Editing Modern Hebrew phonology (section)

==Oriental and non-Oriental accents==
According to the [[Academy of the Hebrew Language]], in the 1880s (the time of the beginning of the Zionist movement and the Hebrew revival) there were three groups of Hebrew regional accents: [[Ashkenazi Hebrew|Ashkenazi]] (Eastern European), [[Sephardi Hebrew|Sephardi]] (Southern European), and [[Mizrahi Hebrew|Mizrahi]] (Middle Eastern, Iranian, and North African). Over time  features of these systems of pronunciation merged, and at present scholars identify two main pronunciations of modern (i.e., not liturgical) Hebrew: Oriental and Non-Oriental.{{sfnp|Laufer|1999|p=96-99}} Oriental Hebrew displays traits of an Arabic substrate.<ref name=Schwarzwald524>Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald. "Modern Hebrew", in Khan, Geoffrey, Michael P. Streck, and Janet CE Watson (eds.). The Semitic languages: an international handbook. Edited by Stefan Weninger. Vol. 36. Walter de Gruyter, 2011. p. 524-25</ref>
Elder oriental speakers tend to use an alveolar trill {{IPA|[r]}}, preserve the pharyngeal consonants {{IPA|/ħ/}} and (less commonly) {{IPA|/ʕ/}},<ref>[[Ghil'ad Zuckermann|Zuckermann, G.]] (2005). "''Abba, why was Professor Higgins trying to teach Eliza to speak like our cleaning lady?'': Mizrahim, Ashkenazim, Prescriptivism and the Real Sounds of the Israeli Language", ''[[Australian Association for Jewish Studies|Australian Journal of Jewish Studies]]'' 19, pp. 210-231.</ref> preserve [[gemination]], and pronounce {{IPA|/e/}} in some places where non-Oriental speakers do not have a vowel (the ''[[shva na]]''). A limited number of Oriental speakers, for example elderly [[Yemenite Jews]], even maintain some pharyngealized (emphatic) consonants also found in Arabic, such as {{IPA|/sˤ/}} for Biblical {{IPA|/tsʼ/}}. Israeli Arabs ordinarily use the Oriental pronunciation, vocalising the ''‘ayin'' ({{Script/Hebrew|ע}}) as {{IPA|/ʕ/}}, resh (ר) as [r] and, less frequently, the ''ḥet'' ({{Script/Hebrew|ח}}) as {{IPA|/ħ/}}.

===Pronunciation of {{angbr|{{lang|he|ע}}}}===
Non-Oriental (and General Israeli) pronunciation lost the emphatic and pharyngeal sounds of Biblical Hebrew under the influence of European languages ([[Slavic languages|Slavic]] and [[Germanic languages|Germanic]] for Ashkenazim and [[Romance languages|Romance]] for Sephardim). The pharyngeals {{IPAslink|ħ}} and {{IPAslink|ʕ}} are preserved by older Oriental speakers.<ref name=Schwarzwald524/>
Dialectally, [[Georgian Jews]] pronounce {{IPA|/ʕ/}} as {{IPAblink|qʼ}}, while Western European Sephardim and Dutch Ashkenazim traditionally pronounce it {{IPAblink|ŋ}}, a pronunciation that can also be found in the [[Italian Jews|Italian]] tradition and, historically, in south-west Germany.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}} However, according to Sephardic and Ashkenazic authorities, such as the Mishnah Berurah and the [[Shulchan Aruch]] and [[Mishneh Torah]], {{IPA|/ʕ/}} is the proper pronunciation. Thus, it is still pronounced as such by some Sephardim and Ashkenazim.

