Israel

[Damien Hall]

In BrE, 'Israel' (in any context, religious, political, demographic, etc
etc) is pronounced in two syllables /Iz.rEjl/ or in three, /Iz.re.j at l/; but
the vowel of the second syllable is always mid. The best piece of advice I
have ever had about pronunciation of any word, as a choral singer, is
'"Israel", like "British Rail"' (British Rail was the name of the national
railway company when it was nationalised). That's also the pronunciation
used in reading in British churches (and in all contexts for the modern
country).

When I arrived in America and began to sing in a church choir, the
pronunciation /Iz.ra.jEl/ struck me as very strange. It had never been
necessary in any choir I'd ever sung in to stipulate which pronunciation of
'Israel' should be used in a given piece of music! In America, I only ever
heard the pronunciation /Iz.ra.jEl/ in church; in other contexts, both AmE
and BrE have mid-vowels in the second syllable. /Iz.ra.jEl/ is the Latin
pronunciation of the country / people, of course; I assume that it's used
in church in the US as a throwback from the days when much more Latin was
used in church. I never quite got used to using the Latinate pronunciation
only in that specific circumstance; but, thinking about it, I suppose it
may have been the Brits who changed, thanks to having a national church (in
England, anyway) and all!

Damien

--
Damien Hall

University of York
Department of Language and Linguistic Science
Heslington
YORK
YO10 5DD
UK

Tel. (office) +44 (0)1904 432665
     (mobile) +44 (0)771 853 5634
Fax  +44 (0)1904 432673
http://www.york.ac.uk/res/aiseb/

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org