Hebrew Voices #66 – The Historical Pronunciation of Vav

Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon - The Historical Pronunciation of Vav

In Hebrew Voices, The Historical Pronunciation of Vav, Nehemia Gordon explains how we know the letter “vav” was historically pronounced as “v”, sets the record straight on the Arabic influence that introduced "w" into the Academic pronunciation of Hebrew, and brings the scribal proof that in the time of Ezekiel they pronounced God’s name as Yehovah.

I look forward to reading your comments!




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Hebrew Voices #66 - The Historical Pronunciation of Vav

You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Nehemia: There’s no question whatsoever that 1,500 years ago in the land of Israel, the Jews pronounced that 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 nehemiaswall.com.

Michael: So much has come into question about the pronunciation of the Name. More than 6,828 times in the Bible, Yud-Hei-Vav-Hei appears, and, Nehemia Gordon, we 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, “With 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 1800s. 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 1800s, 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 - 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 Jewish 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 professor, “Is it possible that this was influenced by Arabic?” He said, “It’s not possible, it’s 100 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 pronouncing 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 ‘v?’ He’s clearly preserving something authentic to the Hebrew language.”

Now, that’s only 150 years ago, 200 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 1,400, 1,500 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 get 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 500s, he rhymes “navi” with a soft Bet, 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”. He 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 1,500 years ago in the land of Israel, the Jews pronounced that sound as a “vuh”.

The interesting thing is, 700 years later this rabbi comes along named Ibn Ezra. He was a famous poet, and he was criticizing this earlier poet from 700 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 Hebrew, it was “Lewi”. He doesn’t understand how this guy 700 years before in 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, the 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 Nehemia’s 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 2016 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 no question whatsoever - if you’d asked Ezekiel to pronounce the name of God, he would not have said, “Yehowah.” He would have said, “Yehovah”.

Announcer: You have been listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia’s Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at nehemiaswall.com.

You have been listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon’s Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

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Nehemia Gordon's Teachings on the Name of God
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  • kelly says:

    hello, i was wondering what your thoughts on the lead tablet they found on joshua’s alter on mt. ebal? and the YHW they found on it?
    thank you

  • Brian Lacey says:

    I am trying to get clarification on the actual location of the cholam, many manuscripts show the chlam above the left corner of the hei, and others seem to show it above the vav, and still others show it in-between. I tried sending an email, but was stopped by someone that just said “goto the webpage about the Name, there is a lot of good info there”. I have looked, read, listened and watched everything on that page, and this has either not been addressed or I actually missed it in all the years I have been on this site. The challenge presented to me is that the vav has to either a vowel carrier for the cholam, to get the “O”, or it can make the “V’, but that it can’t do both in the same word or name. Please provide insight on this matter. Thank you and Shalom!

    • Aja says:

      Brian – first in reference to teh Name the cholem is abive the Hey- making the sound ‘HO’ Y’HO’VAH. Three nikudot three syllables. When the cholem is above a Vav (not the case in the NAME) the Vav drops its ‘V’ sound and becomes just ‘OH’ However if it were above and slightly to the left of the Vav it would be pronounced ‘VO’ This is not the case here as the Vav has the Kametz below it it is ‘VA’

  • ngozi chukwuka says:

    What tribe in Israel have a pronounciation problem that was used against them in the battle and where is it found in the bible

  • Anthony says:

    I am in search of the truth of the Most High real name

    • Aryeh says:

      Talk with a native-speaker of Israeli hebrew, or start going to synagogue and learn your hebrew there… you will learn how to pronounce hebrew, but the Shem HaMeforash you will always hear replaced with A-do-naï. Don’t go running to anyone who cannot speak hebrew just like you should not go up to someone who doesn’t speak Russian, Greek or French how to pronounce any word which is written in their languages.

  • Brandon Amaltov says:

    In the ancient Paleo Hebrew, which the Samaritans still hold to today, they pronounce Vav as Waw, and they claim that their traditions have not changed since receiving the Torah and they weren’t sent into exile or influenced by other cultures. This is why I still believe that the Vav sound is a Waw, but I would love to hear something that goes against this belief. They also pronounce ’ק’ as Q and ’ת’ and “Th”. Paleo Hebrew has no repeating sounds in its alphabet which is another interesting point, and these sounds don’t exist in todays Hebrew which means it could’ve gotten lost somehow.

    • Aryeh says:

      The Shomronim may claim that their pronunciation hasn’t changed or been influenced by other cultures, but they descend from the Ten Tribes of Israel who were exiled by the Assyrians and those who weren’t exiled mixed with the imported peoples whom the Assyrians sent to break the connection of the Tribes with the land of Yisraël.
      Though I accept them as bnéi Yisraël (but not bnéi Yehouda), they were just as influenced by other cultures and the tribes of Yehouda, Sim°on and Benyamin who were exiled by Bavel and Rome. It is one tradition of speaking amongst several.

