Both Bruria and Azriel Shraga are learning how to read this year, but since the boys learn with a yeshivishe pronunciation, and the girls learn with an Israeli pronunciation, it often causes confusion (and arguments!)
Bruria, listening to Azriel reading his Kriah homework:
Bruria: That's not how you read that word! Its "OH" not "OIY"!
Azriel: That's how my Rebbe says it!
Bruria: הרבי שלך לא יודע
Azriel: הוא כן יודע- Right, Mommy?
Mommy: Bruria, Azriel is right- we say it "OIY"
Bruria: (making a face and shaking her shoulders) But my Morah says "OH"!
Mommy: Bruria, your Morah is also right!
Bruria: But how can they both be right? זה שטויות!
(we've had conversations along these lines more than once - with ת being pronounced "t" vs. "s", and קמץ being pronounced as "ah" vs. "uh")
Disclaimer: I'm really not sure how to address the issue- especially since I don't really understand or agree with why the Bais Yaakov system has pretty much across the board adopted the מזרחי pronunciation, even though all their male counterparts use a Yeshivishe pronunciation. But since we can't fight the system, we do our best to explain to the children that there is a big difference between modern day עברית and לשון הקודש.
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3 comments:
Re your disclaimer: It's interesting- I have heard that the "oh" pronunciation may actually be more technically correct. The way people speak hebrew (or any language) is affected by the local dialect. Thus the "yeshivishe" way of speaking came from Poland & Litta, where the dialect has sounds of "oi" more than "oh". When people from Europe came to the US & E"Y, they were the yeshiva men, so that became the yeshiva pronunciation. There are frum torah-dike kehillos where tefilla is led with "oh"- Broyers for example. Definitely interesting, though, how it's often split by gender!
And apparently in Japanese, there are actually separate male and female dialects (not just pronouns, not just pronunciation, but actually a different dialect)!
Count on Tante T to know such random facts. Now we'll have to check with our Chinese expert to find out if they've got different dialects too. Nu, Yakov?!
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