Tiberian Hebrew

Tiberian Hebrew is the canonical pronunciation of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh committed to writing by Masoretic scholars living in the Jewish community of Tiberias in ancient Judea c. 750–950 CE. They wrote in the form of Tiberian vocalization, which employed diacritics added to the Hebrew letters: vowel signs and consonant diacritics (nequdot) and the so-called accents (two related systems of cantillation signs or te'amim). These together with the marginal notes masora magna and masora parva make up the Tiberian apparatus.

Though the written vowels and accents came into use only c. 750 CE, the oral tradition they reflect is many centuries older, with ancient roots. Although not in common use today, the Tiberian pronunciation of Hebrew is considered by textual scholars to be the most accurate reproduction of the original Semitic consonantal and vowel sounds of ancient Hebrew.

Today's Hebrew grammar books do not teach the Tiberian Hebrew that was described by the early grammarians. The prevailing view is that of David Qimchi's system of dividing the graphic signs into "short" and "long" vowels. The values assigned to the Tiberian vowel signs reveals a Sephardi tradition of pronunciation (the dual quality of qames (אָ) as /a/, /o/; the pronunciation of simple sheva (אְ) as /ɛ̆/).

The phonology of Tiberian Hebrew can be gleaned from the collation of various sources:

In the last two, it is evident that the chain of transmission is breaking down or that their interpretations are influenced by local tradition.

Tiberian Hebrew has 29 consonantal phonemes, represented by 22 letters. The sin dot distinguishes between the two values of ש‎, with a dot on the left (שׂ‎) being pronounced the same as the letter Samekh. The letters בגדכפת‎ (begadkefat) had two values each: plosive and fricative.

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