[Avodah] Mesorah

[Zev Sero]

Micha Berger wrote:

> I mention all this because in Bavli accent of the 20th cent, the bege"d
> kefe"t refuyot are aspirated plosives. IOW, sound of the letter "bhet"
> is like that of a "bet" but breathier. There is reason to believe this
> is ancient, like the gemara's caution against stringing together "eisev
> besadekha", which is a real issue with "eisebh besedekha", but not with a
> "vet".
> 
> Which means that we need to understand R' Acha bar Yaaqov. It seems he
> himself -- like nearly all of us (any Teimanim in the chevrah?) -- spoke
> a Hebrew in which there was no dalet that can be stretched out. It would
> therefore be easily arguable that he was saying that the dalet of echadh
> was an exception even for those of us who do not normally use that sound.

It's not just temanim who did/do a dalet refuyah like the consonant at
the end of "breathe".  R Yehuda Halevi compared a bee's buzzing to the
sound of someone lengthening "echadh" in Shema.  So either this was the
common custom in Spain of his time, or else it was known and taught as
the meaning of "lengthening the dhaleth", but not actually practised. 


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Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
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