With the revival of the spoken Hebrew, in the end of XIX-th century, three important questions arose in the new hebraists and which called up of immediate answers, without which it would have been impossible to gather all the speakers around the only language, namely:

2. Which would be the pronunciation which spoken language will adopt?

On first two questions became established at once an almost total consensus:

The grammar which will sub-aim the spoken Hebrew will be essentially that of the Bible, completed, there or it is necessary, by that of Mishna.

As for the pronunciation, that of the Oriental or Sefarads will be convenient most for the alive Hebrew because, she possessed phonetic nuances which the other pronunciations had not it. It would be more close to the original pronciation, and so the most representative and authentic of the former Hebrew. In the pronunciation ashkenaze, on the other hand, one did not distinguish any more the guttural sounds and pharyngaux and certain vocalizations, as well as certain consonants, became confused among them and were badly articulated. On the other hand, with the eyes of the fathers founders of the spoken Hebrew, who were for the greater part Jews ashkenazes native of Russia or Poland, and especially with David Yellin's eyes, the most Orientalist of them, Eliezer ben-Yehouda and Menahem Ussishkin, pronunciation ashkenaze called back exile and Diaspora, while the sefarad symbolized the revival of the Jewish People and its return in Zion, its ancestral homeland in East.

The adoption of the pronunciation sefarad

Before same the arrival of the first pioneers Zionists, pronunciation sefarad had been necessary in the intercommunity communication of Yishouv in Eretz-Israel. The Hebrew was the only language due to whom of the very diverse persons in their language, could communicate itself among them in the life of all days. It was then easier to adopt they to speak which was a carried out , established fact for a long time and in a natural way.

Already in 1885, The eighth Congress of the Teachers in Eretz-Israel had adopted a decision in favour of the sefarad pronociation. In 1907, a circular had been sent to all the teachers of the country ordering them " to educate the pupils to be articulated correctly vocalizations and consonants according to the sefarad pronunciation. "

In 1913, the Committee of the Hebraic language, had decided once more, and in a definitive way, that " sefarad pronunciation is the official pronunciation of the Hebrew spoken in Israel. "

It is not doubt which these repeated decisions contributed largely to gather all the new hebraists around the only spoken language. This, at a moment so important of the history of the Hebrew, which becomes, again, living language, language of oral communication, after one thousand six hundred years of lethargy.

It is very likely that the sefarad accent was practised at the time of the Second Temple, in Babylon and in Israel, because the Greek translation of the Bible, the Seventy, made in the neighborhood of Illème century before J.-C. Give evidence of it in several places. One finds there, for example, names Abraham, Babel, Adam, and not Obrohom, Bobel, Odom, according to the ashkenaze accent .

Talmud also confirms it, because one reads to it " teacher and apotropos ", according to the sefarad pronunciation of the " o ", and not " pedaguegue or apetrepes ", as would have pronounced them ashkenazes.

However, in spite of the evidence of the use of the sefarad pronunciation in the Hebraic Antiquity, certain activists Zionists, opposed in it restored as, for example, Zéev Jabotinsky.

According to Jabotinsky ( 1 ). Our ancestors did not speak in this accent sefarad-oriental. There was in Aryan - Scandinavian Canaan of the populations, arrivals of Europe and Anatolie, who became integrated into Juda and Israel. In the blood of the Hebrew, are distylled aspiration and tastes of the peoples of the North and West. It is necessary so to look for the pronunciation of our populate not in the oriental accent but, rather in the European languages, as Greek and Latin. According to Jabotinsky, it is necessary to apply to the Hebrew a phonology and aesthetic tastes, which approach those of European languages, because we are European and our taste is European, as that of Rubinstein, Mendelssohn and Bizet. Besides, he warns " that it is necessary to be careful in the pronunciation ashkenaze-yiddishist, because it is only a Jewish galoutic jargon. "

By adopting sefarad-oriental pronunciation, at the beginning of the revival of the spoken Hebrew, ashkenazes, majority and influential in this time, has it " ashkenazised ". They adopted only the sounds which look like those of their language of origin, abolishing all the phonemes which they could not articulate, that is the oriental guttural, typically Semitic sounds.

