The Hebrew alphabet ( he,
אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the
Ktav Ashuri
Ktav Ashuri ( he, כְּתָב אַשּׁוּרִי, ' "Assyrian script"; also Ashurit) is the traditional Hebrew language name of the Hebrew alphabet, used to write both Hebrew and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. It is also sometimes called the "s ...
, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an
abjad
An abjad (, ar, أبجد; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels ...
script used in the writing of the
Hebrew language
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
and other
Jewish languages
Jewish languages are the various Language, languages and Dialect, dialects that developed in Jewish communities in the Jewish diaspora, diaspora. The original Jewish language is Hebrew, supplanted as the primary vernacular by Aramaic following th ...
, most notably
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
,
Ladino
Ladino, derived from Latin, may refer to:
* The register of Judaeo-Spanish used in the translation of religious texts, such as the Ferrara Bible
*Ladino people, a socio-ethnic category of Mestizo or Hispanicized people in Central America especi ...
,
Judeo-Arabic
Judeo-Arabic dialects (, ; ; ) are ethnolects formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Under the ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, encomp ...
, and
Judeo-Persian
Judeo-Persian refers to both a group of Jewish dialects spoken by the Jews living in Iran and Judeo-Persian texts (written in Hebrew alphabet). As a collective term, Judeo-Persian refers to a number of Judeo-Iranian languages spoken by Jewish com ...
. It is also used informally in Israel to write
Levantine Arabic
Levantine Arabic, also called Shami (autonym: or ), is a group of mutually intelligible vernacular Arabic varieties spoken in the Levant, in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Turkey (historically in Adana, Mersin and Hatay on ...
, especially among
Druze
The Druze (; ar, دَرْزِيٌّ, ' or ', , ') are an Arabic-speaking esoteric ethnoreligious group from Western Asia who adhere to the Druze faith, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, syncretic, and ethnic religion based on the teachings of ...
.
It is an offshoot of the
Imperial Aramaic alphabet
The ancient Aramaic alphabet was adapted by Arameans from the Phoenician alphabet and became a distinct script by the 8th century BC. It was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian tribes throughout the Fert ...
, which flourished during the
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
and which itself derives from the
Phoenician alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization.
The Phoenician alpha ...
.
Historically, two separate abjad scripts have been used to write Hebrew. The original, old Hebrew script, known as the
paleo-Hebrew alphabet
The Paleo-Hebrew script ( he, הכתב העברי הקדום), also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in Canaanite inscriptions from the region of biblical Israel and Judah. It is considered to be the script ...
, has been largely preserved in a variant form as the
Samaritan alphabet
The Samaritan script is used by the Samaritans for religious writings, including the Samaritan Pentateuch, writings in Samaritan Hebrew, and for commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic.
Samaritan is a direc ...
. The present "Jewish script" or "square script", on the contrary, is a stylized form of the
Aramaic alphabet
The ancient Aramaic alphabet was adapted by Arameans from the Phoenician alphabet and became a distinct script by the 8th century BC. It was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian tribes throughout the Fertil ...
and was technically known by Jewish sages as
Ashurit (lit. "Assyrian script"), since its origins were alleged to be from
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
.
Various "styles" (in current terms, "
font
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mod ...
s") of representation of the Jewish script letters described in this article also exist, including a variety of
cursive Hebrew
Cursive Hebrew ( he, כתב עברי רהוט , "flowing Hebrew writing", or , "Hebrew handwriting", often called simply ', "writing") is a collective designation for several styles of handwriting the Hebrew alphabet. Modern Hebrew, especially i ...
styles. In the remainder of this article, the term "Hebrew alphabet" refers to the square script unless otherwise indicated.
The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters. It does not have
case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Containers
* Case (goods), a package of related merchandise
* Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component
* Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books
* Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...
. Five letters have different forms when used at the end of a word. Hebrew is
written from right to left. Originally, the alphabet was an abjad consisting only of
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
s, but is now considered an "
impure abjad
An abjad (, ar, أبجد; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels ...
