Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

vav

 
Dictionary: vav  vau or waw (väv, vôv) pronunciation
 
also n.

The sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

[Hebrew wāw, from Phoenician *wāw, *wō, pin (sense uncertain), sixth letter of the Phoenician alphabet.]


Search unanswered questions...
Enter a word or phrase...
All Community Q&A Reference topics
 

(Waiter-Actor-Webmaster) A person with little or no experience who has managed to get a high-paid job designing a Web site. Many WAWs emerged during the dot-com explosion of the late 1990s due to the tremendous demand for Web site development.

Download Computer Desktop Encyclopedia to your iPhone/iTouch

 
WordNet: waw
Top
Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: the 6th letter of the Hebrew alphabet


 
Wikipedia: Waw (letter)
Top
He               Waw               Zayin
Phoenician Hebrew Aramaic Syriac Arabic
Waw ו Waw ܘ و
Phonemic representation: w, v, o, u
Position in alphabet: 6
Numerical (Gematria/Abjad) value: 6

Waw (wāw, also spelled vav or vau) (In Hebrew: Vav) is the sixth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic (in abjadi order; it is 27th in modern Arabic order). In most Semitic languages it represents the voiced labial-velar approximant IPA: [w], and in some (particularly Arabic) also the long close back rounded vowel /uː/ depending on context, while in Hebrew it represents a labial approximant, either IPA: [v] or /β/, a pattern shared by the non-Semitic languages using the Arabic alphabet (e.g. Persian and Urdu).

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek digamma (Ϝ, whose name in Greek was probably Ϝαυ) and upsilon (Υ), and Etruscan V (V, V); V later developed into U and W.

Waw is derived from a hieroglyph depicting a hook.

Contents

Hebrew Vav

Phoenician alphabet
(ca. 1050–200 BCE)
𐤀    𐤁    𐤂    𐤃    𐤄    𐤅
𐤆    𐤇    𐤈    𐤉    𐤊    𐤋
𐤌    𐤍    𐤎    𐤏    𐤐
𐤑    𐤒    𐤓    𐤔    𐤕
Semitic abjads · Genealogy
Hebrew alphabet
(400 BCE–present)
א    ב    ג    ד    ה    ו
ז    ח    ט    י    כך
ל    מם    נן    ס    ע    פף
צץ    ק    ר    ש    ת
History · Transliteration
Niqqud · Dagesh · Gematria
Cantillation · Numeration
Syriac alphabet
(200 BCE–present)
ܐ    ܒ    ܓ    ܕ    ܗ    ܘ
ܙ    ܚ    ܛ    ܝ    ܟܟ    ܠ
ܡܡ    ܢܢ    ܣ    ܥ    ܦ
ܨ    ܩ    ܪ    ܫ    ܬ
Arabic alphabet
(400 CE–present)
ا    ب    ت    ث    ج    ح
خ    د    ذ    ر    ز    س
ش    ص    ض    ط    ظ    ع
غ    ف    ق    ك    ل
م    ن    ه    و    ي
History · Transliteration
Diacritics · Hamza ء
Numerals · Numeration
Orthographic variants
Various Print Fonts Cursive
Hebrew
Rashi
Script
Serif Sans-serif Monospaced
ו ו ו

Pronunciation

Vav has three orthographic variants, each with a different phonemic value and phonetic realisation[1]:

Variant (with Niqqud) without Niqqud Name Phonemic Value Phonetic Realisation English example

ו

as initial letter:ו

Consonantal Vav
(Hebrew: Vav Itsurit
(IPA: [vav itsuˈʁit] / ו׳ עיצורית)
/v/ [v] vote
as middle letter:וו
as final letter:ו or יו

וּ

ו

Vav Shruka ([vav ʃʁuˈka] / ו׳ שרוקה) or
Shuruq ([ʃuˈʁuk] / שׁוּרוּק)
/u/ [u] glue

וֹ

ו

Vav Chaluma ([vav χaluˈma] / ו׳ חלומה) or
Holam Male ([χɔˈlam maˈlɛ] / חוֹלָם מָלֵא)
/o/ [ɔ̝] no, noh

Vav as consonant

Consonantal vav (ו) represents a voiced labiodental fricative (like the English v) in Ashkenazi, European Sephardi, and modern Israeli Hebrew; and a labial-velar approximant (/w/) by most Jews of Eastern origin.

Vav with a dot on top

Vav can be used as a mater lectionis for an 'o' vowel, in which case it is known as a holam male, and in pointed text is marked with a dot above and to the left and is usually pronounced [o].

This vowel can also appear without the vav, as just the dot, and is known then as holam haser. (The vav may still take a holom haser and thus appear identical to this vowel although the consonant is pronounced, thus representing the sound vo as in mitzvot .)