===Pronunciation of {{angbr|{{lang|he|ר}}}}===
The classical pronunciation associated with the consonant {{lang|he|ר}} ''rêš'' was a flap {{IPAblink|ɾ}}, and was grammatically [[gemination|ungeminable]]. In most dialects of Hebrew among the [[Jewish diaspora]], it remained a flap or a trill {{IPAblink|r}}. However, in some Ashkenazi dialects of northern Europe it was a uvular rhotic, either a trill {{IPAblink|ʀ}} or a fricative {{IPAblink|ʁ}}. This was because most native dialects of Yiddish were spoken that way, and the liturgical Hebrew of these speakers carried the Yiddish pronunciation. Some Iraqi Jews also pronounce ''rêš'' as a guttural {{IPAblink|ʀ}}, reflecting [[Baghdad Jewish Arabic]].

Though an Ashkenazi Jew in the [[Russian Empire]], the [[Zionism|Zionist]] [[Eliezer Ben-Yehuda]] based his Standard Hebrew on [[Sephardi Hebrew]], originally spoken in [[Spain]], and therefore recommended an alveolar {{IPAblink|r}}. However, just like him, the first waves of Jews to resettle in the [[Holy Land]] were Ashkenazi, and Standard Hebrew would come to be spoken with their native pronunciation. Consequently, by now nearly all Israeli Jews pronounce the consonant {{lang|he|ר}} ''rêš'' as a uvular approximant ({{IPA|[ʁ̞]}}),{{sfnp|Zuckermann|2020|p=46}}<ref name="Zuckermann">{{cite book|last=Zuckermann|first=Ghil'ad|author-link=Ghil'ad Zuckermann|title=[[Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew]]|year=2003|publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]]|location=UK|isbn=978-1403917232}}</ref>{{rp|261}} which also exists in Yiddish.<ref name="Zuckermann"/>{{rp|262}}

Many Jewish immigrants to Israel spoke a [[varieties of Arabic|variety of Arabic]] in their countries of origin, and pronounced the Hebrew rhotic consonant {{IPA|/ʁ/}} as an [[Dental, alveolar and postalveolar trills|alveolar trill]], identical to Arabic {{lang|ar|[[ر]]}} ''{{Transliteration|ar|DIN|rāʾ}}'', and which followed the conventions of old Hebrew.<ref>Based on Rabbi [[Saadia Gaon]]'s [[Judeo-Arabic languages|Judeo-Arabic]] commentary on “[[Sefer Yetzirah]]” (chapter 4, paragraph 3), wherein he describes the phonetic sounds of the 22 characters of the Hebrew alphabet and classifies them in groups based on their individual sounds: “''Aleph'' ({{lang|he|א}}), ''hé'' ({{lang|he|ה}}), ''ḥet'' ({{lang|he|ח}}), ''‘ayin'' ({{lang|he|ע}}) are [guttural sounds] produced from the depth of the tongue with the opening of the throat, but ''bet'' ({{lang|he|ב}}), ''waw'' ({{lang|he|ו}}), ''mim'' ({{lang|he|מ}}), ''pé'' ({{lang|he|פ}}) are [labial sounds] made by the release of the lips and the end of the tongue; whereas ''gimel'' ({{lang|he|ג}}), ''yōd'' ({{lang|he|י}}), ''kaf'' ({{lang|he|כ}}), ''quf'' ({{lang|he|ק}}) are [palatals] separated by the width of the tongue [against the palate] with the [emission of] sound. However, ''daleth'' ({{lang|he|ד}}), ''ṭet'' ({{lang|he|ט}}), ''lamed'' ({{lang|he|ל}}), ''nūn'' ({{lang|he|נ}}), ''tau'' ({{lang|he|ת}}) are [linguals] separated by the mid-section of the tongue with the [emission of] sound; whereas ''zayin'' ({{lang|he|ז}}), ''samekh'' ({{lang|he|ס}}), ''ṣadi'' ({{lang|he|צ}}), ''resh'' ({{lang|he|ר}}), ''shin'' ({{lang|he|ש}}) are [dental sounds] produced between the teeth by a tongue that is at rest.”</ref> In modern [[Ashkenazi Jews|Ashkenazi]], [[Sephardi Jews|Sephardi]], and [[Mizrahi Jews|Mizrahi]] poetry and folk music, as well as in the standard (or "standardised") Hebrew used in the Israeli media, an alveolar rhotic is sometimes used.