# בין הצלילים



## OsehAlyah

I hear this expression in many many songs and would like to know what it means.
I'm not sure if I can post links to shironet.mako.co.il, but doing a search for this expression there will yield a whole lot of hits. 

תודה מראש


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## arielipi

Its pretty much like בין השורות.


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## tFighterPilot

It means "between the sounds"


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## OsehAlyah

arielipi said:


> Its pretty much like בין השורות.


Asking what בין השורות means was going to be my next thread.  



tFighterPilot said:


> It means "between the sounds"


Thank you tFP but I knew what the literal translation was, before I posted the question. The expression appears so often in songs that I thought it would have some other meaning


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## Tararam

לקרוא בין השורות = "to read between the lines" = to understand something/to reach a conclusion from something that wasn't explicitly mentioned.
There's another version of the expression using the Aramaic word for שורות which is "שיטין".

It can be used without "לקרוא" as well:
"בין השורות הוא אמר שהוא לא מעוניין" = "He didn't explicitly say he wasn't interested, but I understood that listening to him."

"בין הצלילים" could mean the same thing figuratively, if not literally describing something which is "between the sounds/notes".


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## OsehAlyah

OK just realized something. The phrase I was hearing was בין הצללים and not בין הצלילים. 
Which literally translates to Between the Shadows. Which I'm guessing means. Incognito, unnoticed, ignored and such
Is that about right? Anything I missed?


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## arielipi

About right.


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## taufik

Is the pronunciation of בין (between) "beyn" or "ben"? I think it's the former because otherwise it would sound the same as "son".


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## Drink

taufik said:


> Is the pronunciation of בין (between) "beyn" or "ben"? I think it's the former because otherwise it would sound the same as "son".



Some people pronounce בין and בן differently, with בין as "beyn" and בן as "ben", but this distinction is actually artificial. In proper Mizrahi speech, they should _both_ be pronounced "ben", and in proper Ashkenazi speech, they should _both_ be pronounced "beyn". How it _should_ be pronounced in Modern Hebrew is up for debate I guess, but I recommend pronouncing בן only as "ben" and בין as either "ben" or "beyn".


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## taufik

That's really weird! I don't know enough about Mizrahi (Arabic) pronunciation and Ashkenazi (Yiddish) pronunciation to understand what you just said.


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## bazq

In Modern Hebrew the standalone "בין" is always "ben".
The suffixed forms can be pronounced with a diphthong "ey" - "beynenu" (between us), but also "benenu".

I'd recommend always using "ben" whether its בין, or בינך/בינינו/בינכם etc.


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## Drink

taufik said:


> That's really weird! I don't know enough about Mizrahi (Arabic) pronunciation and Ashkenazi (Yiddish) pronunciation to understand what you just said.



Ashkenazi pronunciation is not Yiddish, just to be clear. And Mizrahi is not Arabic. There are sounds in Mizrahi Hebrew that don't exist in Arabic and vice-versa.

But what I said is rather simple, you shouldn't need to know anything about Ashkenazi and Mizrahi pronunciations to understand it. Try re-reading it a few times carefully.


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## taufik

I asked a native speaker about בין today. She said:

1. If בין is used with a suffix, you _must_ pronounce it beyn. It is wrong to say "benenu" (between us).

2. Otherwise, בין may or may not be pronounced beyn; it depends on the level of formality. She said "beyn ish ve ishto" (between a man and his wife) is the formal way to say it while "ben ish ve ishto" is more colloquial.


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