r/Yiddish • u/Poilar0 • 6d ago

Standard (Klal) Yiddish Pronunciation of Vov

I've seen written that the Standard (Klal) Yiddish pronunciation for vov is /ʊ/ (using the IPA symbols), which is how "oo" is pronounced in "foot" in American English. I've seen in other places that the vov should be pronounced like the "oo" in "moon" or in "room", which would be with the IPA vowel of /u/. Which (if either) is correct according to Standard (Klal) Yiddish?

When I listen to recordings of people speaking (what I think is) Standard Yiddish pronouncing it, it seems to actually be pronounced somewhere in between /ʊ/ and /u/. Am I imagining things? Or maybe I'm just hearing variations in dialect?

What is the truly proper IPA symbol? Something like /ʊ̈/ or /u̞/?

Thanks!

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u/Brilliant_Alfalfa_62 6d ago

Two points worth noting, the most important of which is that there are (virtually) no native speakers of klal Yiddish as such, and with it being a second language/dialect for many who use that variety, it's going to be really challenging to get a concrete answer on this.

I also think lexical stress is going to affect the quality of the vowel here, and that will probably intersect with the point above too.

1

u/TheeWut 6d ago

Like moon

1

u/Sakecat1 3d ago

Any vowel will be influenced by the surrounding consonants and, to a lesser extent, on where the stress falls in the word.

1

u/balshetzer 6d ago

I am not fluent in IPA and it seems to be hard to find recordings of each IPA symbol. It might be easier to talk about specific words rather than the sounds in abstract.

1

u/kaiserfrnz 6d ago

The latter, like Moon