In the Hebrew writing system, there is an alphabet. And then there are funny little dots and lines that they put above and below the letters of the alphabet. The teachers of Hebrew say that these dots and lines are the "vowels" because "Hebrew doesn't have any vowels".
When I started learning about how the German, English, and Celtic languages evolved out of the Hebrew languages, I started to smell a rat. I could see words that came out of Hebrew. And they clearly had vowels. You can read up on this for yourself: The Word, by Isaac Mozeson (2000), English Derived from Hebrew, With glances at Greek and Latin, by Robert Govett (1869)
I went to a couple synagogues, and followed along as they read the Torah portions in Hebrew. I didn't understand; I just worked to keep up with the reading by knowing where they were in the text. And I noticed that 90% of the time, I could read the Hebrew text AS IF certain letters were vowels, and it just "worked". I could chalk up the remaining 10% of the time as language shift. Language shift happens to every language, according to my language classes and Hebrew scholars themselves. And those letters that I was treating like vowels? The rabbi's told me that those letters were "silent" and not to be pronounced. It was then that I knew that I had been lied to. The teachers of Hebrew tell you "Hebrew has no vowels". They lie. It does.
All the alphabets in use today evolved from the original Hebrew alphabet. Because of this we can tell a lot about how ancient Hebrew was pronounced. Why is it that every other alphabet has lots of vowels? Hebrew has the same letters as the other alphabets. Why aren't they called vowels in Hebrew?
A couple years ago I went to a presentation by Professor Peter Flint, an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He gave a slide show. One slide showed the difference between a chapter in Isaiah from the modern Hebrew text, and from the Dead Sea Scrolls. He had the differences highlighted in yellow. Professor Flint was trying to demonstrate that the differences were very minor, and that the Bible had been transmitted accurately over the thousands of years. Every second word had one or more letters highlighted in yellow. Meaning there was a tremendous amount of differences. But Peter Flint explained that most of the differences were just spelling. I could see that most of the spelling differences involved the letter aleph and waw. In the modern Hebrew, the letters were absent. Professor Flint went on to the next slide. All the "spelling differences" were taken out. We could then see a few differences left. He explained these were inconsequential grammatical differences and spelling mistakes. He clicked to the next slide. Only one or two differences remained in the document. Professor Flint said that Dead Sea Scrolls scholars had compiled a list of 180 or so changes that ought to be made to the modern Bible to correct it, based on study of the older texts. Some of these differences really clarified the nature of the Messianic texts. Professor Flint used one of the Psalms as an example of a text that was clearly Messianic in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but was just muddled and confusing in the Masoretic modern Jewish text.
I had already concluded that ancient Hebrew had vowels, the same as every alphabet that evolved from it does. The Dead Sea Scrolls seemed to prove it. I recently wrote a letter to a Jewish acquaintance who lived in Israel for many years:
Date: June 16, 2007
To: Scott ReissMy gut tells me that at least four of the letters in the Hebrew alefbet were originally vowels in the sense that we know them today; aleph, waw, yod and oyin. (a/uh, u/oo, e/i, o)
Date: June 16, 2007
From: Scott ReissThe Hebrew alphabet contains five potential vowels (whose value is indicated by context and/or diacritical marks): aleph [a, e, o], heh [a, e, o], vav [o, u], yod [e, i], ayin [a]. In Ancient Hebrew the first and last may have represented consonants, a uvular fricative and a glottal stop respectively, as in modern Yemenite pronunciation. They may also be silent in standard modern Hebrew. Heh may also be silent or represent the consonant [h]. Vav may also represent the consonant [v]. Yod may also represent the semi-consonant [j].
So basically what your gut tells you is more or less on the right track.
Wow. Not only did my friend from Israel confirm that Hebrew has vowels. He also soundly debunked those people who try to say that "Jehovah" is a bad and wrong pronunciation of the Sacred Name. The letter yod not only has the "ee" and "y" sounds; it also has the "j" sound.
I am not alone in my observation. Hebrew Roots scholar Jeff Benner sent out an email on August 1, 2007. It linked to an article which says essentially what I have said above, but in a nicer way. I quote it here:
Until 1947, the oldest manuscript of the Hebrew Bible was the codex Leningrad which is dated to around 1,000 A.D. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 we now have manuscripts that are 1000 years older than the codex Leningrad. While the Hebrew texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls (2000 years old) and the Hebrew text from the codex Leningrad (1000 years old) are very similar, there are differences (See the AHRC article Isaiah Scroll and the Masoretic Text). One of the largest differences are the vowels used for the text. Throughout the codex Leningrad the vowel sound 'o' is represented by a dot placed over a letter. For instance the Hebrew word for 'no', as it appears in the codex, is לֹא (lo). The dot above the text, called a hholam, represents the vowel sound 'o'. These dots and dashes (called nikkudot, nikkud in the singular) were created by the Masorites during the time the codex Leningrad was written. The Dead Sea Scrolls, written long before the Masorites, used the letter ו (waw, vav in modern Hebrew) for the consonant 'w' but also the vowel sound 'o'. Through the Dead Sea Scrolls this word appears as לוא. In the Masoretic text the name David is written as דָוִד (dawid). The dot, called the hhireq, below the ו represents the 'i' sound. However, in the Dead Sea Scrolls the name David is written as דויד where the letter י (yud) is used for the 'i' sound.
From the vast amount of manuscripts unearthed in the Dead Sea Caves it has been discovered that the letters waw and yud (and to a lesser extent the letters hey and aleph) were widely used as vowels. But when and why they were removed from the text and replaced with the nikkudot appears to be a mystery. In the "Ancient Hebrew Bible" all of the hholam and hhireq nikkud have been replaced with the letter waw and yud respectively in order to attempt to restore the text to its pre-Masoretic state.
— exerpt from Jeff Benners Introduction to the Paleo-Hebrew Edition of the Bible
If the spelling of the name David was changed, what other spellings were changed? Because each letter in the alphabet is a picture with a meaning, and because each word in Hebrew tells you its meaning by the way it is spelled, what are we then to understand when we read the Bible? When meaningful symbols are taken away, how can the word serve as its own dictionary entry? For more on the topic of Hebrew being a self-defining language, read the stuff by Jeff Benner, Frank Seekins, and Brad Scott.
Hebrew has letters that serve as vowels. The Masoretic scholars of 1000 years ago take credit for putting the vowel pointing system in. Between the time they added the vowel points, and Hebrew lost its regular vowels, what happened? The Masoretes said that they burned every "corrupt" copy of Scripture. A corrupt copy was one that was not exactly the same as the version they chose to transmit. Therefore, they have to take reponsibility for stealing the vowels from the Hebrew language. Case closed.
The Masoretic scholars were rabbi's. Or, Pharisees. Truly was it said, they shut up the Kingdom of Heaven so that other men cannot enter.