Same friend, new question: how do we get all the variation in the a’s, o’s, u’s, i’s when we listen to different pronunciations of Hebrew?
For this post I don’t want to look at prehistoric reconstruction too much, because I already wrote a bit on the prehistory of the vowels. So let’s focus on the different ways today’s Jewish communities pronounce them. You’ll want to keep this interactive IPA chart handy.
5, 6, or 7 qualities?
Since the Middle Ages, all Jewish communities have used the same reading tradition of the Tanakh: the Tiberian reading tradition, from early medieval Galilee. The Tiberian pronunciation of Hebrew had seven different vowel qualities, so the Tiberian Masoretes invented seven different vowel signs. Other medieval communities made fewer distinctions and only had five or six different qualities. So when they adopted the Tiberian vowel signs, some of them were merged: different signs got the same pronunciation.
We’ll group the different pronunciations by how many vowel qualities they distinguish. Contrary to a lot of people, I think most of these traditions also distinguish(ed) vowel length: how much time you hold a certain vowel for. But I think we can get away with ignoring that and just discussing quality. I’ll add the length in the examples, though.
7 vowels: Tiberian and Ashkenazi
The Tiberians pronounced their vowels like this:
| אִ | אֵ | אֶ | אַ | אָ | אֹ | אֻ, אוּ |
| i | e | ɛ | a | ɔ | o | u |
I’ll illustrate every system with Proverbs 9:1: “Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn out her seven pillars.” For the recordings, bear in mind that I haven’t heard most of these pronunciations a lot and wasn’t trained in them (or they’re plain extinct). If you notice any mistakes, please correct me in the comments!
So, Tiberian:
חָ֭כְמוֹת בָּנְתָ֣ה בֵיתָ֑הּ חָצְבָ֖ה עַמּוּדֶ֣יהָ שִׁבְעָֽה׃
[ħɔχˈmoːθ bɔːnˈθɔː veˑˈθɔːh ħɔːsʶˈvɔː ʕammuˑˈðɛːhɔː ʃivˈʕɔː]
Around the year 1300, this system was (imperfectly) borrowed by early Ashkenazim. They mapped every sound to the closest equivalent in their spoken language, Yiddish. Like any good Germanic language, Yiddish has a lot of vowels, and they had a match for all seven Tiberian ones.
*[χɔχˈmoːs bɔnˈsɔː veːˈsɔ χɔtsˈvɔː ammuːˈdɛːhɔː ʃiˈvɔː]
From this point on, the Hebrew vowels followed the different dialectal developments of Yiddish: every Hebrew vowel behaves just like the corresponding Germanic vowel in the Yiddish dialect of the reader (also after Yiddish died out in the west). In all three dialects we’ll look at, the /eː/ and /oː/ (both actually long) became diphtongs. In Northwestern Yiddish (the Netherlands, northern Germany), they became /ɛj/ and /ɔw/. Another change affected /ɛː/ and /ɔː/: in open syllables (where they were long in Ashkenazi Hebrew), these vowels were raised to /eː/ and /oː/. So the mid vowels do a little dance. Finally, /i/ in closed unstressed(?) syllables was laxed to /ɪ/. This gives us:
| אִ | אֵ | אֶ | אַ | אָ | אֹ | אֻ, אוּ |
| i, ɪ | ɛj | e, ɛ | a | o, ɔ | ɔw | u |
[χɔχˈmɔws bɔnˈsoː ʋɛjˈsɔ χɔtsˈʋoː ŋamuːˈdeːhoː ʃɪʋˈŋoː]
In Proto-Eastern Yiddish, the close-mid vowels diphthongized to */ej/ and */oj/, and we get the same changes in open and closed syllables as in NWY. /u/ is also laxed to /ʊ/. (This also happened in NWY, but there it shifted further to /ɔ/. I guess that made it too close to אָ/too different from /u/, so you don’t hear this in Hebrew reading.) So:
| אִ | אֵ | אֶ | אַ | אָ | אֹ | אֻ, אוּ |
| *i, *ɪ | *ej | *e, *ɛ | *a | *o, *ɔ | *oj | *u, *ʊ |
*[χɔχˈmojs bɔnˈsoː vejˈsɔ χɔtsˈvoː amuːˈdeːhoː ʃɪˈvoː]
Now we get the split between Litvish and Chasidish. In Northeastern Yiddish (~ Lithuanian), vowel length is lost; */oj/ merges with */ej/; and all the vowels are lowered a bit.
| אִ | אֵ | אֶ | אַ | אָ | אֹ | אֻ, אוּ |
| ɪ | ɛj | ɛ | a | ɔ | ɛj | ʊ |
[χɔχˈmɛjs bɔnˈsɔ vɛjˈsɔ χɔtsˈvɔ amʊˈdɛhɔ ʃɪˈvɔ]
Central Eastern Yiddish (~ Polish), on the other hand, goes nuts with the vowels. We get two big, beautiful chain shifts: */aj/ becomes /aː/ (not found in Hebrew), */ej/ becomes /aj/, */eː/ becomes /ej/; */ʊ/ and */uː/ merge with */ɪ/ and */iː/, and */ɔː/ becomes /uː/.
| אִ | אֵ | אֶ | אַ | אָ | אֹ | אֻ, אוּ |
| i, ɪ | aj | ej, ɛ | a | u, ɔ | oj | i, ɪ |
[χɔχˈmojs bɔnˈsuː vajˈsɔ χɔtsˈvuː amiːˈdejhuː ʃɪˈvuː]
Notice how both Northeastern and Central Eastern Ashkenazi end up with just six different vowels (well, kind of) and only Western Ashkenazi maintains the beautiful sevenfold purity of Tiberian. /s
This is getting longer than expected, so let’s split things up. Yemenite, Sephardic, and Italian will have to wait for Part II.
Benjamin Suchard 
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