Rules for Pronunciation

This page describes the rules of pronunciation, as used by the Amsterdam Portuguese community. See references below.

General rules of pronunciation as used in recordings. For ease of reading, Hebrew words are transliterated in this site, based on http://www.jewfaq.org/alephbet.htm).

Click on the Examples & listen.

Letter	Pronunciation	Transliteration	Pronunciation Example
א	Silent	‘
ב	B	V	c«ur‰C berob
בּ	B	B
ג	Ch	G	חַג chach
גּ	G	G	o³D gam
ד	D	D
ה	H	H
ו	V	V
ז	Z	Z
ח	Ch	Ch
ט	T	T
י	Y	Y
כ	Kh	Kh
כּ	K	K
ל	L	L
מ	M	M
נ	N	N
ס	S	S
ע	Ng	‘	עֵלֵינוּ ngalenu, like wrong
פ	F	F
פּ	P	P
צ	Ts	Ts
ק	K	K
ר	R	R
שּׁ	Sh	Sh
שׂ	S	S
ת, תּ	T	T
אָ אֳ אַ אֳ	A
אֶ	I		Like in “it”: Shinatata
אֵ	I		Like in “it”: baruch Shim
אֽ אֽי	I		Like in “it”: bit sefer
אֻ וּ	U		Like Ubjom
אְ	Uh/silent		Like buchor , or silent, See sheva rules below

Special Rules of Pronunciation for vowels.

Vowels	Pronunciation	Example
¨t	a	oh¦J¨s¨e J¤s«e Kadashim, oº¤vh‡k¢v¨t aholehem
¨t	o	(open unaccented syllable) o†f‰c¨r¨e‰F: kekarobkhem
V¨t	aha	Halelujaha הַלְלוּיָהּ (mapik)
אַהּ	aha	Nochaha נֹגַהּ
V¥t	ehe	Purkanehe פֻּרְקָנֵהּ
§t	a	c¤G‡g In‰F Kamo ngeseb
§tU	Sheva is silent	oIh‰cU ubjom
h§t	i	o¥G²h±u vijaseem
°h§t	u	k¥t¨r§G°h‰C bujisrael (exception on above rule)

Shuva rules.

A short summary of the shuva rules can be found here. For a more complete list se e.g.

http://www.torahresource.com/Hebrew%20MP3/Sheva%20rules.pdf

Shuva Na rules, as formulated by R’ Eliyahu Bachur (16th cent.). It

1) occurs under the first letter of a word;

2) is the second of two Shevas in the middle of a word;

3) occurs after a long unaccented vowel;

4) occurs under a letter which has a Dagesh;

5) occurs between identical letters.

All other Shuvas are Nach (‘silent’). The letters begad kefat normally receive a Dagesh at the beginning of a word or in the middle of a word after a Shuva Nach