Re: re aleph beit

suzmccarth wrote:

>--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Mark E. Shoulson" <mark@...> wrote:
>
>
>
>>Etymologically, the Hebrew "vav" (originally "waw," like it is in
>>Arabic) is indeed cognate to digamma. However, since digamma
>>
>>
>dropped
>
>
>>out of Greek, the sound it represents, /w/, is now written
>>
>>
>as "ou", that
>
>
>>is, the vowel /u/, since after all /w/ is a non-syllabic,
>>
>>
>short /u/.
>
>
>>(that IS how it would be in Modern Greek, right? I'm guessing
>>
>>
>there).
>
>
>>So to transliterate the name of the letter, they spell it "ouau,"
>>because that is how you spell those sounds in a Greek that doesn't
>>
>>
>have
>
>
>>a digamma.
>>
>>
>
>Yes, this is directly comparable to French. Cree also has a 'w'
>which can be interpreted variously as syllabic or non-syllabic, /w/
>or /o/. Oddly it was given a symbol by the western inventor of Cree
>syllabics as if it was non-syllabic but I observed in Cree syllabic
>transliterations of given names such as William and Wallace, that
>the sound /w/ was treated as syllabic. It would be like writing
>William as 'Ouilliam' in French and 'Oilliam' in Cree.
>
>

Very much so.

>However, I believe that the digamma, preceding the 'ouau' in Psalm
>118, verse 41, was intended to represent the number 6. I am
>wondering at what date the section numbering system was introduced
>into the Septuagint.
>
>

Psalm 118 (119 in the numbering used in Jewish Bibles) is an alphabetic
acrostic, like many Psalms. Each group of verses begins with the same
letter of the alphabet, in order. The placement of the letters
indicates the start of the "vav" section.

The letter-heads are not written in Hebrew Bibles, but didn't need to be
since the verses themselves showed it. I guess in this case, what with
the length of it and all, the translators wanted to preserve the
acrostic and indicate it somehow. Other acrostic Psalms don't have such
indications of their acrosticity, I think.

~mark