Saturday, December 03, 2005

Ivrit Chauvinism Watch

This is from a Y-net story about Matisyahu by someone named Yaniv Halili:
A list of Matisyahu's accomplishments (the Yiddish form of Matityahu) is impressive by any standard.
"The Yiddish form of Matityahu"? Listen, Yaniv, old fellow, there is something called the Ashkenazic pronunciation of Hebrew. The first taf of Matityahu has a dagesh and the second does not. (Look at Al Hanisim for an example.) That means that the two letters were originally pronounced differently. Ashkenazic pronunciation preserves the distinction, while Israeli pronunciation doesn't. (Notice I didn't say Sefardic.)

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