Syrian Jews
The Syrian pronunciation of Hebrew is similar to that of other Mizrahi communities and is influenced both by Sephardi Hebrew and by the Syrian dialect of Levantine Arabic. The Syrian pronunciation of Hebrew is less archaic than the Iraqi Hebrew of Iraqi Jews and closer to standard Sephardic Hebrew. That affects especially the interdentals. Nevertheless, Syrian and Iraqi Hebrew are very closely related because of their location and geographic proximity, as is the case with most eastern Jewish communities in the Arabic world other than Yemenite Jews. Particular features are as follows:The retention of distinct emphatic sounds such as and differentiates Syrian pronunciation from many other Sephardic/Mizrahi pronunciations, which have failed to maintain these phonemic or phonological distinctions, such as between and .
Arab (etymology)
The early Nabateans are also referred to as "ʿarvim" in Nehemiah 4:7 and the singular "ʿarvi" is applied to Geshem a leader who opposed Nehemiah. This term is identical to "ʿaravi" in unvowelled text but traditionally vowelized differently. It is usually translated "Arabian" or "Arab" and was used in early 20th century Hebrew to mean Arab. However it is unclear if the term related more to "ʿarav" or to "ʿerev". On the one hand its vowelization resembles that of the term "ʿarvati" (Arbathite) which is understood as an adjective formed from "ʿaravah "; thus it is plausibly a similarly formed adjective from "ʿarav" and thus a variant of "ʿaravi ". On the other hand, it is used in 2 Chronicles 21:16 for a seemingly different people located in Africa plausibly the same Africans referred to as an "ʿerev" (mix of people) in Ezekiel 30:5. Any of the other meanings of the root are also possible as the origin of the name.