[Mesorah] Kimchi's rules

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 10:55:12PM -0400, Sholom Simon via Mesorah wrote:
: When RSM was in Queens, he davened on Shabbos at a Teimoni minyan.  I went
: there once with him.  I remember the following, regarding Teimoni
: pronunciation:

: 1.  He pronounced the vav as a w
: 2.  The segol was pronounced like patach

But IIRC, a patach is like the "a" in "hat". There is something of a
difference.

Note that in Babylonian niqud, which Teimanim still use for some thing
(I think Targum), segol and petach have the same symbol. Check wikipedia
for pictures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_vocalization

Also, Rashi calls the segol "patach qatan". Eg (randomly picking one
hit from a search)
https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Genesis.41.35.1?vhe=Pentateuch_with_Rashi%27s_commentary_by_M._Rosenbaum_and_A.M._Silbermann_--_corrected_vocalization

: 3.  The kametz sounded like an "oh"

: 4.  This was the weirdest one: he pronounced the cholam like the "I" in the
: english word "sit". (I *think* I'm remembering that correctly -- it was the
: same as the vowel in either "sit" or "set").

Most Teimanim use the sound Germans write "oe", or o-umlaut, if I
weren't on an ASCII keyboard. I am convinced this is more historically
accurate for Litvaks too, rather than the same long /A/ as a tzeirei.
Aside from the unlikelihood of two tenu'os sharing a sound, the cholam
is pretty consistently more in the lips than anywhere else in other
havaros. Given the vav in the cholam malei, that makes sense. Long /A/
is closer to yud than vav.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Time flies...
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