[Avodah] ancient Ashkenazi Hebrew

[Elazar M. Teitz]

    In responding to a comment about the pronunciation of ayin by Ashkenazim, "S." wrote

> . . . we see that (some?) Ashkenazim had a problem with two pasachs
in the beginning of a word, second letter ayin, hence "mayriv," 
"tayna,"
and so forth. Interestingly, the other thing Ashkenazim do is remove
one altogether when it's an aleph, hence "bal" instead of "ba'al" and 
so
forth. Following this pattern, Ya'akov should have became "Yaykov" (or,
really, "Yaykev). Say it out loud. I daresay "Yaykev" doesn't work as 
well
as "mayriv." It's not so difficult to see how it changed into something
sounding more like "Yankev" for ease of pronunciation. Unfortunately I
do not know the proper linguistic terminology, but I'm fairly certain
the difference between yud-ayin with two pasachs and other consonants
followed by an ayin can be explained in a reasonable way. So it is at
least possible that "Yankev" has nothing to do with a faintly preserved
ayin per se, and is just the exact same thing as "mayriv" only adjusted
for pronunciation. Of course since there is apparently a difference
between what Ashkenazim did with letters in such a pattern, between
an aleph and an ayin, perhaps *that* - "mayriv - is the residue of a
vocalized ayin.<

     I believe S. has confused Yiddishisms with Hebrew pronunciation.  Ashkenazim, as far as I am aware, have no problem pronouncing consecutive patachs at the beginning of a word.  The use of "mairiv" and "taina" is the Yiddish pronunciation of the Hebrew words "ma'ariv" and "ta'ana," just as, e.g., "cholem" is not a mispronunciation of "chalom," "yontef" is not a mispronunciation of "yom tov' (and, parenthetically, therefore "gut yontef" is not a redundancy, though "gut yom tov" would be), "balebus" is not a mispronunciation of "ba'al habayis), etc. The proof is obvious: the same person who will say "It's time for mairiv" will, a minute later, have no problem saying "hama'ariv aravim."  Indeed, I have never heard anyone say "hamairiv aravim" in his davening, nor does anyone say "bal g'vuros" rather than "ba'al g'vuros," even though that same person will talk about the "bal tfila."  Yiddish incorporated many Hebrew words within itself, but changed their pronunciations, just as it changed grammatiical construction, as in the plural of "bar-mitzva" (bar-mitzvas, not b'nei mitzva) or the female counterpart of "balebus" (balebusta, not ba'alas bayis, or even balas bayis). It is also why "bal koyre" and "bal toikeya" are not incorrect; they are the proper Yiddish terms fro those who leien and blow shofar, respectively.

     As for the "n" sound in "Yankev," that it is an attempt to pronounce ayin can be seen from the halacha that if a Ya'akov is called Yankel, the name is written in a get without a nun

     BTW, since when is "ba'al" spelled with an aleph?

EMT.


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