How well do u know vav

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Nehemia: There’s no question whatsoever that 1, years ago in the land of Israel, the Jews pronounced how well do u know vav sound as a “v.”

Announcer: Le ma’an Zion lo ekhesheh, u’l’ma’an Yerushalayim lo eshkot.

Announcer: You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia’s Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at stellagshop.ru

Michael: So much has come into question about the pronunciation of the Name. More than 6, times in the Bible, Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei appears, and, Nehemia Gordon, how well do u know vav have a number of questions that have come up on this. Let’s handle some of the basics on that.

Nehemia: One of the questions is, they say, “Okay, in the vowels that you have in the Hebrew Bible, the name is “Yehovah”, but that Hebrew letter “Vav” isn’t a “v” it’s a “w.” I get this question about once a week from people. Can I read one?

Michael: Yes.

Nehemia: This is very typical of the type of questions I’ll get on this. Usually, what they’ll say is, “I thought you knew Hebrew. How can you be so stupid? Don’t you know there’s no ‘v’ sound in the Hebrew language?” The ones who are maybe a little bit more respectful here, they’ll say, “This guy says…”

Michael: They start off, vav ex members all due respect,” and then they insult you. [laughing]

Nehemia: Right, they don’t even bother with that. He says, “I’m slightly puzzled with the pronunciation of “wow”. I am admittedly no Hebrew scholar…” I’ll bet, “but for years I have been under the impression that the “wow” is pronounced with a hard ‘v’ because of influences from German translators, and that the “w” is pronounced as a German “w” which is a “v.”

Here’s what the argument is; that somehow the pronunciation of the sound “v” comes from German. Now, where do they get that idea? It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds at first, because many Jews coming from Europe spoke a language called Yiddish. Like my grandmother, who was born in Eastern Europe, she spoke Yiddish as her mother tongue, and Yiddish actually means Jewish – Yid is a Jew in German. Yiddish is a dialect of German. I’m told it’s closer to Dutch than it is to German. But it’s mixed in 85 percent German, about 10 percent Hebrew, and 5 percent from other languages, Slavic and things like that.

There were Jews who spoke a Germanic language, Yiddish, and you could argue that they were influenced by the German language to lose the “v” sound in the Hebrew. Let’s back up even before that. How do we know how to pronounce anything in Hebrew? How do I know the Hebrew letter “Mem” is really “m?” Maybe the Hebrew letter Mem is really “k” or “d.” How do I know?

What happened is that scholars went around the Jewish world in the s. This is at the time when there were Jews living all over the world without communication with each other. They documented how they pronounced every letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Aleph, Bet, Gimmel, Daled, Hei. All of those were identical. It didn’t matter if you were a Jew from Lithuania or a Jew from Yemen, or a Jew from the mountains of Kurdistan. They all pronounced Hebrew the same.

When they got to the sixth letter of the alphabet, they found two different pronunciation traditions. Some Jews pronounced the letter as “vuh” as a “v” in English. But it was a Hebrew letter. And some pronounced it as a “wuh,” like a “w” in English. I say “like a w” but it was not a W. I’ll get people here, a guy writes to me and he says, “But the ‘w’ only came later. Originally, there was just a v.” That has nothing to do with Hebrew. The Hebrew language has authentically those two sounds in the s, some Jews “v,” some Jews “w”. In fact, most Jews pronounced it “v,” not just the German-speaking, Yiddish-speaking Jews. But for example, the Jews of Syria who had been there since the time of King David, when they read from the Torah, they pronounce the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet as “v.”

That’s very interesting, because when they speak at home to each other they don’t speak Hebrew. When they were at home in Damascus and Aleppo - before they were driven out of there - they would speak Arabic. Arabic doesn’t have a “v” sound. It has that letter how well do u know vav the letter Vav exists in Arabic, and it’s pronounced “wow.” In fact, the pronunciation of “wow” comes from Arabic.

I was sitting recently with a member of the Academy of the Hebrew Languages. This is one of the top people in the world when it comes to the Hebrew language. I asked him… There are five How well do u know vav communities that preserve this ‘w’ pronunciation. One of them is the Yemenite Jews…

Michael: Just five?

Nehemia: Just five small Jewish communities. Of all the Jews in the world, only five preserved the “w” sound.

Michael: That’s probably instructive in itself…

Nehemia: It’s interesting.

Michael: …where they are.

