[Big Mac]

Does anyone know why was it formerly (and remains) popular to transliterate the Hebrew letter vav as a w instead of a v? I see it in print and online from non-Jewish sources, and it's always an annoyance to me. Is it just a case of early English translators of Hebrew texts screwing up, or is there some other explanation?

[Oisín]

Because [w] is the original pronunciation for it, and still the most common pronunciation, pan-Semitically speaking, I’m guessing.

Not being a speaker/reader of Hebrew myself, I can’t really judge, but I could imagine that it would make more sense to transliterate it as w when dealing with classical texts, where w would actually represent the pronunciation at the time when the text was written. And possibly some people think it’s adding an extra, unnecessary, level of complexity and confusion to use a different letter for the modern variant of the language. After all, w can just as well be used to represent [v] as v can (just look at German and Polish).

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

Because [w] is the original pronunciation for it, and still the most common pronunciation, pan-Semitically speaking, I’m guessing.

That's a sensible guess, but I don't think it's accurate. There are slight differences in pronunciation of certain vowels between the two major geographic groups of Jews (Ashkenazi and Sephardic), but there's no difference in the pronunciation of the letter vav, nor do I expect that any other Jewish community pronounces a word like מצוה as "mitzwah." Perhaps someone knows of an exception. As for w serving for v, I don't know that to be a convention in antiquated English. I do know that v stood in place of u in many old documents, but that's about it.

[Oisín]

As far as I’ve been able to ascertain, it’s always [v] in Modern Hebrew; but the Hebrew pronunciation is a development of an original [w], which is still retained in other Semitic languages (Arabic, Syrian, etc.). Hebrew (and non-Semitic languages that use the Arabic alphabet) seems to be the ‘odd one out’. In Biblical times, it was pronounced [w] in Hebrew, too. The letter is also the origin of the Greek υ (ypsilon) and the Etruscan/Latin v, both originally representing both [u] and [w], just like waw in most Semitic languages.

I don’t know when [w] and [v] (originally an allophone of [b]) merged in Hebrew, so I don’t know how relevant the merger is to the transliteration of waw/vav; but if it’s a fairly recent development (say, within the past three hundred years), using w could just be tradition, from when that was actually accurate.

[Big Mac]

Interesting thoughts, Oisin. . . I don't think it's possible the preferred pronunciation changed at any point in recent (or even ancient) history, but there are supposedly some communities that pronounce vav as waw.

Wikipedia says:
"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."

The same article also points out that English loan words with w in them are transliterated into modern Hebrew using vav. So I guess it's a two way street in that regard.

[Oisín]

The loan word thing is probably just because there is no alternative way to represent [w] in the Hebrew alphabet, so they just take what they have and give it an extra pronunciation.

The concept of [w] becoming [v] over time, incidentally, is not by any means an unknown phenomenon: it’s happened all over Europe. W used to actually be pronounced as [w] in German and Dutch, but is now either [v] or [ʋ] in both. Similarly, the letter v (when used consonantally) was originally [w] in Latin, but in most the daughter languages (Italian, Portuguese, French, Romanian, etc.), it’s invariably [v], and Spanish has turned it into [β]. So the fact that an original (Ancient) [w] gradually changed to [v] at some point is not at all impossible or even unlikely—in fact, it’s quite well-established that it did.

Another explanation could also be that the sources you’ve seen using w (sources you say are non-Jewish) are more familiar with other Semitic languages and traditions, and simply use w because it’s what they’re used to from elsewhere.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

The loan word thing is probably just because there is no alternative way to represent [w] in the Hebrew alphabet, so they just take what they have and give it an extra pronunciation.

Yup.

