Towards better Davening and Torah Reading Fine-tuning... Much of this column is about polishing and fine-tuning the way we say brachot, the way we daven, the way we read the Torah. And, along the way, we get to review various rules of DIKDUK and pronunciation. With that in mind, let's look at the beginning part of Kiddush for Leil Yom Tov, which we will be saying twice on Pesach. (Chu"l people will say them four times, but who's counting?) BARUCH ATA HASHEM ELOKEINU MELECH HAOLAM ASHER BACHAR BANU MIKOL AM, V'ROMEMANU MIKOL LASHON, V'KIDASHANU BIMITZVOTAV, VATITEN LANU... aSHER BA-char BA-nu. The word BACHAR on its own is pronounced MILRA, i.e. on the last (second) syllable. When the word is followed in the same phrase with the word BA-nu, the accent of BACHAR "retreats" to the next to the last syllable (the first of the two, in this case) making the pronunciation MIL'EIL. This is called NASOG ACHOR (a topic we've featured more than once) and allows the words to flow more smoothly when voiced. MIKOL-AM, these words are linked with a MAKAF (upper hyphen) and behave much like a single word. Nonetheless, one should be careful to pause ever so slightly between the two, so that the second word remains AM and not LAM. This is more so with the next word-pair MIKOL-LASHON. Joined as the are, one should make a tiny separation so that each LAMED - the one that ends the first word and the one that begins the second word is distinct, and neither is swallowed to fuse the words as MIKOLASHON. Now look at VATITEN-LANU. Here is a joining of two words, a NASOG ACHOR-like manifestation, and a change in vowel. The word by itself is VATITEIN. As in... Chava took from the fruit of the tree (of Knowledge of Good and Evil) and she ate, va-ti-TEIN and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Accent is mil-RA and the vowel under the second TAV is the strong TZEIREI. But, when the word is joined to LI, LO, LAH, LANU (to me, to him, to her, to us), then the accent retreats and the vowel under the second TAV "softens" to a SEGOL, because of the loss of the accent - giving us va-TI-ten LA-nu. Of 21 occurrences in Tanach of VATITE(I)N, six are joined to a "to-pronoun" word and behave as above. Interesting to note are the twice occurring VATITEIN LAHEM - these words are not joined, the VATITEIN stays MILRA, and the TZEIREI stays. LAHEM (to them) would not have the same effect on the verb word before it anyway, since it is mil-RA (la-HEM) in contrast to LA-nu and the one-syllable words LI, LO, LAH. [The Parshat Tzav Homepage]
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