Couple of fine-tuning points from VAYISHLACH (but they can be applied to davening and even regular Hebrew speaking). • Children. Y'LA-DIM. The children (as in B'reishit 33:5). Not ha-y'la-DIM, but hai-la-DIM. That's a little hard to get used to, but there are a lot of words that work the same way. The SH'VA under the YUD in Y'LADIM is a SH'VA NA. With the HEI prefixed to the word, the SH'VA becomes a SH'VA NACH and the YUD/SH'VA joins the HEI in the word's first syllable, rather than attaching itself to the LA syllable, as would happen with a SH'VA NA. What makes this example more interesting is that it is a YUD whose SH'VA changes. That means that with a SH'VA NA, the YUD sounds like the consonant sound of a Y. Y'LADIM. But with a SH'VA NACH, the YUD is like the vowel sound of Y. Specifically, the combination of the PATACH under the HEI followed by a YUD comes out sounding similar to a long i sound as in the word rice. Not exactly, but close. This last observation will probably produce feed- back from some of our veteran experts, but that's okay, because we haven't heard from them in a while. • Look at 34:29. There's a word with two possible meanings, depending upon accent. SHA-vu means they returned. But sha-VU means they captured. Rashi points this out and explains why the word is to be pronounced MILRA. This would then be an example of a switched accent which changes the meaning and therefore, if read MIL'EIL,it would require rereading. • He's another word to read carefully. 35:17. TI'R'I. Rachel's midwife tells her not to fear - it's a boy. The first syllable is "ti" (as in drinking tea). The second syllable is R'I. If one mispronounces this as tir-i, the word changes meaning to "will see". Better to "warn" the Baal Korei in advance if you think he doesn't know these fine distinctions, rather than waiting to catch him in a goof. [The Parshat Vayishlach Homepage]
|
