit'pa'el/
> Schwa on t


I am not sure what you mean. As I hear it, I would transcribe "Hitpael" as [hitʰpa'ʔel] (the [e] should have a lowering mark but I can't get this in here). Do you mean the aspiration of the /t/? I don't hear a vowel there.


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## tFighterPilot

There is a slight confusion coming from the fact that Schwa means two different things. Most linguistic know it as the vowel [ə], while most Hebrew speaker know it as no vowel.


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## berndf

You agree with my description "either mute or /e/"?


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## tFighterPilot

berndf said:


> You agree with my description "either mute or /e/"?


If by /e/ you mean mid front unrounded vowel, then yeah, of course. MIH only has 5 vowels. Of course they might be slightly different in different places, but there's no particular distinction between אֶ אֵ and a non mute אְ


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## berndf

tFighterPilot said:


> If by /e/ you mean mid front unrounded vowel


Indeed.


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## origumi

tFighterPilot said:


> If by /e/ you mean mid front unrounded vowel, then yeah, of course. MIH only has 5 vowels. Of course they might be slightly different in different places, but there's no particular distinction between אֶ אֵ and a non mute אְ


Schwa-na is a shorter "e" sound sometimes. Somewhere in the middle between zero and full vowel, depending on the consonants nearby and on the speaker.


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## berndf

origumi said:


> Schwa-na is a shorter "e" sound sometimes. Somewhere in the middle between zero and full vowel, depending on the consonants nearby and on the speaker.


Agreed. But this in non-phonemic. Do you agree?


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## origumi

berndf said:


> Agreed. But this in non-phonemic. Do you agree?


Even more: schwa-na (too) is unstable in modern Hebrew and speakers may make "delibarate mistakes" in order to be more clear to the listener while speaking "correctly" in other circumstsances, for the very same words. This "deliberate mistake" would usually be lengthening the schwa to be a full "e" - maybe because Hebrew speakers have (for millenia?) problems with vowel-less consonant clusters.


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## arbelyoni

> Even more: schwa-na (too) is unstable in modern Hebrew and speakers may make "delibarate mistakes" in order to be more clear to the listener while speaking "correctly" in other circumstsances, for the very same words. This "deliberate mistake" would usually be lengthening the schwa to be a full "e" - maybe because Hebrew speakers have (for millenia?) problems with vowel-less consonant clusters.


Can you provide examples?


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## origumi

arbelyoni said:


> Can you provide examples?


We can take three words of the "qtula" pattern: קְבוּצָה, מְאוּרָה , מְלוּכָה, and see what's their typical pronunciation.

קְבוּצָה - qvu-tza. Zero-length schwa
 מְאוּרָה - me-u-ra. Full-length schwa
מְלוּכָה - mlu-kha or me-lu-kha. Variable-length schwa

מְלוּכָה is usually pronounced with zero- of half-length schwa in good vocal environment. However, with a lot of noise or on bad phone line, the "m" and "l" are not easily distinguishable and one may lengthen the schwa to make it a delimiter between the two.


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## tFighterPilot

The thing about the word מְלוּכָה is that it isn't actually used day to day speech. I don't know about you, but in none of my phone conversations (granted, there haven't been that many) I've ever needed to use this word. Further more, where it does occur it is usually preceded by ה (for example, בית המלוכה) and in that case the Schwa is pretty much always mute. There are simply some consonant clusters that Hebrew speakers don't like using when in the beginning of words, but do when they're preceded by a vowel. A good example would be the word ילדים, usually pronounced Yeladim in oppose to הילדים which is usually pronounced Hayladim. The cluster /kv/ is an example for a cluster that Hebrew speakers have no problem with. I think the problem is usually when the first consonant is a nasal one, but that's just my observation.


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## arbelyoni

I agree with tFighterPilot; I'm not familiar with the pronunciation of מלוכה as mlukha, unless it's preceded by a definition article: hamlukha.

Wikipedia sums up the rules of Shva in Modern Hebrew pretty well.


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## tFighterPilot

Here's me trying to make theories based on personal observation when everything is already written down... :-/


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## origumi

arbelyoni said:


> I agree with tFighterPilot; I'm not familiar with the pronunciation of מלוכה as mlukha, unless it's preceded by a definition article: hamlukha.
> 
> Wikipedia sums up the rules of Shva in Modern Hebrew pretty well.


I'm sorry, but the Wikipedia entry is missing an important point. Schwa-na (נע) is not stable in Hebrew. Sometimes even schwa-naḥ (נח) - see for example התמדְתי where the ד often but not always gets a vowel: hitmad*e*ti. There are vowel-pairs which result in zero-length vowel schwa-na on the former. Other result in full vowel. But in between there's a gray area. m-l is an example of this gray area, regardless of how common one says מלוכה in casual phone conversations. In this gray area the exact pronunciation depends on the conditions and the individual speaker.


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## arbelyoni

> I'm sorry, but the Wikipedia entry is missing an important point.  Schwa-na (נע) is not stable in Hebrew. Sometimes even schwa-naḥ (נח) -  see for example התמדְתי where the ד often but not always gets a vowel: hitmad*e*ti.  There are vowel-pairs which result in zero-length vowel schwa-na on the  former. Other result in full vowel. But in between there's a gray area.  m-l is an example of this gray area, regardless of how common one says  מלוכה in casual phone conversations. In this gray area the exact  pronunciation depends on the conditions and the individual speaker.


I agree that these rules aren't stable. התמדתי is pronounced either [hitmádeti] or [hitmádti], depending on the speaker and the phonological environment of the word.
This is the part I disagree with:


> מְלוּכָה is usually pronounced with zero- of  half-length schwa in good vocal environment. However, with a lot of  noise or on bad phone line, the "m" and "l" are not easily  distinguishable and one may lengthen the schwa to make it a delimiter  between the two.


The pronunciation of מלוכה as [mlukhá] sounds unnatural to me, unless it's used in a very fast, inattentive manner. I argue that the standard pronunciation of the cluster ml at the beginning of a word is [mel], with a full-length *e *sound: [melukhá]. When preceded by a vowel it may be reduced to [ml].

What do you mean by half-length schwa? A shorter/unstressed e sound? A mid-central vowel [ə]?


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