Hebrew spelling: or or . ;The letter appears with or without a hook on different sans-serif fonts, for example: • Arial, DejaVu Sans, Liberation Sans, Arimo: ו • Tahoma, Noto Sans Hebrew, Alef, Heebo: ו
Pronunciation in modern Hebrew Vav has three orthographic variants, each with a different
phonemic value and
phonetic realisation: In modern Hebrew, the frequency of the usage of vav, out of all the letters, is one of the highest, about 10.00%.
Vav as consonant Consonantal vav () generally represents a
voiced labiodental fricative (like the English
v) in
Ashkenazi, European
Sephardi, Persian, Caucasian, Italian and
modern Israeli Hebrew, and was originally a
labial-velar approximant . In modern Israeli Hebrew, some
loanwords, the pronunciation of whose source contains , and their
derivations, are pronounced with : – (but: – ). Modern Hebrew has no
standardized way to distinguish
orthographically between and . The pronunciation is determined by prior knowledge or must be derived through context. Some non
standard spellings of the sound are sometimes found in modern Hebrew texts, such as word-initial double-vav: – (word-
medial double-vav is both standard and common for both and , see
table above) or, rarely, vav with a
geresh: – .
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|, which in pointed text is marked as vav with a dot above it. It is pronounced (
phonemically transcribed more simply as ). The distinction is normally ignored, and the HEBREW POINT HOLAM (U+05B9) is used in all cases. The vowel can be denoted without the vav, as just the dot placed above and to the left of the letter it points, and it is then called
holam haser|. Some inadequate typefaces do not support the distinction between the '
⟨⟩ , the consonantal vav pointed with a ' ⟨⟩ (compare '
⟨⟩ and consonantal vav-' ⟨⟩ ). To display a consonantal vav with '''' correctly, the typeface must either support the vav with the Unicode combining character "HEBREW POINT HOLAM HASER FOR VAV" (U+05BA, HTML Entity (decimal) ֺ) or the precomposed character (U+FB4B). Compare the three: • The vav with the combining character HEBREW POINT HOLAM: • The vav with the combining character HEBREW POINT HOLAM HASER FOR VAV: • The precomposed character:
Vav with a dot in the middle Vav can also serve as a
mater lectionis for , in which case it is termed
shuruk and, in text with
niqqud, bears a mid-height dot to the left.
Shuruk and vav with a
dagesh look identical (""), but differ with respect to the absence or presence, respectively, of an additional vowel marker. Compare, for instance, "(a) market" with "to market": in the latter, a
zeire (denoting /e/) follows the pointed vav, forcing its interpretation as a geminate consonant. Both cases occur side by side in the word "marketing": the first "" is a consonantal vav with a dagesh, followed by the vowel /u/ in the visually identical form of shuruk. Unlike other
matres lectionis, shuruk can occur word-initially as an allomorph of the
vav conjunctive (see below), namely in the context of a subsequent labial or a consonant followed by
shva na'. Its pronunciation in this case is .
Numerical value Vav in
gematria represents the number six, and when used at the beginning of
Hebrew years, it means 6000 (i.e. in
numbers would be the
date 6754.)
Words written as vav Vav at the beginning of the word has several possible meanings: •
vav conjunctive (Vav Hachibur, literally "the Vav of Connection" — chibur means "joining", or "bringing together") connects two words or parts of a sentence; it is a
grammatical conjunction meaning '' 'and'''. It comes at the start of a word, and is written וּ before
ב, ו,
מ,
פ, or a letter with a ְ (
Shva), ו with the following letter's
Hataf's Niqqud before a letter with a Hataf (for example, before , before , before ), וָ sometimes before a
stress and in any other case. This is the most common usage. •
vav consecutive (Vav Hahipuch, literally "the Vav of Reversal" — hipuch means "inversion"), mainly biblical, is 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.) •
vav explicative Yiddish In
Yiddish, the letter (known as '''''') is used for several orthographic purposes in native words: • Alone, a single vov represents the vowel in Northern Yiddish (Litvish) or in Southern Yiddish (Poylish and Galitzish). • The
digraph , "" ('two vovs'), represents the consonant . • The digraph , consisting of a vov followed by a , represents the diphthong [] or []. The single vov may be written with a dot on the left when necessary to avoid ambiguity and distinguish it from other functions of the letter. For example, the word 'where' is spelled , as followed by a single vov; the single vov indicating is marked with a dot in order to distinguish which of the three vovs represents the vowel. Some texts instead separate the digraph from the single vov with a silent
aleph.
Loanwords from Hebrew or Aramaic in Yiddish are spelled as they are in their language of origin. ==Syriac waw==