Dear Dr. Bittar, Christine and friends,

allow me to summarise that it is common in Theravada countries that
the Pali letter v is pronounced w, hence Vesak is pronounced Wesak.
In East Asia, Vesak Day is more popularly known as Buddha Day. It
would be interested to know that in Chinese (Mandarin) the v sound is
also missing and there is also no "wee". Instead, Vesak is Wei-Sai
(or "way-sak") to the Chinese.

metta,
Yong Peng

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, christine_forsyth wrote:
> A friend living in Kuala Lumpur has sent me as email attachments
three .WAV files for Dhammapada verses 197, verse 198 and verse 199.
They contain the Pali recitation/chanting of these verses as done by
Dr. K. Sri Dhammanada. He pronounces all v's as v - except for the
word 'vata' which is pronounced as a soft'w'.