Rules for Pronunciation

This page describes the rules of pronunciation, as used by the Amsterdam Portuguese community. See references below.
An extensive listing of the pronuniation, including all exceptions in the reading can be found in Hochmát Shelomóh (intro and annotations.), ISBN 0-933676-37-9

Some browsers do not show the punctuation correctly, therefore you can find all, including the hyperlinks to the recordings, in this pdf file.

List of Transliteration to Dutch (in development) (HRP)

Rules for pronunciation of letters.

For ease of reading, Hebrew words are transliterated in this site, based on http://www.jewfaq.org/alephbet.htm.

Recording of the letters (JBS; the ק is by mistake pronounced in the recording as Kuf, this should be Kof), the cholam is missing.

Letter	Pronunciation	Transliteration	Pronunciation Example
א	Silent	‘
ב	B	V
בּ	B	B
ג	Ch	G
גּ	G	G
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	‘
פ	F	F
פּ	P	P
צ	Tz	Tz
ק	K	K
ר	R	R
שּׁ	Sh	Sh
שׂ	S	S
ת, תּ	T	T

Rules for Pronunciation of vowels.

Recording of the examples (JBS)

אָ אַ אֲ	A
אֳ	O
אֶ	I
אֵ	I
אִי אִ	I
אֻ וּ	U
וֹ אֹ	O	Like in hope
אְ	Uh/silent

Rules for Pronunciation of special vowels.

Recording of the examples (JBS)

Vowels	Pronunciation	Example
	a
	o
	aha
אַהּ	aha
	ehe
	a
	Sheva is silent
	i
°	u

In 1956, Mr Jacq. Pais, the teacher of our community, made a booklet to teach the children Hebrew reading. The first 8 pages have Hebrew words transliterated to Dutch. Below I bring some examples. It shows how to pronounce the letters and the vowels for Dutch speakers.

Although the booklet’s name is “שפה ברורה”, it was referred to as “koe doet boe boe”, the last line of the first page, see last example below.

Recording of the examples (JBS)

Dutch	transliterated
je jas zit goed	יְ יַס זֶת גוּט
de jacht hond zit hier	דְ יַחת הֹנט זֶת הִיר
dat gewicht is goed	דַת גְוֶכת אֵס חֻת
als nicht komt ga ik	אַלס נֵגת קֹמת גָ אֶק
koe doet boe boe	קֻ דֻת בֻ בֻ

Sheva 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

Sheva 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