Nehemia: There are Yemenite Jews, Libyan Jews, and a few other places like that, and they’re all Arabic speaking. I said to this how well do u know vav, “Is it possible that this was influenced by Arabic?” He said, “It’s not possible, it’s percent certain.” This is one of the top experts in the world. He’s got no agenda, no axe to grind. He’s actually an Arabic-speaker himself.

Michael: And he’s not pronouncing the name anyway.

Nehemia: He’s not how well do u know vav the name anyway.

Michael: It’s not a name issue

Nehemia: He’s talking about the Hebrew language. He doesn’t even know I’m interested in the name. I’m talking to him about the pronunciation of the Hebrew language. Then he showed me some ancient sources, it’s quite fascinating.

Basically, what he’s saying is, “You can explain why a Yemenite Jew would say ‘w’, because he’s speaking Arabic, and in Arabic they have the same letter and it’s ‘w’. But why would a Jew from Damascus who speaks Arabic as his daily language, why when he all of a sudden reads Hebrew in the synagogue would his daily ‘w’ become how well do u know vav He’s clearly preserving something authentic to the Hebrew language.”

Now, that’s only years ago, years ago. I wanted to go back further. So I scoured the sources with his help, and one of the things I found is that in ancient Hebrew we have a poet named Kalir, in the 6th century in the Land of Israel. Now we’re going back 1, 1, years. This poet is rhyming, and he rhymes two words, the word “Levi”, Levite, which is with a Vav, and the other word is “navi”, prophet. Now, here’s the really funny thing. I’ll sdv8 vav box these emails where they’ll say, “I thought you know Hebrew, Nehemia. How is it you don’t know there’s no ‘v’ sound in the original Hebrew language?” The one thing all Jewish communities agree, whether you’re from Yemen or Damascus or the mountains of Kurdistan, all Jews agreed that the “v” sound, the “vee” sound does exist in the Hebrew language in the letter Bet. The letter Bet with a dot is “buh,” without a dot it’s “vuh”. The example is Yaakov. In English it’s JacoB, but in Hebrew it’s “YaakoV.” It’s a soft Bet. A soft Bet is a “vuh” sound. All Jews agree that that “vuh” sound exists in the Hebrew language. The only dispute is about the “wuh” versus the “vuh” in the Vav, the sixth letter of the alphabet.

So this poet from the 6th century, from the s, he rhymes “navi” with a soft cut sheet for vav, which everyone agrees on, with “LeVi.” Now, according to the Yemenites, they don’t pronounce it “Levi,” they pronounce it “LeWi.” Lewi doesn’t rhyme with “navi”. How well do u know vav has a whole series of words which are “v, v, v, v, v, v – actually vee, vee, vee, vee, vee, vee. One of those is “Levi.” There’s no question whatsoever that 1, years ago in the land of Israel, the Jews pronounced that sound as a “vuh”.

The interesting thing is, years later this rabbi comes along named Ibn Ezra. He was a famous poet, and he was criticizing this earlier poet from years before and he said, “How can he be so stupid to rhyme ‘navi’ with ‘Levi’?” Because the Ibn Ezra spoke Arabic, and in his Sdv8 vav box, it was “Lewi”. He doesn’t understand how this guy years before the vava dash cam Israel is rhyming “navi” with “Lewi”. There you see the influence of Arabic. You can go back all the way to the time of Ezekiel and show, for example, how well do u know vav word for back in Hebrew is “gav.” Gav can be written with a soft Bet or with a Vav, and the only way that can happen is if the soft Bet and the Vav have the same pronunciation.

Michael: I need to point out that the reason why you’re seeing all this is that D vav t not reading the Hebrew words translated into English, he’s reading these ancient things in hand-written Hebrew.

Nehemia: Oh yes, these are Hebrew manuscripts.

Michael: They’ll never be translated into English. There’s no point.

Nehemia: You can show me a book from from a guy who doesn’t know Hebrew who thinks that the Arabs are Hebrews, and that’s your source. If that’s your source, the conversation’s over. I’m showing you ancient Hebrew manuscripts. I’m showing you in manuscripts of the Tanakh where they’re writing the word “gav”, back, both with a Vav and a soft Bet, and clearly, in the time of Ezekiel they’re pronouncing it that way. So there’s how well do u know vav question whatsoever - if you’d asked Ezekiel to pronounce the name of God, he would not have said, “Yehowah.” He would have said, “Yehovah”.

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