Mizrahi Hebrew Tiberian notations. After the expulsion of the Sephardi Jews from Spain in 1492, the exiles took the leading position in most Arab and Ottoman countries, and the local pronunciation of Hebrew assimilated to Sephardi Hebrew in many respects, particularly for pronouncing the vowels. Today's Iraqi Jews distinguish between "patach" () and "segol" () in the same way as most other Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews. However, distinct sounds for the guttural and emphatic letters and the sound for "bet rafe" were retained in many Arab countries, probably under the influence of Arabic. Iraqi Jews, like Yemenite Jews, retain the Classical Arabic
Sephardi Hebrew the Ashkenazi pronunciation was derived from that of Palestine in Geonic times (7th-11th centuries) and that the Sephardi pronunciation was derived from that of Babylonia. The theory was supported by the fact that in some respects, Ashkenazi Hebrew resembles the western dialect of Syriac, and Sephardi Hebrew resembles the eastern dialect: Eastern Syriac "Peshitta" as against Western Syriac "Peshito". Ashkenazi Hebrew, in its written form, also resembles Palestinian Hebrew in its tendency to "malē" spellings (see Mater lectionis). Others, including Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, believed that the distinction is more ancient and represents the distinction between the Judaean and Galilean dialects