Waw (letter)

With an additional triple dot diacritic above waw, the letter then named ve is used to represent distinctively the consonant /v/ in Arabic-based Uyghur.

/o/ in Sorani Kurdish; /v/ in Arabic-based Kazakh; /ø/ in Uyghur.
Thirty-fourth letter of the Azerbaijani Arabic script, represents Ô /ɔ/.
It is also used for short vowel /o/ or /u/ in a lot of languages, for example "u" in bull (بۆل)

for /oː/ or /u/, used in a lot of languages, for example o in bold (بۉلد)

/y/ in Uyghur and also in other languages with a similar vowel.

/ʉː/ in Southern Kurdish.

In Jawi script: Used for /v/.

See Arabic script in Unicode

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 about 10.00%.

Consonantal vav (ו‎) 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 /w/.

In modern Israeli Hebrew, some loanwords, the pronunciation of whose source contains /w/, and their derivations, are pronounced with [w]: ואחד‎ – /ˈwaχad/ (but: ואדי‎ – /ˈvadi/).

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

Some non standard spellings of the sound [w] are sometimes found in modern Hebrew texts, such as word-initial double-vav: וואללה‎ – /ˈwala/ (word-medial double-vav is both standard and common for both /v/ and /w/, see table above) or, rarely, vav with a geresh: ו׳יליאם‎ – /ˈwiljam/.

Vav can be used as a mater lectionis for an o vowel, in which case it is known as a ḥolam male, which in pointed text is marked as vav with a dot above it. It is pronounced [o̞] (phonemically transcribed more simply as /o/).

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 ḥolam ḥaser. Some inadequate typefaces do not support the distinction between the ḥolam male ⟨וֹ‎⟩ /o/, the consonantal vav pointed with a ḥolam ḥaser ⟨וֺ‎⟩ /vo/ (compare ḥolam male ⟨מַצּוֹת‎⟩ /maˈtsot/ and consonantal vav-ḥolam ḥaser ⟨מִצְוֺת‎⟩ /mitsˈvot/). To display a consonantal vav with ḥolam ḥaser correctly, the typeface must either support the vav with the Unicode combining character "HEBREW POINT HOLAM HASER FOR VAV" (U+05BA, HTML Entity (decimal) ֺ)[1] or the precomposed character וֹ‎ (U+FB4B).

Compare the three:

1. The vav with the combining character HEBREW POINT HOLAM: מִצְוֹת‎
2. The vav with the combining character HEBREW POINT HOLAM HASER FOR VAV: מִצְוֺת‎
3. The precomposed character: מִצְוֹת‎

Vav can also be used as a mater lectionis for [u], 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).

Shuruk and vav with a dagesh look identical ("וּ‎") and are only distinguishable through the fact that in text with niqqud, vav with a dagesh will normally be attributed a vocal point in addition, e.g. שׁוּק‎ (/ʃuk/), "a market", (the "וּ‎" denotes a shuruk) as opposed to שִׁוֵּק‎ (/ʃiˈvek/), "to market" (the "וּ‎" denotes a vav with dagesh and is additionally pointed with a zeire, " ֵ‎ ", denoting /e/). In the word שִׁוּוּק‎ (/ʃiˈvuk/), "marketing", the first ("וּ‎") denotes a vav with dagesh, the second a shuruk, being the vowel attributed to the first.

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.)

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") is a vav connecting 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"—hipuch means "inversion"), 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.)

• vav explicative

In Yiddish,[2] the letter (known as vov) is used for several orthographic purposes in native words:

• Alone, a single vov ו‎ represents the vowel [u] in standard Yiddish.
• The digraph וו‎, "tsvey vovn" ('two vovs'), represents the consonant [v].
• The digraph וי‎, consisting of a vov followed by a yud, represents the diphthong [oj].

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 vu 'where' is spelled וווּ‎, as tsvey vovn followed by a single vov; the single vov indicating [u] 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.