It's easy to imagine Horowitz's "hard" ayin since it's common in Arabic and even in the speech of some modern Israelis. But what did the soft version sound like? A simple glottal stop? And if so, are there any theories why two such different sounds would have been assigned to the same letter?
Klein distinguishes between the two Arabic letters, having one be "a strong guttural sound, cp Hebrew ע" and the second "a guttural, gargling sound".
So I think that the original soft "ayin" is what you hear from some Israelis who came from Arabic speaking countries (the ones who came from European ones generally fail to distinguish between ayin and alef). We never really hear the hard ayin in Hebrew today.
As to why one letter got two sounds - good question, and I'm not sure. But we do see the same phenomenon with shin and sin.
I am not an expert, but if I recall correctly, the "two ayins" is no different really than - for example - those Hebrew words in which the shin derives from the proto-semetic letter with the sound "th" (as in the english word "thought")as opposed to those words in which the shin is simply derive from a plain old shin. An example of the former being shalosh - which is why the word is "shalosh" in Hebrew, "talat" in Aramiac and "thalat" in Arabic.
Same with ayin: proto-semetic had two sounds, one which is like our ayin (which was, as you said originally that more gutteral ayin which some Israelis still pronounce) and the other was another letter, "rayin" (I am not sure of the proper transliteration)which was even more gutteral (and harder to pronounce - at least for us westerners). Some ayins in Hebrew words derive from one and some from the other. Examples of words which derive from "rayin" would be "aza" and amora" hence the transliteration as "gaza" and "gamorrah." Another exmpale would be "ma'arav" - which is why you have the term "mugrabim" which is related to the word ma'arav.
Hence, it is not two different ayins rather ayin in Hebrew represents two different letters from proto-semetic.
Lonnie
"From the word ayin (the English word eye has an unrelated etymology (link) )... "
The link neglects to mention the Middle English word EYNE. (Chaucer writes: "Ther lakketh no thing to thin outer eyne That thou art blynd; for things that we see...")
"Klein says that the word maon מעון - residence is related to ein, but I don't exactly understand how. "
maon מעון in Arabic is what can be borrowed like a sauspan, a blade, a jar, a hammer. Also, the two letters ain and nun, with different vowels in the middle give the meaning of help, assistance, etc.
My wild guess is that if you are living in a tent away from other humans, you have no access to maon = ماعون. But if you live in a home then you have access to maon. With a leap of imagination...where we can get maon is maon.
There is obviously no connection between "o" and the sound it makes in latin/greek, becuase the entire alphabet is phonecian.
"maon" is a source of upbringing (residence), just like maayan is a source of freshwater
As mentioned about, the harsh sound of Ayin does sound like Rayin. I was brought up Mizrahi and thus grew up pronouncing Ayin similar to the Arabic "Ghayin". When spoken harshly the initial sound very much resembles a french "R"... Which incidentally is how Israelis typically now pronounce Reish
Amit - the idea here is that ayin is a consonant, while O is a vowel. So why did the Greeks choose the vowel "o" if they were able to choose any vowel? Sacks suggests because of the shape of the letter.
There is some precedence in Hebrew - the names of the vowels kamatz and patach are based on the shape of the mouth as well.
A very interesting discussion.
But why does Immanuel in Isaiah vii, 14 beginning with ayin followed by an 'I' change to 'E' in the LXX and in the Vulgate and in our carols?
I'm not sure what the issue is -- both "I" and "E" can represent the vowel "ee" in English.
So many Hebrew-instruction books intended for English-speaking children insist that there is no distinction in sound between ayin and alef. While I recognize that this difference has fallen away among many speakers of Hebrew, I for one think that the ayin ought to be pronounced a step closer to the Arabic ayin, just a slight gutteralization that distinguishes it from the pure glottal stop of the alef in Hebrew and alif in Arabic.
They're two distinctly different letters. Why not pronounce them differently?
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