re: KGH
"The Sephardim pronounce Hebrew correctly. Ashkenazim destroy the language, mostly by putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable. By doing this, they often change the meaning of the phrase. And before anyone jumps all over my comments, even the 'holy' Artscroll Siddurim have indicators of where to put the emphasis."
Your point on emphasis is somewhat correct, but, other than that, are you joking? How on earth can a kamatz and patach sound identical and have no sound for kamatz? And how sure are you that a tav without a dagesh is supposed to be pronounced identically with a dagesh?
The teimanim, who differentiate each letter/dagesh much more than sefardim and even ashkenazim do, are probably the closest to the original.
But Zionist hebrew, as a made-up dialect, has no place in anything holy like Tefillah. Nor does Yiddish, for that matter, just because your corner of Europe happened to pronounce a yiddish kamatz more like a segol in spite of your mesorah that clearly did not pronounce it that way before that.
The biggest proof, in my opinion, as to the invalidity of many of the common pronunciations out there is the complete lack of consistency.
For example, in chassidic havaras, some “kamatz” are pronounced properly like a kamatz (as in “much”) while most are pronounced improperly like a “shuruk” (as in “boot”).
In Ashkenazic havara, girls are taught a “cholam” is “oh” while boys are taught (often after being first taught correctly like the girls) it is pronounced “oy”. Sefardim and teimanim pronounce it “oh” and Germans slightly accent it to “ow”. Yet the “oy” is still taught as the correct way to pronounce “oh”?
Regarding emphasis:
Though Ashkenazim can, should, and in many cases do use the correct emphasis “Vi – A – Hav – **TA**”, not “Vi – A – **HAV** – ta” in shema is an example of an important difference that makes for a difference.
However, since English (and Yiddish) is typically pronounced “mileil”, not “milra” as much of lishon haKodesh is, English (and Yiddish) speakers tend to inadvertently but incorrectly apply the same pronunciation to lishon HaKodesh. This is a problem, and should be corrected, but it is not an Ashkenazi havara rule unlike the chassidic/yiddish and sefardi pronunciations whose issues *are* “policy”.