YL writes... In the TBDATR column of TT issue 656, Phil (I always call him "Reb Pinchas") added a "personal" note, saying that he knows I (YL) will take him to task for not "talking AYIN vs. ALEF". He then went on to present the problem quite fairly:

1) halachic sources warn us to distinguish between ALEFs and AYINs, especially in SH'MA.

2) Some argue that the "Ashkenazi" non-pronunciation of an AYIN is simply wrong, while he (Phil) clings to the view that it is the "Ashkenazi way" to consider an AYIN silent - even though it really isn't.

I'd like to add the following - with Phil's permission - to this presentation:
The root of the matter is that there really is no "Ashkenazi way" about it: at no stage in the development of the Ashkenazi galut (golus) did any (Ashkenazi or other) halakhic authority take any decision about "declaring kosher", if I may put it that way, this lack of distinction between ALEF and AYIN (by the way, neither are "silent letters" by nature, though the ALEF can be silent under certain circumstances, the AYIN - never). The so-called "Ashkenazi" way came about as the result of simple sloppiness combined with assimilation, linguistic assimilation - that is. It must have been rough for Ashkenazi readers of Hebrew to maintain a pronunciation of AYIN when the entire linguistic vicinity in which they found themselves never had any sound even closely approximating the original AYIN, and I can certainly appreciate that it was rough. I can also understand why it must have been with a sigh of relief that the first or second generation of linguistic assimilationists found they could treat the AYIN as a silent letter and get away with it! (At first, I'm sure rabbanim must have corrected them, but probably gave up as they saw they were losing the battle).

But now we are no longer in that all-embracing, smothering "Ashkenazi" linguistic environment, and there is no longer any justification (even b'di'avad) to continue mispronouncing (or not pronouncing) our AYINs, especially in Torah reading and in davening, and in SH'MA in particular. How else, by the way, are we to distinguish between VA'AVAD-TEM (with an AYIN) and VA'AVAD-TEM (with an ALEF), both of which appear in SH'MA - with entirely different meanings? Point to ponder.

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