Vav with a dot in the middle

Vav can also be used as a mater lectionis for an 'oo' vowel, in which case it is known as a shuruk, and in text with niqqud is marked with a dot in the middle (on the left side) and is usually transcribed as /ʊ/.

Numerical value

Vav in gematria represents the number six, and when used at the beginning of Hebrew years, it means 6000 (i.e. ותשנד in numbers would be the date 6754.)

In foreign words

Modern Hebrew has no way to distinguish orthographically between [v] and [w]. The pronunciation is either determined by prior knowledge or must be derived through context.

Some non standard transliterations of the sound [w] are sometimes found in modern Hebrew texts, such as two Vavs side by side (officially used in a text without Niqqud to mark a non initial and a non final Vav as the consonant (phoneme) /v/, as opposed to the vowels (phonemes) /u/ and /o/ which are always represented by a single Vav) or a Vav with a chupchik (like an apostrophe).

Loanwords with English W are often pronounced with [w].

Words written as vav

Vav at the beginning of the word has several possible meanings:

  • Vav Conjunctive, when a vav connects two words or parts of a sentence; it is a grammatical conjunction meaning 'and' , cognate to the Arabic. This is the most common usage.
  • Vav Consecutive (Vav Hahipuch, literally "the Vav of Reversal"), mainly biblical, commonly mistaken for the previous type of vav; it indicates consequence of actions and reverses the tense of the verb following it:
    • when placed in front of a verb in the imperfect tense, it changes the verb to the perfect tense. For example, yomar means 'he will say' and vayomar means 'he said';
    • when placed in front of a verb in the perfect, it changes the verb to the imperfect tense. For example, ahavtah means 'you loved', and ve'ahavtah means 'you will love'.

(Note: Older Hebrew did not have "tense" in a temporal sense, "perfect," and "imperfect" instead denoting aspect of completed or continuing action. Modern Hebrew verbal tenses have developed closer to their Indo-European counterparts, mostly having a temporal quality rather than denoting aspect. As a rule, Modern Hebrew does not use the "Vav Consecutive" form.)

Syriac Waw

Waw's pronunciation as a consonant is w (labial-velar approximant) and as mater lectionis a u (close back rounded vowel) or o.

Arabic wāw

The letter و is named واو wāw, and is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

Position in word: Isolated Initial Medial Final
Form of letter: و (None) (None) ـو

Wāw is used to represent three distinct phonetic features:

  • A consonant, pronounced as a voiced labial-velar approximant /w/, which is the case whenever it is at the beginnings of words, but normally occurs also in the middle or end. In this case it is followed by one of the three short vowels marked by diacritic on it, a long [aː] or a sukun, indicating the absence of a short vowel.
  • A long close back rounded vowel /uː/. In this case it has no diacritic, but could be marked with a sukun in some traditions. The preceding consonant could either have no diacritic or a short-wāw-vowel mark, damma, to aid in the pronunciation by hinting to the following long vowel.
  • A diphthong, /au/. In this case it has no diacritic, but could be marked with a sukun in some traditions. The preceding consonant could either have no diacritic or have fatḥa sign, hinting to the first vowel /a/ in the diphthong. In some dialects, the diphthong may be reduced to the long monophthong [ɔː].

As a vowel, wāw can serve as the carrier of a hamza: ؤ.

Wāw serves several functions in the Arabic language. Perhaps foremost among them is that it is the primary conjunction in Arabic, equivalent to "and"; it is usually prefixed to other conjunctions, such as ولكن wa-lakin, meaning "but". Another function is the "oath", by preceding a noun of great significantly valued by the speaker. It is often literally translatable to "By..." or "I swear to...", and is often used in the Qur'an in this way, and also in the generally fixed construction والله wallah ("By Allah!" or "I swear to God!").

Persian vâv

The Arabic alphabet is used in Persian language as vâv, because Arabic has no [v] but Persian has no [w].

References

  1. ^ Announcements of the Academy of the Hebrew Language

 
 
Learn More
Vav Jungle (Rock Band, '90s)
Zig-A-Zig (1997 Album by Vav Jungle)
Masada, Vol. 6: Vav (1995 Album by Masada)

What Hebrew words start with the Hebrew letter 'vav'? Read answer...
Who is Vav? Read answer...
What is the difference of HAVC VRV and VAV? Read answer...

Help us answer these
What is the difference between a VAV and a damper?
What is the difference between CAV and VAV systems?
Change water pump on 92 astro vav?

Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:

 

Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. THIS COPYRIGHTED DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY.
All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher.
© 1981-2009 Computer Language Company Inc.  All rights reserved.  Read more
WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Waw (letter)" Read more

 

Mentioned in