[Avodah] Historu of Havarah

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Dec 20, 2006 at 01:02:25AM -0500, T613K at aol.com wrote about
"siboles":
: Some people say it was not a different accent but a speech defect  that was 
: common among the people of Ephraim.

I'm not sure if it's possible for it to be a physical speech defect. The
sounds /s/ vs /sh/ differ only by tongue placement. You can turn an /s/
into a /sh/ making approximately the same sound (same to my ear) by
constricting the air flow pretty much anywhere along the tongue. (I'll
pause while the reader inevitably experiments...) If they really lacked
the mobility for any of those placements to be possible, they would have
lost half the alphabet, not to mention having a hard time drinking. (It
does today fall to a speech therapist to teach the disabled these kinds
of eating skills.)

I would therefore think that if they had a speech defect, it would have
to have been learned, not biological. IOW, it would be a consequence
of the lack of sound in their language, not instead of it. Like the way
Russian immigrants struggle to pronounce a /h/, and many end up unable to
keep it away from the sound of their ches. Or the difficulties Japanese
speakers have distinguishing /r/ and /l/. Or Israelis between /ee/ and /i/
("heat" vs "hit").

:-)BBii + .iii|iiii !
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             When memories exceed dreams,
micha at aishdas.org        The end is near.
http://www.aishdas.org                   - Rav Moshe Sherer
Fax: (270) 514-1507