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The case of Hebrew and your throat

In the first edition of our textbook, the author (Ethelyn Simon) referred to the letters ר ע ה א ח as the “throaty five.” That’s because, with the exception of the /resh/, these consonants are pronounced far back in the mouth at the opening of your throat.
In our edition of the book these letters are called “gutturals” and some scholars call them “laryngeals.” [Yes, I know . . . you will say that you pronounce the ח in the “roof” of your mouth. However in non-western Hebrew the ח really is pronounced in the throat—and so is the ע.
Before we go further, please note that there is a Hebrew mnemonic to remind us of these letters. “The comrade of the brother”: רֵעַ הָאָח. (A ‘word-pair’!] Let’s look at what happens to verbs in the imperfect (= future tense) when the last letter of the root is ע ח א . (We won’t deal with the case of הּ in this discussion, but note that there is a dot inside the הּ. WATCH

שָמַר	he guarded	יִשְׁמֹר	he will guard
זָכַר	he remembered	יִזְכֹּר	he will remember
פָּתַח	he opened	יִפְתַּח	he will open
קָרָא	he called	יִקְרָא	he will call
שָׁמַע	he heard	יִשְׁמַע	he will hear
מָצָא	he found	יִמְצָא	he will find
שָׁלַח	he sent	יִשְׁלַח	he will send

See how these “throat consonants” attract the /ah/ vowel which is also pronounced low-down and in back of the mouth

Now it's your turn!
See if you can form the imperfect form of the verb (He will ). Click on button to see if you are right.

he closed סָגַַר

he will close

יִסְגֹר