Mizrahi Hebrew sounds of "waw" () and "tav raphe" (). In other Arab countries, "tav raphe" is pronounced , which is equally consistent with the pronunciation of both Sephardi Hebrew and of colloquial Arabic. The pronunciation of "waw" as , in countries other than Iraq and Yemen, is more clearly Sephardic in origin. Mizrahi Hebrew Mizrahi Hebrew, or Eastern Hebrew, refers to any of the pronunciation systems for Biblical Hebrew used liturgically by Mizrahi Jews: Jews from Arab countries or east of them and with a background of Arabic, Persian or other languages of the Middle East and Asia. As such, Mizrahi
Sephardi Hebrew of Hebrew in Mishnaic times (1st-2nd centuries), with the Sephardi pronunciation being derived from Judaean and the Ashkenazi from Galilean. The theory is supported by the fact that Ashkenazi Hebrew, like Samaritan Hebrew, has lost the distinct sounds of many of the guttural letters, and there are references in the Talmud to that as a feature of Galilean speech. Idelsohn ascribes the Ashkenazi (and, on his theory, Galilean) pronunciation of qamats gadol as to the influence of Phoenician: see Canaanite shift. During the Masoretes (8th-10th centuries), there were three distinct notations for denoting vowels and other details of pronunciation in