  • Stephen Marlowe says:

    The vav is a later medieval addition to Hebrew. The ancient original waw was used, the best example is the Jewish Yemen community that uses waw.

    • Aryeh says:

      Vav has always been a part of the hebrew Alef-bet. The pronunciation changed to « w » because the Témanim lived amongst the Arabic-speaking nomads of Yemen. In the Tiberian pronunciation, which is the root of both the Ashkénaze and Séfarade pronunciations, the labiodental Vav had the sound « v », which the séfardim could easily confuse with the bilabiale sound « ß », which is why in modern Spanish « B » is called « be-grande » or « be » and « V » is called « be-chico » or « uve » and they can interchange by illiterate or undereducated native speakers of Spanish. (For example, it is officially spelled « cebiche » but everyone writes it « ceviche » and the two spellings are pronounced the same.

  • callie says:

    Thank you Nehemia, I appreciate your effort in the research of His Name, and your touchable love for יהוה. It is a wonderful discovery to see these vowals according to Rabbinic literature, and how you boldly use the Name, Yehovah.
    In the name Yahudah, according to Messianic believe, we have the dalet, which is the Messiah, and we know the Sons Name is in the Fathers Name, and He is the door to the Father, so take the dalet out, and you are left with Yahuah, the Name of the Father. He also said He is the Lion of Yahudah, and the Messiah was born out of the tribe of Yahudah, King David as you know.

    • Rich says:

      There is never a name in the Bible where the beginning of the name is Yahu. We find Yahu at the end of words, but never at the beginning. At the beginning of words it is always Yeho.

  • steve Marlowe says:

    Ancient Hebrew had YHWH, which changed in the Middle Ages to YHVH, and IHVH to JHVH. Nehemia Gordan focuses on the changes of the Middle Ages YHVH, however, it was originally YHWH with a waw sound.

    • Rich says:

      The Yemenites have the most accurate tradition and they say the “vav” is pronounced as a “W”.

    • Aryeh says:

      No, ancient hebrew had yud-hé-vav-hé (י-ה-ו-ה), four consonants. You had to be able to speak the language to know what vowel sounds when where. When transcribing the hebrew to any other alphabet, you are left with constraints on how to pronounce a word based on the phonemes and morphemes of the transliterated alphabet. The IPA is the only one which covers the sounds which every human language can create from the bottom of the glottis to the puff of the lips and everything in between. The loss of using the IPA is that you can’t see the roots of the words.
      In the Middle Ages, it would have been written in latin iehouah, in which « i » represents a vowel « i » (European), a semi-vowel and a glide « j » (or « y » in modern english). « U » also represents a vowel « u » (German/Spanish) and a semivowel « w » (english) and a labiodental consonant « v » (or « w » in German).
      What was often seen as a « y » in Medieval English was actually the letter « thorn » which had the sound of « theta » in Greek, not the « edh » which sounded like « th » in « this ». Thus, the words « ye olde… » actually were pronounced « the old » or it could have been « wynn » which had the « u » sound of the welsh « w » and in cwm.

    • Daniel Gow says:

      Eleazar Ben Kalir, that Nehemia sites did not live in the middle ages. He lived in Kiriat-Sepher in the land of israel from the late 500s to early 600s. His pronunciation of vav is vee. So what you say is just not true.

  • Paul Salcido says:

    Was wondering because I noticed you didn’t mention the Proto Canaanite language influence on Hebrew along with the Phoenician alphabet and the fact that Hebrew vowel system was only created around the 7th century by the Masoretes. Also you didn’t mention the pronouncation differences between Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews.

  • My question is similar to Norman Mc Dermid (in this thread). I just watched a video by Jim Staley who claims the name is Yahweh (although I believe the study that you have done and found now 2,000 manuscripts with the full vowels showing Yehovah) but his claim is that the word Torah in Hebrew the 2nd letter of that word is the Vav so he claims that if the Vav is pronounced V then it would be TVrah instead of Torah. Is there some sort of grammar rule in Hebrew (with proof texts) that would make the Vav in Torah pronounced O?

    • Aryeh says:

      You have to réalise that each of the 22 letters of the Alef-bet are CONSONANTS, a few of which can be used to mark a vowel use when using « full/malé » spelling without the vowel marks. See my answer to Norman.

      Yud can be « j » (or english « y ») or it can be used to represent the European sound « i ».

      Vav is a consonant with the bilabiale or labio-dental sound « v » but when spelling without the vowel marks, it can stand in for « o » or « u » (a rounded vowel sound that changes depending on the placement of the tongue).

  • Norman Mc Dermid says:

    I was under the impression the the letter VAV originally had an oo sound and it was written as U in english, The word shalom has a VAV between the lamed and the mem, but some Yahudim pronounce the word shalum. Yahrushalyim has a VAV but the word is not pronounced Yaroshalyim. So here we have yod hey vav hey. The yod is pronounced as a Y in english. The hey is pronounced as an H. The VAV is pronounced as an O…ie Yeho. So why have you added the V to represent the VAV……..doesn’t make sense man. The O in the name Yeh”o”vah is the VAV, not the V.

