Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

1. I know nothing about the "original" pronunciation of the letter  
waw, all I know is that today it is pronounced vav.
2. All we know is that the letters B (no dagesh) and W (or V) sound  
similarly, and that they are interchangeable, as, for instance in  
עוה and עבה, or גוע and גבע, or קוה and קבע

Isaac Fried, Boston University

On Jan 30, 2011, at 8:22 PM, fred burlingame wrote:

> Hello Isaac:
>
> Your proposal is interesting.
>
> But does any evidence exist to support it? Is there any actual  
> instance of any ancient scroll or inscription or writing fragment  
> actually utilizing the letter ב (bet) in the manner the letter ו  
> (vav) is commonly used, as a conjunction at the beginning of a  
> "sentence" or clause? or the stand alone verb בוא  (boh) for that  
> purpose?
>
> I also gather that you don't see the original pronunciation of ו  
> "waw" as "waw;" but rather the correct pronunciation of this letter  
> was "vav?"
>
> I suppose I would observe by way of extension and analogy, that you  
> would also see the pronouns attached to verbs, such as third person  
> singular י (yod); as representing a contraction of an earlier stand  
> alone pronoun?
>
> regards,
>
> fred burlingame
>
> On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 3:11 PM, Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu> wrote:
> It is not clear to me what you mean by or why you insist on  
> "vocalization". Nowadays, as soon as we see a dot in the Hebrew  
> letter bet we instinctively vocalize it as an English B, otherwise,  
> we vocalize it as the English V, to wit: BA-U, yet, U-VA-U. I think  
> that this change of sound in the presence of a dagesh is a mere  
> historical coincidence, that came now to bedevil the Hebrew  
> language. We can safely ignore it here.
> In Deu. 1:28 it is, indeed, VA-RAM, translated as "and ('and' being  
> from the Latin ante, 'opposite', and of the same sense as 'end')  
> taller". It stands to reason that this attached VA used to be a  
> separate word with a meaning of its own within the Hebrew language.  
> What is it, then? I think it is BA (read it VA) in disguise, and  
> meaning 'be' in the sense of 'is' or 'are', namely: "AM GADOL (is)  
> RAM from us".
>
> Isaac Fried, Boston University