# Gwunderi - transliteration of w



## utopia

שלום Gwunderi.

When you write your name in Hebrew, is it supposed to be with ב?

Gvunderi?


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## Gwunderi

utopia said:


> שלום Gwunderi.
> When you write your name in Hebrew, is it supposed to be with ב?
> Gvunderi?



שלום Utopia

I'm not sure if I understand your question. The "w" is a soft one, like in "wonder". And I learned that ב is pronounced "b" when at the beginning of a word and "w" when in the middle (like in the verb I just learned: liwro'ach but bore'ach). Some time ago I wrote it for the first time in Hebrew letters here in this forum and nobody objected, so I think it is correct?

It's Swiss German (very different from High German) and means a curious person. I'm of the generation not grown up with PC's, and the first time I logged in in a forum it was just out of curiosity, and so I choose this nick, I wondered how a forum was.

My real name is Wanda, and as I learned from a native speaker it's written ונדה. Here with a "vav", confirms the rule 

@hadronic
I see that it was you who found some "monstrosity" in the Hebrew sentences of Reverso, here:
Did you read mine? -  I can fully confirm it for other languages too. An example: Italian: "My patient is very ill" / German: "My type [mein Typ] is very ill".


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## Drink

Gwunderi said:


> I'm not sure if I understand your question. The "w" is a soft one, like in "wonder". And I learned that ב is pronounced "b" when at the beginning of a word and "w" when in the middle (like in the verb I just learned: liwro'ach but bore'ach). Some time ago I wrote it for the first time in Hebrew letters here in this forum and nobody objected, so I think it is correct?



I think the confusion is that in German the letter "w" makes the [v] sound (as the "v" in Italian _*v*oltare_), but in English the letter "w" makes the [w] sound (as the "u" in Italian _*u*omo_). So the German "w" is like the letter vav and vet in Hebrew, but the English "w" is not.


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## Gwunderi

Drink said:


> I think the confusion is that in German the letter "w" makes the [v] sound (as the "v" in Italian _*v*oltare_), but in English the letter "w" makes the [w] sound (as the "u" in Italian _*u*omo_). So the German "w" is like the letter vav and vet in Hebrew, but the English "w" is not.



Yep, think you're right. Funny that this was my first thought too, so I wrote that it's like in "wonder". Only now I fully realize that I pronounce "wonder" the correct way, like "uomo" in Italian, but all the same I "somehow" hear a "v" where there is none, maybe because I know that it's written with a "w".

Hihi, what's about "written", or "write": I'm only 90% sure I pronounce it really the right way, but here I think the "w" is pronounced (almost) like the Italian "v"?

Very complicated …
So to make it clear: the "w" in Gwunderi is pronunced like the "v" in "visit", maybe a little softer.

Thanks for bringing light in the confusion, Drink


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## Drink

Gwunderi said:


> Hihi, what's about "written", or "write": I'm only 90% sure I pronounce it really the right way, but here I think the "w" is pronounced (almost) like the Italian "v"?



Actually, in "written" and "write" and any words that start with "wr-", the "w" is completely silent.


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## Gwunderi

Drink said:


> Actually, in "written" and "write" and any words that start with "wr-", the "w" is completely silent.



Completely silent? So you pronounce "right" and "write" exactly the same way?

I make a very slight difference, you can hardly hear it, but when I say "right" I roll my tongue from the beginning, and to say "write" I first say a very very short "v" and only than I roll my tongue for the "r". As I said, you can hardly hear the difference, but I make one.

So do I pronounce it the wrong (or rong) way?


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## Drink

Gwunderi said:


> Completely silent? So you pronounce "right" and "write" exactly the same way?
> 
> I make a very slight difference, you can hardly hear it, but when I say "right" I roll my tongue from the beginning, and to say "write" I first say a very very short "v" and only than I roll my tongue for the "r". As I said, you can hardly hear the difference, but I make one.
> 
> So do I pronounce it the wrong (or rong) way?



Yes, "right" and "write" are pronounced exactly the same, so you pronounce it the (w)rong way. However, you might be interested to know that there are people who do pronounce the "h" in "wh-" words like "white" and "what" (they pronounce them "hwite" and "hwat"), even though most people don't; but as far as I know, no native English speakers anywhere still pronounce the "w" in "wr-" words.


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## Gwunderi

Drink said:


> Yes, "right" and "write" are pronounced exactly the same, so you pronounce it the (w)rong way. However, you might be interested to know that there are people who do pronounce the "h" in "wh-" words like "white" and "what" (they pronounce them "hwite" and "hwat"), even though most people don't; but as far as I know, no native English speakers anywhere still pronounce the "w" in "wr-" words.



That's funny that after 40 years I speak English I now hear that I pronounce "write" the wrong way, and nobody corrected me yet. I think it's because you nearly need an "auditive microscope" to hear the difference, it's more that I feel it in the movements of my tongue, but it's nearly imperceptible. I'm not sure if I'll be able to correct me now after so many years … maybe I'll try, when it comes to my mind.

Thanks and שלום
גבונדרי


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## airelibre

Drink said:


> Yes, "right" and "write" are pronounced exactly the same, so you pronounce it the (w)rong way. However, you might be interested to know that there are people who do pronounce the "h" in "wh-" words like "white" and "what" (they pronounce them "hwite" and "hwat"), even though most people don't; but as far as I know, no native English speakers anywhere still pronounce the "w" in "wr-" words.


Yep, deriving from hwīt and hwæt in Old English, so you can see that their pronunciation is a remnant of the original pronunciation. It's only since the h was dropped by many speakers that the w and h swapped places. This provides the link to the "wh-" words in Romance languages, that start with "q-". In PIE "what" is assumed to have been kʷod. The k turned into a h in Germanic languages due to lenition, same process that created the soft pronunciation of the BGDKFT letters in Hebrew.


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## Drink

airelibre said:


> It's only since the h was dropped by many speakers that the w and h swapped places.



Nope, this swap happened long before that. Essentially it happened when Middle English began to be written, when the traditional Old English scribal traditions had been forgotten and a new French-influenced orthography was created. The truth is that today's "hw" sound is actually an "h" and "w" at the same time (in linguistic terms, it's called a voiceless labiovelar approximant), even though it sounds more like "h" followed by "w" to people who aren't used to it. Thus, it doesn't really matter what order the letters are in. I think the reason the letters were swapped is by analogy to all the other English digraphs where "h" is the second letter.


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## Gwunderi

I see now that it's also the fault of "pealim.com", or to be fair of my memory.
In using pealim.com for the first time, I was surprised to find the transliteration "livroa*ch*" instead of "livroa*kh*" as you usually see (in this forum). Now I was convinced that also for the "v" pealim uses a "w", but that's only how I write it for myself, in pealim it's always "v" - sorry! That's also why I felt free to write "liwro'ach" …


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## Drink

Gwunderi said:


> I see now that it's also the fault of "pealim.com", or to be fair of my memory.
> In using pealim.com for the first time, I was surprised to find the transliteration "livroa*ch*" instead of "livroa*kh*" as you usually see (in this forum). Now I was convinced that also for the "v" pealim uses a "w", but that's only how I write it for myself, in pealim it's always "v" - sorry! That's also why I felt free to write "liwro'ach" …



I think "ch" is the more common transliteration used in everyday life. Also note that sometimes "vav" is transliterated with "w" and "vet" with "v", because "vav" was originally pronounced [w] (and still is by some Mizra*ch*im in liturgical contexts).


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