From the Land of the Ancestors

Jewish migrants from all around the world have traveled to Israel for Aliyah, the policy of granting Israeli citizenship to foreign Jews. Israeli citizens have lineages from such diverse places as Hungary, Tunisia, Ethiopia, South Africa, Argentina, and Russia. Many of the Mizrahi, or Jews of Middle Eastern descent, come specifically from Yemen. Jewish people have lived in this nation in the Arabian Peninsula for millennia. What makes Yemenite Israelis so unique is the dialect of Hebrew they have brought with them to the small Jewish State. Because of their close proximity to Arabic, Yemenites speak Hebrew with a heavy Arabic-like accent. Biblical scholars note that much of ancient Hebrew’s phonology has been lost to many Modern Hebrew speakers. Israelis of Eastern European Ashkenazi descent grow up not learning to pronounce some of the more “Semitic” phonemes of Hebrew. These include the “chet” ח, /ħ/, “‘ayn” ע, /ʕ/, or “resh” ר, /r/. In standard Israeli Modern Hebrew, the “chet” ח is pronounced identically to “khaf”’ כ, or /χ/. The “‘ayn” ע is spoken as a glottal stop, identical to the “‘alef”’ א, or /ʔ/. The “resh” ר is said more like the French “r,” or /ʁ/. Yemenite Hebrew, however, does retain these original phonemes. This difference is so noticeable, in fact, that it can be heard in music by Yemenite Israeli singers. Artists like Eyal Golan, Zion Golan, Zohar Argov, and Shiran Avraham stand out with their unique vocals and more eastern sounding melodies. These singers give linguists a glimpse into the authentic sounds of Hebrew spoken thousands of years ago because their diction more closely resembles Arabic, Aramaic, and other related Semitic languages