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To: ChicagoHebrew

By the way, the Ladino speaking Sephardic side of my familypronounces vav as vav.





What's All This Hubbub About Hebrew?





The Bible was written in Hebrew. The Hebrew Bible is our instruction manual. If you were following a recipe for a beautiful meal but the cookbook was written in French and you only spoke/read English all you prepared would likely be an inedible disaster. This applies to the instructions from YHWH as well but has much more important consequences, a lack of understanding this book can lead to either life or death. Learn the Language!









Most linguists assume that the letter Vav was pronounced as W in ancient times.
In Modern Hebrew it is pronounced V.
Recently linguists have reconsidered this position and some now think it may have been V in ancient Hebrew as well.
Our main knowledge of ancient Hebrew pronunciation comes from the living traditions of Jewish communities throughout the world, which preserve vastly different pronunciations of Hebrew.

Of all these traditions, only the Yemenite community pronounces Vav as "W", possibly under the influence of Arabic. All other Jewish communities pronounce(d) the letter as "V".

Some linguists suggest that the different pronunciation traditions of modern Jewish communities actually preserve differences from ancient Hebrew.

We know that the ancient Israelites spoke a number of dialects of Hebrew and some of these dialectic differences expressed themselves in varying pronunciation of the consonants.

So for example, the Gileadites said "Shiboleth" while the Ephraimites said "Siboleth" (Judges 12:6). It is possible that some ancient Israelites said "W" while others said "V".

The main support for this comes from the fact that Oriental Jews, who spoke Arabic as their day to day language (up until 1948), continued to pronounce the Hebrew letter Vav as "V" even though this sound is not found in spoken Arabic.

At the very least it proves this pronunciation predates the Islamic conquests.

Modern Hebrew pronunciation is roughly a mix of the Ashkenazic pronunciation of the consonants and the Sephardic pronunciation of the vowels.


Modern Hebrew pronunciation has the following sounds:
Aleph - no sound, used as a vowel holder, like in English "Eat"
Bet Degusha - B
Bet Rafa - V
Gimel - G (as in "give")
Dalet - D
He - H (as in "hello"); in Tel Aviv it is identical to Aleph
Vav - V (identical to Bet Rafa)
Zayin - Z
Chet - CH (as in German "Bach", Scottish "Loch"); some pronounce it like a hard "H" or Mexican Jota
Tet - T (identical to Tav)
Yod - Y (as in "yellow")
Chaf Degusha - K (as in Karaite)
Chaf Rafa - CH (as in German "Bach", Scottish "Loch")
Lamed - L
Mem - M
Nun - N
Samech - S
'Ayin - identical to Aleph; some pronounce it like Arabic 'Ayin, a gutteral sound.
Pe Degusha - P
Pe Rafa - F
Tsadi - TS (as in "cats")
Kuf - K (identical to Kaf Degisha)
Resh - R (like the French "R"); some pronounce it like the Arabic "Ra".
Shin - SH
Sin - S
Tav - T
The vowels are as follows: Patach, Kamatz, Chataf-Patach = A as in "father"
Tsere, Segol, Chataf-Segol = E as in "help" (approximately) Holam, Kamatz Katan (when recognized),
Chataf-Kamatz = O as in "cold"
Shuruk, Kubutz = OO as in "cool" (approximately)
Chirik = ee as in "feed"
Sheva Na' = i as in "if"
Sheva Nach = no sound


If you look closely you will see Modern Hebrew has 26 separate sounds whereas "standard"

Biblical Hebrew (the dialect most of the Tanach is written in) had approximately 36 sounds (or according to some opinions 41 sounds).










73 posted on 06/28/2005 3:52:52 PM PDT by avile
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To: avile

Ladino speakers are primarily from Greece and Turkey, which pronounce is as vav -- as Syrians, Morrocans and Spanish-Portugese do. But Yemenites, Tunisians, Lybians, and Iraqis all pronounce it as waw.


104 posted on 06/28/2005 9:42:55 PM PDT by ChicagoHebrew (Hell exists, it is real. It's a quiet green meadow populated entirely by Arab goat herders.)
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