:What about Arabic? Arabic was also written in a script descended from the Phoenicians, just like Greek and the Hebrew alphabets. In Arabic, waw (or uau in Greek) is pronounced similar to English while in Hebrew it has become vav. Biblical hebrew  pronunciation differs from the modern pronunciation, moreover, there are many different dialects of Hebrew with different pronunciations, just like in most languages. Aleph or alif wasn't used as a vowel originally except to mark long "a" sometimes. The Greek alphabet split off the Phoenicians for much longer than Hebrew or Arabic, it must have undergone some changes through that time.