Tiberian Hebrew - Sources

Sources

The usual Hebrew Grammar Books do not teach Tiberian Hebrew as described by the early grammarians. The prevalent view in some of these grammars is the use of David Qimchi's system of division of the graphic signs into "short" and "long" vowels. The values assigned to the Tiberian vowel signs reveals a Sephardi tradition of pronunciation (the dual quality of qames (אָ) as /a/, /o/; the pronunciation of simple sheva (אְ) as /ɛ̆/).

The phonology of Tiberian Hebrew can be gleaned by the collation of various sources:

• The Aleppo Codex of the Bible (and other ancient manuscripts of the Tanakh, cited in the margins of early codices), which actually preserves direct evidence of the application of these rules in the Hebrew Bible in a graphic manner, e.g. the widespread use of chateph vowels where one would expect simple sheva, clarifying the color of the vowel thus pronounced under certain circumstances. Most prominent, the use of chateph chireq in five words under a consonant which follows a guttural vocalized with regular chireq, as described by Israel Yeivin. Even the anomalous use of the rafé sign over other letters which do not belong to בגדכפ"ת or א"ה.
• The explicit statements found in books of grammar near the 10th and 11th Centuries C.E., such as: The Sefer haQoloth of Moshe ben Asher (published by N. Allony), Diqduqé hata'amim of Aaron ben Moses ben Asher; the anonymous works entitled Horayath haQoré (G. Khan and Ilan Eldar attribute it to the Karaite Abu Alfaraj Harun), the Treatise on the Schwa (published by Kurt Levy from a Genizah fragment in 1936), and Ma'amar haschewa (published from Genizah material by Allony); the works of medieval Sephardi grammarians, such as Abraham Ibn Ezra, Judah ben David Hayyuj. In the last two, it is evident that the chain of transmission is already breaking down, or interpreted under the influence of their local tradition.
• Ancient manuscripts which preserve other similar dialects of Hebrew or Palestinian Aramaic, but vocalized in Tiberian signs in a "vulgar" manner, which reveal a phonetic spelling, rather than a phonemic spelling. This is the case of the so called "Pseudo-Ben Naphtali" or "Palestinian-Sephardi" vocalized manuscripts. These confirm some of the rules enumerated below, for example, the pronunciation of sheva as /ĭ/ before consonantal yod, as in /bĭji/ בְּיִ.
• Other vocalization traditions such as: the vocalization of the Land of Israel; and, to a lesser extent, the Babylonian vocalization. Each community (Palestinian, Tiberian, and Babylonian) developed systems of notation of pronunciation phenomena in each dialect, and some of them are common among these traditions. In one it is graphically represented, while in some other, we have to rely on other sources for explicit statements.
• The transcriptions of the Biblical text made by the members of the Karaite community into Arabic characters, and vocalized with Tiberian signs, help us get a glimpse of the pronunciation of Tiberian Hebrew. This is especially true with regards to syllable structure, and vowel length (which is marked in Arabic by matres lectionis, and the sign sukun).
• Various oral traditions, especially the oral tradition of Yemenite Hebrew pronunciation, and the Karaite tradition. Both have preserved old features which correspond to Tiberian tradition, such as the pronunciation of schewa according to its proximity to gutturals or yod.