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In the Aaronic blessings, should פָּנָיו be pronounced as PANAIW or PANAW? The yod can't be redundant right?

he wei
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1 Answers1

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The yod is a mater lectionis and is not pronounced at all.

You can tell that this is the case because there is no vowel mark on the yod.

(This rule of thumb does have one exception: the last letter of a word may be printed without a vowel sign, even though it is to be pronounced. In such a case the schwa is implied but not printed.)

Joel K
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  • Thank you. What if the last letter is a ה‎, without mappiq, and without a vowel sign, does it imply a schwa sound? – he wei Jul 04 '21 at 20:05
  • @hewei That's exactly why the mappik sign exists: to disambiguate final hei whose assumed shva may not have been obvious. Every other letter's status at the end of the word can generally be determined clearly from context. – Double AA Jul 04 '21 at 20:07
  • Why not use aleph or ayin as the mater lectionis? Why yod? – he wei Jul 24 '21 at 03:41
  • For vav to to be used as a consonant not vowel, is it usually the case that yod is to be used a the mater lectionis before vav? 2) what will be wrong the yod is replace by an aleph in this particular example?
    • – he wei Nov 05 '22 at 20:54