Aramaic Vowels

[Mshikhaya]

To me as a foreigner to the language, I hear Pthaka actually changing into [?] before Lamad (at least). Not sure if this is standard pronunciation but that's how I hear it. As native speaker, one might not even be aware that's the case.

For example, I was boasting once to a British guy, how perfectly phonetic my native language writing (Romanian) was. He just started reading to me the words exactly how they should have been read, according to the usual value of the letters. I was appalled how some words sounded :-). Now I am aware that our writing is not actually as phonetic as I thought. And we distort vowels and consonant quite badly in certain combinations. When we start learning writing as kids, the teacher would just correct us whenever we'd read words too precisely to the letter. After a while we wouldn?t even realize any longer we were distorting vowels and consonants in certain combinations.

Interesting this business of learning languages, I find it quite exciting.

Hi borota,

Honestly, I have never heard that vowel used in any modern spoken Aramaic dialect. That vowel exists in English and being fluent in English I'm sure I would catch it if I heard it spoken in Aramaic but honestly I can't tell you I have. Are the people you here speaking Aramaic native speakers of the language?

You said you have heard it pronounced as ? before a Lamad, do you recall the specific words you heard it in? Perhaps other native speakers of the language can chime in.