At the time, one estimed the opposite, that is Ashkenazes which are " sefaradised ".

Indeed, one notices this phenomenon of abolition of the guttural sounds already before the time of Talmud. Certain letters begin to disappear in the big displeasure of linguistic purists of time.

In Talmud (IV-V-th century), one reports (2), that Rabbi Yéhouda ha-Nassi, editor of Mishna (Il-nd century), laughed at one of his followers, Rabbi Hiyya, and called him Rabbi ' Iyya, because he did not know how to distinguish the guttural letters. A passage in Talmud of Jerusalem ( 3 ), says which it is not necessary to give to read Tora to persons who do not differentiate these letters.

(1) Jabotinsky Zéev, Hebraic pronunciation, Tel Aviv, on 1930. (In Hebrew)

(2) Talmud Bavli, Mb ed qatan l6b and Meguila 24b.

(3) Talmud of Jerusalem, Berakhot 4 , 4. To see also Talmud Bavli, Berakhot 32a; ' Erouvin. 53b. To see also 1. Kahlé, Massoreten of Westen, 1 , 74.

Oriental pronunciation today

Today even, numerous Hebraic speakers do not make distinction between the guttural letters and badly pronounce them by confusing them mainly with the letter Aleph.

The other letters are also confused and no difference is made, for example , between Tet and Tav, Vet and Vav, Qof and Kaf. One does not distinguish any more certain letters when they are provided with point and when they appear without not (fricatives velaires) as Guimel, Dalet and Tav. This phenomenon already appears in the former time except to certain oriental communities which keep this accent especially in prayers.

On a total of twenty six initially different Hebraic letters (without finales), the average Israeli pronounces correctly today only nineteen phonemes.

This simplification, or this phonetic deformation, makes lose in the spoken Hebrew its wealth and its variety phonologique. Is it for it, maybe, that sefarad pronunciation was so easily and quickly adopted?

Certain linguists think (4) that it is necessary to accept this de facto situation and that all the nuances which were not adopted in the Hebrew spoken at present must be considered as void.

Even though these nuances existed at the time biblical and in the other times, we have to spread them because they had no grip either in mouths or in current ears, and we do not need any more them. It will also be necessary to spread them from the paper.

It is so only that the revival of the spoken Hebrew will be finished. The Hebrew such as it is adopted by the speakers hébraliques, will become then the true vernacular language of the Israeli inhabitants who live in their country.

This idea, which paWit logic, is spread in wide levels of Israeli society, in the national institutions, the schools etc. but it is necessary to push away it, because it bases itself on an erroneous argument and looks for ease.

Indeed, if this Hebrew becomes established in a definitive way, we are going to have an important distance between the oral language and the written language which go ' to take away more and more and to form two totally different languages, as it was case in Arabic between literary Arabic and dialects of various countries.

The renewal of spoken language in Hebrew is a recent revolution which continues and which did not yet arrive at its term. Of dozens of thousand immigrants arrives every year in Israel and most of them, adopts a language sounds of which are not familiar to them. Numerous phonemes, especially pharyngaux and guttural, do not exist in their language of origin, and they often have, difficulties pronouncing them correctly.

Furthermore, one can not continue to ignore the letters sounds of which are deformed even even abolished because they are important for the understanding of the word and its etymologic structure . Besides, the meaning of the word depends on the exact pronunciation of all its letters. It is difficult to identify a word with the only listening of his phonemes if these are not well articulated. The resemblance of sounds can create numerous homonymies which pull confusions and multiple interpretations, while a good pronunciation makes clear, unambiguous spoken language, comprehensible and decipherable at once.

It is so important today that the one that speaks about the Hebrew can pronounce correctly all the phonemes which exist in Hebrew notably the guttural.

(4) To see Atar Moshé, The Hebrew living language, éd. Frydmari, Israel 1989, pp. 98-99. (In Hebrew).