Its a pride thing but I prefer to pronounce things properly when I say them in another language. It bothers me to no end when people say things in another language without having taken the time to really figure out how it ought to be sad.
For the last few years I have taken to addressing my sister "Rachael" with an Old Testament pronounciation of her name. Its wonderfully brutal and harsh sounding. But I am not positive I am doing it right as I am basing it loosely on a series of dramatized Old Testament stories where the actors were speaking in the Egyptian, Herbew, and Aramaic.
Seeing as how there are quite a few folks in these forums I was hoping to get some help on how to properly say Rachael as the Hebrews intended it to be said.
Right now it sounds something along the lines of
"Rahckh El"
If I could get a well outlined pronounciation guide I'd appreciate it greatly.
[ October 25, 2006, 03:46 PM: Message edited by: BlackBlade ]
Posted by Chanie (Member # 9544) on :
The "ch" is the "ch" of challah or Channukah.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
So the ch is pronounced with more of an H sound?
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
No, see, Rachael is a misspelling, based on a misunderstanding of the word. There is no particle "El" in the original name. A rahel is a young female sheep or goat, I believe.
Anyway, the correct pronunciation is ra-HHEYL, where the \hh\ is intended to represent a sound somewhere between the English \h\ and the German \ch\. It's less harsh than the latter, and more sounded than the former.
The \ey\ sound is the same vowel, more or less, that you have in the word "bake". And I capitalized the second syllable, because that's the one that gets the stress.
I could get into how the \r\ is more of a flap of the tongue against the roof of the mouth (sort of like \d\, but softer, but that's only in ancient Hebrew. In modern Hebrew, it's either an English or a French \r\, depending on how Israeli you want to sound (Israelis tend to do something like a French rolled \r\). But that's probably TMI.
And... I didn't understand the last line of your post.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: No, see, Rachael is a misspelling, based on a misunderstanding of the word. There is no particle "El" in the original name. A rahel is a young female sheep or goat, I believe.
Anyway, the correct pronunciation is ra-HHEYL, where the \hh\ is intended to represent a sound somewhere between the English \h\ and the German \ch\. It's less harsh than the latter, and more sounded than the former.
The \ey\ sound is the same vowel, more or less, that you have in the word "bake". And I capitalized the second syllable, because that's the one that gets the stress.
I could get into how the \r\ is more of a flap of the tongue against the roof of the mouth (sort of like \d\, but softer, but that's only in ancient Hebrew. In modern Hebrew, it's either an English or a French \r\, depending on how Israeli you want to sound (Israelis tend to do something like a French rolled \r\). But that's probably TMI.
And... I didn't understand the last line of your post.
I'm positive that Rahel means sheep.
Is the "El" certainly not a partical from Eloi or Eloheim?
You pretty much did what I asked in the last line of my post Lisa, thanks.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
It certainly is not. Some people assumed that the last two letters were that, and started writing the name Rachael, but it's not the case.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: It certainly is not. Some people assumed that the last two letters were that, and started writing the name Rachael, but it's not the case.