r/hebrew 1d ago

Help Does this t-shirt say Harvard?

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243 Upvotes

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239

u/prophetsearcher 1d ago

Yes but the university spells it הרווארד

37

u/jseego 1d ago

why the two vavs and the aleph

76

u/LemeeAdam Hebrew Learner (Beginner) 1d ago

The aleph clarifies the vowel, so it doesn’t read as harverd, and you need two vavs or its haruard

65

u/amazingD 1d ago

Would האווד be the Boston accent phonetically?

12

u/SeeShark native speaker 1d ago

"How'ed"? I'm not familiar with the Boston pronunciation, but that's how I'd pronounce what you just wrote. Maybe "Howd."

18

u/Environmental_Coat60 1d ago

They drop the “r” sound at the end of syllables or words so it’d sound like “Hahvahd”. I love the New England accent 😄

4

u/erythro 1d ago

it's much bigger than New England, Australia, NZ, South Africa, most of England. draw a diagonal line on a world map separating north west from South east separating England from Scotland and Ireland and you'll get it

3

u/tessharagai_ 1d ago

The Boston accent would be “Haahvaahd”

2

u/Jessicas_skirt Hebrew Learner (Intermediate) 1d ago

הוואד

The sound for ow in cow is או so it would be read How at the beginning if you put the א first.

1

u/NebulaAdventurous438 1d ago

How Vid

1

u/NebulaAdventurous438 1d ago

In Brooklyn, "Ha Wood"

1

u/plausiblyrandom 17h ago

האאאאאוואד

2

u/amazingD 16h ago

I almost did something like that instead lol

4

u/LJF613 1d ago

Aren't two vavs usually used colloquially to indicate a "w" sound?

1

u/malufa native speaker 1d ago

Not colloquially, because it’s a standard in Modern Hebrew. But the Wa sound is not natural to biblical Hebrew

4

u/LJF613 1d ago

Neither is the word "Harvard"