r/Toponymy • u/hononononoh • Sep 14 '23
Bil‘īn, Palestine pronunciation
I understand, or at least think I understand, the Semitic consonant ‘ayn. It's a voiced h. Or the consonant equivalent of the vowel a, similar to the relationship between w and u. It's an open glottis, in contrast to a glottal stop. Practicing it in the mirror, I figured out it's using the muscles attached to my hyoid bone and thyroid, to pull down the back of my tongue. And really no other voluntary muscle movement.
Whilst learning beginning Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic, I've gotten used to ‘ayn between two vowels. But I still struggle with consonant clusters, for lack of a better term, involving (C + ‘ayn) + V.
When I see a place name like Bil‘īn (بلعين), my feeling is that I should be dropping the root of my tongue during, or immediately following, pronouncing the l, which then turns the following long i into almost a nasalized e sound. I imagine someone from Limerick, Ireland saying "I'd be lyin'...", except without the "I'd".
Do I have it about right?