[Avodah] Ancient Ashkenazi Hebrew

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, Sep 08, 2011 at 09:56:13PM +0300, D&E-H Bannett wrote:
> From my experience, the strong -ng sound is more common with 
> the Portuguesim than the Italkim.

The original question was what was minhag Ashkenaz? Was ayin always silent
since we settled there? And if not, which sound did it have. I pointed
out that the Yiddishism "Yankef" points to a memory of an n-like ayin.

In terms of earlier versions of Ashkenazi havarah, Italians have a
causal connection that Portugese do not. (Being as the original Ashk
qehillah had a large contingent whose history ran from EY to Italy
to Ashk.) So, even if its more pronounced among Portugese, the Italian
ayin is more relevent to what I was trying to recreate.

> As to 'Aza and 'Amorah becoming Gaza and Gemorrah in English and the two 
> 'ayyins, d'gusha and rafa:  Note that Akko became Acre in English, 
> evidently  because it had the 'ayyin rather than the nGayyin.

Gaza vs Akko dates back to ancient Greek translation of Tanakh.

Anyway, there were semitic languages with a distinct ayin and ghayin, and
the belief among linguists is that they were distinct in Proto-Semitic
and merged by the time Hebrew came around. This doesn't fit belief that
Adam spoke Hebrew, but I've never seen good apologetics on the topic
of linguistics.

See also the Mesorah thread "Ngayin" that begins at
http://lists.aishdas.org/htdig.cgi/mesorah-aishdas.org/2006-December/000090.html
and click "Next message" for the next few.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
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