Rs are us, mentalblog.com linguistic column

Berl of Crown Heights commenting to Chabakuk Elisha - a snapshot of his Chabad Shule: "Geza" is just a generic Hebrew word. It is only in its "gezha" pronunciation that it attains its exalted status and begins to connote Lubavitch blue blood.

Schneur Zalman of NY: Even in White Russia there were regional differences in pronunciation of Yiddish. There are several good Yiddish linguistic atlases that delineate these differences (the most recent edited by Dr. M. Herzog of Columbia University). The Rebbe said fru , we (My late mother father and most of their White Russian friends)say froy (an earlier atlas by a Russian Linguist explains this anamoly as being related to the Northeast corner of White Russia. This is where the Schneersohn family is from.

Many Russian Lubavitchers pronounce the R sound very sharp (they roll the "r") like Reb Yoel Kahan. The Rebbe did not . The rebbe's pronunciation was the dominant White Russian one a simple "R" . The sharp "r' is a Russian R that made its way into Chabad when they moved into the Russian urban areas after 1918 and may have had some popularity in eastern White Russia. Neither the Rebbe nor the 2 other members of the royal family I spoke to, pronounced the "r" that way. They did not roll their "r" 's. Finally today's Lubavitchers talk about a sirtuk, my parents called it a surdut which is the way most Lithuanian and White Russian Jews pronounced it. Another variant is surtuk. Duchman in his book uses surdut in describing the arrival of the Rayaatz in Warsaw before he was rebbe. So does the greatest Yiddish writer of our time Mr. Chaim Grade. My point even in White Russia and amongst Lubavitchers there were and I hope still are different ways (albeit minor) in speaking Yiddish. As geza is a Hebrew word I stick with this spelling unless I was writing a fictional or real life portrayal of life in CH today.

Berl of Crown Heights: Schneur wrote: The Rebbe's pronunciation was the dominant White Russian one - a simple "R". I am not aware of ANY difference between a Russian and a White Russian "R". (And I mean - "any"!) Are you referring to the difference between the local Slavic pronunciations as opposed to the Jewish one? I am under an impression that Jews (without speech impediments) pronounced their "R�s" the same way as the indigenous population. But I might be wrong on that. Reb Yoel does stress the "R" sound more than most people, but I would guess he picked it up in the same "Russian urban area" where he got his famous lisp.

Incidentally, the Russian "R" is much more phonetically appropriate for Hebrew than the common Israeli rendition of that sound. ("reish" is classified by the SEFER YETZIRA as a "dental" sound, not a guttural one ). "Frui" vs. "froi" � I seem to remember the Rebbe say it both ways. Anyone else remember differently? More on "Fruy" vs. "froy": Similarly, I in the southeastern parts of White Russia some people said "Guy" and not "Goy". Ukrainian influence, perhaps?

Schneur Zalman of NY: There are other words the Rebbe pronounced in several ways too. Usually he said di fru. My brother has a list of several such words. As far as goy the Lithuanian -White Russian is the following: in using the word for a non-Jewish we say GOY (cholom) in using the word in Holy nation for ourselves we say gay kadesh.(tzeyre) this is correct Litvishe-Reisin pronunciation. And perhaps you are referring to that. The R sound the Russian Jews roll their r's like Reb Yoel Kahan and other Lubavitchers I have met. The "authentic White Russian R is like the rebbe pronounced it a plain r sound. But obviously there were regional dialects within the "empire" of Lita-reisen.

Berl of Crown Heights: Schneur, I was actually referring to my distant memory of hearing some old southeastern White Russian Jews say "gooy" with a long "oo" sound like in "zoo". Like I said, it does sound positively Ukrainian... (I only brought up this word in connection to the "froy - frooy" discussion since it has the same phoneme.) As to the "R": I have no clue what you are calling "the plain "R" sound." Like I said, I have never heard of any difference between the two. Perhaps some people stress it more - all the same - they still pronounce what amounts to a basic Slavic "R" (the ringing kind). That is also the sound I heard form the Rebbe. Incidentally, Both in Russia and in White Russia pronouncing a guttural �R� (Israeli style) is actually considered a speech impediment and Jews are mimicked for allegedly mispronouncing the authentic Russian "R" and turning it into a guttural sound. But in truth this impediment was found among the native Slavs as well. Lenin himself pronounced his "R�s" that way and that "proved" he was a Jew! However, there actually are some Russian sounds that native Yiddish speakers found virtually impossible to pronounce, but "R" is not one of them.

Tzemach Atlas: Berl, I do not think that "kartavoye" R that you call a "speech impediment" was equally distributed between Jews and goyim. It was definitely characteristic of native Yiddish speakers. I met many Jews who spoke that away in Russian, far above the "speech impediment" expected sample. Hence Modern Hebrew R that is mimicking this "allegedly" yiddish R sound. But as you said I am baffled by this as I did not hear any traces of this pronunciation amongst Russian Yiddish speakers.

Neo-Conservaguy: Modern Hebrew's adaptation of a "throaty R" is an interesting result of the meshing together of the different approaches of various Jewish groups regarding Hebrew. The Arab/Mizrahi sound is far closer to the Sephardic "rolled R" than the "English R" or the "throaty R". In the days of olde, there may have been a distinction between the reish with/without a dagesh as well. A google search of "reish dagesh" yields some interesting discussion on this issue.

In no case, however, is the "English R" a correct approach to the sound of reish. It's a bit funny to me how seriously many people in my shul are about pronouncing Taf/Thaf/Sav as a "hard T" so they can "sound like Modern Hebrew" while still using American English sounds for all vowels and reish. BTW, I'm an American, and I like my language just fine - I just understand that when trying to speak another language you have to open your mind (and mouth) to learning some new sounds. If I can struggle to learn Hebrew, my friends can put a little effort into learning the proper sound of the letters.

Berl of Crown Heights: Neo-Conservaguy:, my main point � weather there is only one "Reish" or two, the only pronunciations that can be considered legit are those that employ teeth. (And that seems to disqualify both the English and the modern Israeli versions). See here.