[HANASHIR:10205] vavs

[Joanna Selznick Dulkin <joanna...>]

Ellen et al,

Here's an easy way to remember/recognize if a vav before a letter is
pronounced 'ooh' or v'

"Boomaff" - an acronym for Bet, vav, mem, pay.

When a vav appears before Bet, Vav, Mem or Pay, it is pronounced ooh, and
those letters lose their usual dagesh.

Otherwise, as Donna said, there are no other hard-and-fast rules...but
boomaf will actually get you pretty far.

Joanna Selznick Dulkin
JTS cantorial student currently studying in Jerusalem (--->not
b'y'rushalayim, but "Veerushalayim" -- another case of when the vav before
a word changes its vowel sound.)

>Probably the best thing to tell your students is that there are many
>grammatical rules for the Hebrew in the Torah and our prayerbook.  Sometimes
>they may see it as V' , Vee, Vah, and Veh depending on the word that it is
>attached to.


------------------------ hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org -----------------------+