In Mishnaic Hebrew the sixth letter was pronounced both as waw and vav
the verdict
INSUFFICIENT LEANING
refutedsupported
the weight of evidence
2 sources for · 0 against
AS REPORTEDno primary record reached; this is what the reporting says
The retrieved evidence points to discussions and questions regarding the pronunciation of the sixth letter in Mishnaic Hebrew as either waw or vav, but does not definitively settle the claim with authoritative historical proof.
# I have read that in Mishnaic Hebrew, some pronounced the 6th letter as waw/w and some as vav/v What is the evidence of this?
Tags: phonology, historical-linguistics, language-change, sound-change, hebrew
- Score: 3
- Views: 806
- Answers: 2
- Answered: yes
- Asked by: barlop (345 rep)
- Asked: 2020-08-10
- Edited: 2020-08-14
- Site: linguistics
## Question
I have read that in Mishnaic Hebrew, some pronounced the 6th letter as waw/w and some as vav/v What is the evidence of this?
I see it mentioned here https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/%D7%95-vav-waw-pronunciation.2878084/ "In Mishaic Hebrew, there is already some confusion between bet and vav, showing that they were pronounced the same (at least by some people) at the time."
Also I heard that some evidence for it being v in mishnaic times.
"a poet named Eleazar ben Kalir from 6th century in the land of israel. So 1500 years. And he's rhyming Levi(לוי) and Navi(נביא). All Jews agree that the V exists in hebrew, bet without a dot. So anyhow, this poet rhymes Levi with Navi. It wouldn't work with Lewi like the yemenites pronounce it. " (Not sure what poem it was?)
I'm wondering if that's correct and if there's any other e
Waw (letter)
Waw (wāw "hook") is the sixth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician wāw 𐤅, Aramaic waw 𐡅, Hebrew vav ו, Syriac waw ܘ and Arabic wāw و (sixth in abjadi order; 27th in modern Arabic order). It is also related to the Ancient North Arabian𐪅, South Arabian𐩥, and Ge'ezወ.
It represents the consonant [w] in classical Hebrew, and [v] in modern Hebrew, as well as the vowels [u] and [o]. In text with niqqud, a dot is added to the left or on top of the letter to indicate, respectively, the two vowel pronunciations.
It is the origin of GreekϜ(digamma) andΥ(upsilon); Latin F, V and later the derived Y, U, and W; and the also derived CyrillicУ,Ѵ, and other Cyrillic letters.
| ← He Waw, Zayin → | - |
| --- | --- |
| Phoenician | 𐤅 |
| Hebrew | ו |
| Samaritan | ࠅ |
| Aramaic | 𐡅 |
| Syriac | ܘ |
| Nabataean | 𐢈 |
| Arabic | و |
| South Arabian | 𐩥 |
| Geʽez | ወ |
| North Arabian | 𐪅 |
| Ugaritic | 𐎆 |
| Phonemic representation | w, v, o, u |
| Position in alphabet | 6 |
| Numerical value | 6 |
| Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician | - |
| Greek | Ϝ, Υ |
| Latin | F, U, V, W, Y |
| Cyrillic | У, Ѵ, Ү, Ԝ |
## Origin
In Hebrew, the wordוָו vav
Everything we examined (2)
This check searched the claim as stated. It did not run a separate search for evidence against it.