Somebody on Quora asked:
What are some phonetical processes that happened to Hebrew since its revival?
I answered:
There’s, most famously, the (tragic!) loss of the deep ‘ayin’ (ע) that Mihailo mentions.
Other distinctions that were sadly lost under the guise of making a language that would be more easily intelligible by Jews of various nationalities (these were not all in universal use and my yardstick of comparison here is really the old Yemenite pronunciation)
- Gimel with dagesh – like Arabic ghayin sound.
- Dhalet vs. dalet.
- Th sound.
If you want to gain an understanding for the true phonetic richness of ancient (Biblical) Hebrew that has sadly been lost in modern times, you can listen to recordings in the old Yemenite style. Like this one.