The concept of [w] becoming [v] over time, incidentally, is not by any means an unknown phenomenon: it’s happened all over Europe. W used to actually be pronounced as [w] in German and Dutch, but is now either [v] or [ʋ] in both. Similarly, the letter v (when used consonantally) was originally [w] in Latin, but in most the daughter languages (Italian, Portuguese, French, Romanian, etc.), it’s invariably [v], and Spanish has turned it into [β]. So the fact that an original (Ancient) [w] gradually changed to [v] at some point is not at all impossible or even unlikely—in fact, it’s quite well-established that it did.

Very interesting.

Another explanation could also be that the sources you’ve seen using w (sources you say are non-Jewish) are more familiar with other Semitic languages and traditions, and simply use w because it’s what they’re used to from elsewhere.

Most likely so. Thank you very much for resolving this thread (to my satisfaction).

[lexapro]

Two vavs together make a "w" sound in modern Hebrew. A single vav is a "v". Shoot and hunt all who mix this up.

[vmarks]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

The loan word thing is probably just because there is no alternative way to represent [w] in the Hebrew alphabet, so they just take what they have and give it an extra pronunciation.

Actually, the modern Hebrew way of [w] is two vav in a row. see http://walla.co.il where walla (homophone of voilá) is וו for the w.

The concept of [w] becoming [v] over time, incidentally, is not by any means an unknown phenomenon: it’s happened all over Europe. W used to actually be pronounced as [w] in German and Dutch, but is now either [v] or [ʋ] in both. Similarly, the letter v (when used consonantally) was originally [w] in Latin, but in most the daughter languages (Italian, Portuguese, French, Romanian, etc.), it’s invariably [v], and Spanish has turned it into [β]. So the fact that an original (Ancient) [w] gradually changed to [v] at some point is not at all impossible or even unlikely—in fact, it’s quite well-established that it did.

Another explanation could also be that the sources you’ve seen using w (sources you say are non-Jewish) are more familiar with other Semitic languages and traditions, and simply use w because it’s what they’re used to from elsewhere.

I'm going with the latter.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

T and Spanish has turned it into [β].

I notice that generally this is true, however as the language becomes more casual, the sound becomes more soft and is back to what we know as v.

So they're really going a full circle here.. from v to b and back to v. This also depends on dialect.

[olePigeon]

This is how I always imagined Oisín.

[Oisín]

I’m … honestly not sure whether I should laugh or be a little offended at that.

I think (or I hope, at least) that I tend to make it fairly clear that I’m just guessing or extrapolating when I’m veering into fields I don’t know that much about, like Hebrew. (No, correction: Hebrew is not a field I don’t know much about—it’s a field I know next to nothing about.)

And I certainly hope I never tried to say anything even remotely authoritarian (or, most likely, accurate) about engineering, sociology or literature.

[olePigeon]

I'm just poking fun. You're like my dad, he knows a little bit about everything. However, because we expect him know a little bit about everything, he can completely BS everyone and no one will catch it.

We had my stepmom going on for about 20 minutes about how bread was invented by a baron during the 14th century named P. T. Bread.

You've managed to ruin my impression of you in a single post. So you can safely ignore the comic.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by olePigeon 

I'm just poking fun. You're like my dad, he knows a little bit about everything. However, because we expect him know a little bit about everything, he can completely BS everyone and no one will catch it.

I’ll breathe more easily, then. To be honest, though, I’m an absolutely dreadful bullshitter. I’m good at making guesses, but I always feel the need to repeat that I really know nothing of what I’m talking about if I’m not very well-versed in the subject, and I’m completely incapable of making a convincing case through BS if I don’t actually know all the facts beforehand.

Sorry to disappoint.

(People have sometimes told me that I’m the kind of person who knows a bit of everything, which I find odd, ’cause it’s the exact opposite of how I see myself: someone who knows an awful lot about a few select subjects, and is utterly clueless about everything else in life.)

We had my stepmom going on for about 20 minutes about how bread was invented by a baron during the 14th century named P. T. Bread.

(Wait, when did this thread go from being about Hebrew transliteration to being about me? Stop that!)