Ashkenazi Hebrew - Variants

Variants

There are considerable differences between the Lithuanian, Polish (also known as Galician) and German pronunciations. These are most obvious in the treatment of ḥôlam: the German pronunciation is, the Galician/Polish pronunciation is and the Lithuanian pronunciation is . Other variants exist: for example in the United Kingdom, the original tradition was to use the German pronunciation, but over the years the sound of holam has tended to merge with the local pronunciation of long "o" as in "toe", and some communities have abandoned Ashkenazi Hebrew altogether in favour of the Israeli-Sephardi pronunciation. (Haredi communities in England usually use the Galician/Polish ).