  • Terence Scott says:

    Nehemiah, thanks for your scholarly contributions.
    Would you be kind enough to address the pronunciation issue concerning “Yehouah” verses YeHoVaH and any grammatical, textual or historic fallacies supporting that pronunciation?

  • Steve Marlowe says:

    Nehemia, Yehovah is very close to Jehovah, which the JW’s have said all along. Does this not vindicate them? We say Halleluyah, Praise YAH, should the beginning not be Yahovah? Does not the name Yahavah mean God, or YAH exists? Is it “Hawah, or Havah? I am very interested in the Karaite movement, where are they to be found in Southern California?

    • Linda Strang says:

      Nehemia says YEH at the beginning of a word and YAH on the end of a word. And Jehovah is the English pronunciation. But originally the J was pronounced as a Y, as it still is in some languages today. Hebrew speaking JWs say YEHOVAH. So yes. Jehovah’s Witnesses have been right all along. 🙂

      • Berend de Boer says:

        Linda, it’s the opposite! Jehovah’s witnesses have always claimed that the proper pronuncation is Jahweh, and that they say Jehovah for convenience sake.

        On page 23 of their 1969 edition of The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures they write:

        “While inclining to view the pronunciation ‘Yah-weh” as the more correct way, we have retained the form ‘Jehovah’ because of people’s familiarity with it since the 14th century. Moreover, it preserves , equally with other forms, the four letters of the Tetragrammaton JHVH.”

        • jp says:

          actually that is not the way it is in the 1985 version as it says

          “While many a r e inclined t o view t h e pronunciation “Yah-
          weh” a s the more correct way, we have retained the form
          “Jehovah” because of people’s familiarity with it for centu-
          ries. Moreover, i t preserves, equally with other forms, t h e
          four letters of t h e divine name, YHWH (or, J H V H ) ”

          this is a copy paste from that version, so no they are not saying that they see it as Yahweh but that many do, but they do not

    • Rich says:

      The letter “yod” is always pronounced as a “y” at the beginning of a word. And Yeh at the beginning of words, where Yah can be at the end of words.

  • donald murphy says:

    i have used the name Yahweh or10-12 years, but your position makes sense.
    anybody else use Yehovah as well?

    Donald Murphy.

  • rabbilevy18 says:

    Please site me a scholarly source that I can read that fully documents that arguments made here. I am particularly interested in the poem that Nehemia Gordon referenced.

  • BRONWYN says:

    …..and its YHVH not YHWH ? ?

  • BRONWYN says:

    What of YAH?? should it be yEh??

    • donald murphy says:

      yes maybe an answer one day.

      Donald Murphy.

    • Rich says:

      Yah is a poetic reference in Psalms 68:4. The vowels for YHVH/YHWH are the vowels of Le’Olam. This is no secret. The Talmud says the pronunciation is handed down every 7 years.

  • Jose Geraldino says:

    Shalom Nehemia,

    The argument of a friend of mine about the waw is that the hebrew names where transliterated in the Septuagint as waw for example דָּוִיד in the Septuagint is δαυιδ (dawid) not δαβιδ (david)

    • ניחוח says:

      Firstly, Greek doesn’t have the ‘v’ sound in any of its letters. So Greek has to choose a some letter with a different sound than that. Based upon what you show, they chose upsilon. But that doesn’t mean Hebrew uses a phonetically similar letter for דָּוִיד.

      Secondly, the letter β is beta and is pronounced like the English B. So δαβιδ would be “dabid” not “david”.

      • Jose Geraldino says:

        Yes, that’s my friend’s argument, that “dabid” is phonetically closer to “david” than “dauid”

    • Aryeh says:

      Alpha and upsilon together have the sound « av » not « aou » or « aü ».

  • Michael Okulski says:

    Thanks. The truth always resonates beautifully!

  • Stanley says:

    The problem here is simple. You are running up against scholarly “consensus” which you’ve made outdated and they simply don’t want to admit they might be wrong where their scholarship is concerned. Imagine the corrections that would have to be made to many Bible versions, for just one thing, if what you’ve discovered gais acceptance in the scholarly community and it is easy to see that you have your work cut out for you. Keep it up, though. I enjoy what you find given I am a student of God’s word first who is also a student of its languages.

  • Alex Henderson says:

    I think the video was cut short before Nehemia dropped the mic. Always an incredible and well-researched presentation. Thank you for proclaiming our Father’s name, Yehovah!

  • Judy Becker says:

    I have every confidence in Nehemia’s declaration of the ancient pronunciation of YeHoVaH as the name of our Father. The divergent voices are not credible, without Nehemia’s formal education and his incredible experience and research, not to mention Nehemia’s unquenchable thirst for TRUTH. Praise be to YeHoVaH for wanting us to know His holy name!

  • Adri says:

    Shalom,
    As always it is well put together and insightful. I do learn so much. Thank you and Yehovah bless you.