[Avodah] Historu of Havarah

[Micha Berger]

I was learning IM OCh 2:5 as part of researching sources we once
discussed to find RMF's position on eilu va'eilu. (See 
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol21/v21n015.shtml#02> for my first post
based on this round of IM hunting.)

Kedrarko beqodesh, only one havarah is amitis, but any mesoretic havarah
is kosher (eg for chalitzah, where the qeri'ah is me'aqeves).

I am not sure what this means. For example, we know that true Ashkenaz
havarah had a distinct ayin. (Ask any boy nicknamed "Yankl".) It dropped
out because the local languages had no such sound. Is this change
"real", or is the mesorah with an /ng/ ayin? And once we say we should
revert this shift, how many are similar but simply too old to know?
And what about sheva na and sheva nach? RAKotler pasqens about them, but
one could argue that Ashkenazi havarah pronounces them interchangably.
Again, what defines a valid shift, and what should be corrected?


RMF also makes some historical claims that are hard for me to understand:

1- He says that from Matan Torah until churban bayis rishon there was
only one havarah. What about sheivet Ephraim, who couldn't say the /sh/
of "shibolet"?

I would have thought every sheivet pronounced Hebrew distinctly.

2- RMF writes that Ashkenazi havaros enjoy a rov, and in fact "ubiperat
shebenei Ashqenaz hayu harov bekhol hadoros".

Genetic tests on Ashkenazim (eg studies on Tay Sachs) show that a thousand
year ago, there were amazingly few Ashkenazi families. (And in fact, 40%
of Ashkenazim are tracable to just four women of that period, according
to Dr. Doron Behar's PhD thesis. These women have rare mDNA.)

So, there was almost certainly a time when Ashkenazi havarah didn't have
anything close to a majority of users.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             "The worst thing that can happen to a
micha at aishdas.org        person is to remain asleep and untamed."
http://www.aishdas.org          - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm
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