I haven't studied Hebrew in 50 years and cannot read it anymore. I wonder if anyone has any suggestions on how I can get the pronunciation of Rabbi Nachman's phrase "Ribono Shel Olam" both in the way he would have pronounced it and the standard (biblical?) Hebrew pronunciation? I think the written Hebrew is ריבונו של עולם.
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3I think this may be a harder question than you realize. There is no "standard" Hebrew pronunciation and we frankly don't really know exactly how Hebrew was pronounced in biblical times. Also, just so you know, although based on some googling around it does seem that Rebbi Nachman did prescribe reciting the phrase as a sort of mantra, he did not coin the expression.– DanielCommented Nov 16, 2020 at 12:56
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1I find listening to old klezmer songs (e.g. 1905 and onwards) useful to see how people pronounced hebrew in Europe.– The GRAPKECommented Nov 16, 2020 at 22:00
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Saba (R' Yisrael Odesser z"tzl) saying it sounds like "riBO[I]no shel O[I]lam" as can be heard on SuperSaba Track 4 drive.google.com/drive/folders/…– Nissim NanachCommented Nov 22, 2020 at 16:30
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Hebrew ought to be riboNO shel OLAM (though ribon is borrowed from Targum/Aramaic) so this is a hybrid phrase. But practically if following R' Nachman z"l's advice he said to talk to God in language of your choice how-ever you're comfortable.– Nissim NanachCommented Nov 22, 2020 at 16:40
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1In Tiberian Hebrew the phrase would have probably been something like [ʀibboːˈnoː ˈʃεːl ʕoːˈlɔːm] in IPA.– ArgonCommented Dec 10, 2020 at 4:02
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1 Answer
That phrase is not Rabbi Nachman’s. He simply used the phrase for some of his teachings.
He would likely have pronounced it using some form of the traditional Ukrainian Ashkenazic pronunciation, i.e. “ReBOYne shel OY-lem” (with e being a schewa like the first vowel in the word “around”).
The phrase itself comes from Mishnaic Hebrew, and would have been pronounced /Reeb-bo-NO shel ʕo-LAM/. The R was a voiced trill a bit behind the place where you say K, the O is like in the word “Or”, the A is between “Ant” and “Ox”, and the ʕ is a weird sound that doesn’t exist in English made by squeezing your throat opening until it’s really tight and narrow, then using your voice.
This phrase would have been spelled and pronounced differently in Biblical Hebrew. If we just take Biblical Hebrew pronunciation and use it for this, it’s almost the same, except the R is a trill like in Italian.
If we translate this to Biblical Hebrew, the first word is “Rabb” with an Italian-trill R, an A like described above, and a geminated B. The second word is just eliminated, and third word is the same.
