bdenckla
commented
1 year ago I think part of the problem is you may be confusing how words are commonly transcribed (transliterated) vs. what sounds those words are thought to have.
I gain this perspective from, for example, https://r12a.github.io/scripts/hebr/block.html#he05D0, where, in a section pretty clearly transcribing the sound of alef as a glottal stop (ʔ), it mentions, quite correctly, that alef is usually not transcribed in word-initial position:
ʔ eg. אֵם em mother In word-initial position, alef is not usually transcribed, eg. the transcription of the previous example would be em.
Not all transcriptions (in fact very few) try to capture the complete phonetics of the source script. As such, they should not be taken to imply an interpretation of the phonetics of the source script. It is quite reasonable for all but the most technical of transcriptions to omit initial glottal stops. It is not reasonable to take this omission to mean that these sounds do not exist, at least in theory.
r12a
[source] https://r12a.github.io/scripts/hebr/he
In the section called "Standalone vowels" (a concept I have never run across in relation to Hebrew), the page says:
As I mentioned in issue #139 with relation to ayin, although one may argue that in practice, in some dialects and/or contexts these are pronounced only as a vowel sound, i.e., are not accompanied by a glottal stop, these are, nonetheless, conceived of as (theorized as) glottal stop consonants, not vowels, when they are word-initial. (Ayin always, not just when it is word-initial, in fact: that's my point in #139. Alef is conceived of as a glottal stop in only some of its non-initial appearances; at other times it is an ML, i.e. corresponds to only a vowel sound.)
I think your job will be simplified, if you either don't worry about describing practice, or if you do describe practice, you do not neglect to describe theory as well, and carefully qualify which you are talking about (theory vs. practice).
As it is, to my ears, you are currently making claims that sound wrong according to theory, so they either look wrong to the reader, or the reader is required to assume that implicitly, you are referring to the pragmatics of some dialect and/or context.
It is trickier to make claims about practice, so if you do want to make them, IMO they need some authoritative sources. Theory (according to me at least) is more widely documented and agreed upon.
@skadish1 anything to add?