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Pronunciation Vav has three orthographic variants of Vav, each with a different phonetic value: 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 () 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 holom male, and in pointed text is marked with a dot above and to the left and is usually pronounced as . This vowel can also appear without the vav, as just the dot, and is known then as holom 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 pointed text is marked with a dot in the middle (on the left side) and usually represents as . 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 In modern Hebrew, Vav has been responsible for the difficult task of transliterating the English letter W. The debate has been whether to use one vav, two vavs, or a vav with a chupchik. All three can be seen in use; for example the name Washington can be transliterated as ושינגטון, ו'שינגטון, or וושינגטון. Loanwords with English W are often pronounced with , despite the fact that this is not a native phoneme of Hebrew. Words written as vav Vav at the beginning of the word has several possible meanings: | ||||||||||
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