Re: uvular R in modern Hebrew

I've wondered about this too. Could it be from Ashkenazi settlers
whose Yiddish had uvular R via old German? a lot of those
beyond-the-(Russian-decreed) Pale Jews came east via Germany and
spoke Yiddish.

Max

>Why does Hebrew gave uvular /R/
>when most of its speakers have roots in Slavic and
>Arabic countries where <r> is a tap or a trill? My
>understanding is most of the very early speakers were
>Poles, Ukrainians and Belorussians.