The Sephardim were expellees from Spain and settled among the Mizrahim, but in countries such as Syria and Morocco, there was a fairly high degree of convergence between the Sephardi and the local pronunciations of Hebrew.
A common form of such compromise is the use of [ħ], [r] and [ʕ] for ח, ר and ע, respectively, with most or all other sounds pronounced as in Standard Israeli Hebrew.
For example, Kamatz gadol is pronounced [ɒ], like the long ā ا/آ in Persian, ק (Qof) is approximately pronounced [ɣ] (voiced velar fricative), and ח (Het) is pronounced identical to ה (Hay), as opposed to the Arab ح [ħ] In Talmudic times, it was noted that the Galilean (and maybe Syrian) pronunciation of Hebrew and Aramaic differed from those of both Judaea and Babylonia, principally by the loss of distinct sounds for the guttural letters he, ḥet, and ʿayin.
In Iraq, it appears to have been superseded by the Palestinian pronunciation (similar to today's Sephardi Hebrew) in or around the 11th century, when the Tiberian notation was adopted: both Saadia Gaon and Jacob Qirqisani report that in their time the Palestinian pronunciation had come to be regarded as standard.
[3][4] Nevertheless, in their reading of unvocalised texts such as the Mishnah, Baghdadi Jews preserve certain peculiarities of the old Babylonian pronunciation, particularly with their choices between dagesh and rafe and between silent and vocal sheva.
In Levantine Arabic, by contrast, there are distinct a and e sounds, and both vowels are distinguished in both the Palestinian and the Tiberian notations.