[Avodah] Pronunciation of Va-ye-chi

[D&E-H Bannett]

As those on the Mesorah sub-list of Avodah know, the reason 
that vai-hi has a sh'va' nach is that Aharon ben Asher and 
the other ba'alei hamesorah said so. That's what he heard in 
Teveria and recorded.

These early ba'alei mesora also said that there are seven 
vowels in Hebrew.  It was only after R' Yosef Kimchi, 
Radak's father invented the very logical ten vowel system 
that long and short vowels came into being and started to 
determine the sh'va na'/ sh'va nach rules.

As R' Yekutiel Hakohen ben Yehuda (1300-1400s Prague?) 
comments in his 'Ein Hakorei on Vaikhulu hashamaim 
v'ha-aretz in Breishit, Kol hakorei va-yekhulu, vai 
l'avlato.

We old fashioned people sometimes prefer to follow the 
oldtimers in some things rather than accept rules made by 
grammarians. We are often annoyed when we feel that these 
rules have caused changes in the pronunciation of words in 
our Torah. It is bad enough that the passage of time and the 
influence of sounds from local languages, etc., have made 
changes without adding others caused by the "corrections" of 
grammarians.


David