A Practical Guide to Lyric Hebrew Pronunciation

by Osnat Netzer and David Salsbery Fry

The goal of the system of IPA transcription of Hebrew introduced in this score is to make Hebrew as accessible as possible to non-native speakers who have some training in the lyric diction of English, German, French and Italian. It presents the sounds of Hebrew by way of analogy to other languages with which the singer is more familiar. It also simplifies the collection of symbols as much as possible while maintaining the distinctive characteristics of the language. For example, we make no attempt to indicate the duration of a vowel sound since duration is determined by the length of a note and is thus extraneous.

This system dispenses with the IPA method of indicating stress, as the symbol for primary stress [ˈ] is too similar to the symbol that indicates a glottal stop used in traditional transliteration of Hebrew. Instead, stress is indicated by a single underline beneath the vowel of the stressed syllable.

Hebrew Vowels

While Hebrew has only five vowels, their precise sound may prove elusive at first, especially the sounds of [ɛ] and [o]. One thing to keep in mind: all of the vowels are pure, and in this sense they are more closely related to the vowel sounds of French, German and Italian than English. Also, distance from stress does not alter the color of the vowel; the schwa [ə] does not exist in Hebrew.

[a] as in German “Wald”

The [a] of Hebrew is identical to the bright [a] of German. The dark [ɑ] of English does not exist in Hebrew and should never be substituted.

[ ɛ] as in French “après-midi”

The [ɛ] of Hebrew is the most challenging sound for non-native speakers and will require some practice. This is because it is neither closed [e] nor open [ɛ]. It exists at the mid-point between closed and open. We have chosen to represent it as [ɛ] throughout, as it is closer to open [ɛ] when compared to the extremely-closed [e] of American English. For this reason, it will be preferable in the beginning to err on the side of being too open. French affords the closest approximation of the correct placement thanks to a feature of that language called “vocalic harmonization”, wherein an open vowel may migrate in the direction of closed without becoming fully closed if the vowel that follows is closed. The pronunciation of è in “après-midi” is an example of this phenomenon, and a useful template for the pronunciation of [ɛ] in Hebrew.

[i] as in French “midi”

The [i] of Hebrew is identical to the closed [i] of French. The open [I] of English “bit” does not exist in Hebrew and should never be substituted.

[o] similar to Italian “bocca”, but slightly more open

As with [ɛ], the [o] of Hebrew is neither closed nor open. It exists at the mid-point between closed and open. However, as it is much closer to the closed [o] of English “bode” than it is to the open [ɔ] of English “sword” we use the symbol for closed [o] throughout. Just as it was safer to err on the side of [ɛ] being too open, it is safer to err on the side of [o] being too closed. As [o] is a vowel that is particularly prone to impurities in English, please be sure to work to eliminate any hint of diphthong or off-glide when singing [o] in Hebrew.

[u] as in French “doux”

The [u] of Hebrew is identical to the closed [u] of French. It should never have a hint of a diphthong as in English “spoon”.

Hebrew Consonants

[p] unaspirated, as in Italian “piacere”

[b] as in English “beak”

[t] unaspirated when initial or medial, as in Italian “tarantella”

[th] lightly aspirated when final, as in German “blut”

The [t] of Hebrew should never be imploded as in English “get out”

[d] as in English “duck”

[k] lightly aspirated, as in English “kin”

[g] as in English “guru”

[ʔ] glottal stop as in English “uh-oh”

The glottal stop is an important feature of Hebrew. Unlike many languages, the glottal stop is orthographically represented in Hebrew with its own character, and it is the first character in the Hebrew alphabet: aleph (א) Hebrew also does not allow for null onsets, which means it is impossible to begin a word with a vowel sound. As a result, when the first sound of a word is a vowel sound, it is always preceded by a glottal stop, which in lyric diction should result in a precise and crisp onset.

Glottal stops are created when the glottis is closed by adducting the vocal folds, then overriding the closure with the expulsion of the air that sets the folds in motion for the vowel that follows the glottal stop. The more tightly the folds are adducted, the stronger the effect of the resulting glottal stop. Because of the prominence of the glottal stop in Hebrew, singers may be tempted to exaggerate it with over-adduction of the vocal folds. In truth, the glottal stop in Hebrew should never be aggressive, even at its most prominent. It is also context-sensitive. Generally speaking, the glottal stop should be very gentle when medial within a word. It is slightly stronger when initial in a word but unaccented and strongest when part of an accented syllable.

[m] as in English “maybe”

[n] as in English “now”

[ɾ] as in Italian “mirare”

The [ɾ] of sung Hebrew should always be a single flip, in all positions: initial, medial and final, whether or not it is intervocalic. It should not be the uvular [ʁ] of spoken Hebrew and French, nor should it be rolled, as [r] is in Italian when it is not intervocalic. It should definitely not be the [ɹ] of American English “red”

[x] as in German “Buch”

[f] as in English “friend”

[v] as in English “value”

[s] as in English “song”

[z] as in English “zen” as in English “shiver”

[h] as in English “have”

[j] as in English “yard”

The [j] glide in Hebrew appears both as a consonant as in the Hebrew word for sea (םָי) and in diphthongs when the second of the vowels of the diphthong is [i]. When the [j] glide appears as a component of a diphthong, it should be late, giving the bulk of the duration of the pitch to the first vowel sound.

[l] as in Italian “lingua”

The [l] of Hebrew is the dental [l] of Italian and French. It should not be the vowel-length [l] of English “bottle” or the alveolar [l] of English “alcohol”.

[ts] as in English “eats”