Most people call it an apostrophe. You can see one just to your right in the name of this week's sedra SH'MINI. In fact, it is because this week's sedra is Sh'mini that we are bringing up this subject (again). The topic is particular to English speakers who are well-practiced in blending some consonant sounds into a single phoneme. The B of brother and the R of brother are not distinctly sounded. They are blended into the well-known consonant blend BR. But in Hebrew, adjacent consonants are sounded separately. A blessing is a B'RACHA. Not BRACHA. See? There's the SHMICHIK (or CHUPCHIK, if you prefer). It says not to pronounce the BR as in brother, but to give the B a very short almost-vowel sound of the SH'VA NA that is under it and follow it immediately with the RACHA. And just as we have to learn to separate the B from the R, we must be careful not to give the B too much of its own identity. Which is why, in our transliteration in Torah Tidbits, we stay away from BERACHA, but rather prefer B'RACHA. Part of the "problem", if we can call it that, is that many Hebrew words have entered into our English vocabulary - not as officially recognized dictionary entries, but in the typical English spoken by (religious) Jews. So it is not unusual for a parent to ask his child if he said a bracha, not only blending the BET & REISH, but accenting the first syllable rather than correctly pronouncing the word as the MILRA that it is. Similarly, this week's sedra is Shmini. That's an English sentence (sort of). But when you read the Torah, the proper way to say it is BAYOM HASH'MINI. Ready to say Shma? SH'MA YIS-RA-EIL... There are many people who will pronounce Hebrew words in an English sentence in the proper Hebrew way, but many of us will distinguish between Torah and to-RA, Megila and m'gi-LA, Menorah and m'no-RA depending on context. If you say Menorah in an English context, you have to remember to use its proper pronunciation and stress when it is in a Hebrew context. (BTW, Menorah is an example of a Hebrew word that has made it into the English dictionary. In fact, Random House gives it two pronunciations: An English one, with the accent on the NO syllable and a Hebrew pronunciation with the accent on the RA.) The TR of tree, trip, truck, etc. is blended so much that it comes out as chr. T'RUMA, on the other hand has a distinct T and R sound. ETC. [The Parshat Sh'mini Homepage]
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