". As with other abjads, such as the
Arabic alphabet, during its centuries-long use scribes devised means of indicating
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
sounds by separate vowel points, known in Hebrew as ''
niqqud
In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in the ...
.'' In both biblical and rabbinic Hebrew, the letters
can also function as ''
matres lectionis
''Matres lectionis'' (from Latin "mothers of reading", singular form: ''mater lectionis'', from he, אֵם קְרִיאָה ) are consonants that are used to indicate a vowel, primarily in the writing down of Semitic languages such as Arabic, ...
'', which is when certain consonants are used to indicate vowels. There is a trend in
Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...
towards the use of ''matres lectionis'' to indicate vowels that have traditionally gone unwritten, a practice known as "
full spelling
''Ktiv hasar niqqud'' (; he, כתיב חסר ניקוד, literally "spelling lacking niqqud"), colloquially known as ''ktiv maleh'' (; , literally "full spelling"), are the rules for writing Hebrew without vowel points (niqqud), often replacing ...
".
The
Yiddish alphabet
Yiddish orthography is the writing system used for the Yiddish language. It includes Yiddish spelling rules and the Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew script, which is used as the basis of a full vocalic alphabet. Letters that are silent or represent glott ...
, a modified version of the Hebrew alphabet used to write Yiddish, is a true alphabet, with all vowels rendered in the spelling, except in the case of inherited Hebrew words, which typically retain their Hebrew consonant-only spellings.
The Arabic and Hebrew alphabets have similarities because they are both derived from the Aramaic alphabet, which in turn derives either from
paleo-Hebrew
The Paleo-Hebrew script ( he, הכתב העברי הקדום), also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in Canaanite inscriptions from the region of biblical Israel and Judah. It is considered to be the script ...
or the
Phoenician alphabet, both being slight regional variations of the
Proto-Canaanite alphabet
Proto-Canaanite is the name given to
:(a) the Proto-Sinaitic script when found in Canaan, dating to about the 17th century BC and later.
:(b) a hypothetical ancestor of the Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BCE, with an u ...
used in ancient times to write the various
Canaanite languages
The Canaanite languages, or Canaanite dialects, are one of the three subgroups of the Northwest Semitic languages, the others being Aramaic and Ugaritic, all originating in the Levant and Mesopotamia. They are attested in Canaanite inscription ...
(including Hebrew, Moabite, Phoenician, Punic, et cetera).
History
![Aleppo Codex Joshua 1 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Aleppo_Codex_Joshua_1_1.jpg)
The
Canaanite dialects were largely indistinguishable before around 1000 BCE. An example of related early
Semitic inscriptions
The Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, also known as Northwest Semitic inscriptions, are the primary extra-Biblical source for understanding of the society and history of the ancient Phoenicians, Hebrews and Arameans. Semitic inscriptions may occ ...
from the area include the tenth-century
Gezer calendar
The Gezer calendar is a small limestone tablet with an early Canaanite inscription discovered in 1908 by Irish archaeologist R. A. Stewart Macalister in the ancient city of Gezer, 20 miles west of Jerusalem. It is commonly dated to the 10th ce ...
over which scholars are divided as to whether its language is
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
or
Phoenician and whether the script is
Proto-Canaanite
Proto-Canaanite is the name given to
:(a) the Proto-Sinaitic script when found in Canaan, dating to about the 17th century BC and later.
:(b) a hypothetical ancestor of the Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BCE, with an u ...
or
paleo-Hebrew
The Paleo-Hebrew script ( he, הכתב העברי הקדום), also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in Canaanite inscriptions from the region of biblical Israel and Judah. It is considered to be the script ...
.
A Hebrew variant of the
Proto-Canaanite alphabet
Proto-Canaanite is the name given to
:(a) the Proto-Sinaitic script when found in Canaan, dating to about the 17th century BC and later.
:(b) a hypothetical ancestor of the Phoenician script before some cut-off date, typically 1050 BCE, with an u ...
, called the
paleo-Hebrew alphabet
The Paleo-Hebrew script ( he, הכתב העברי הקדום), also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in Canaanite inscriptions from the region of biblical Israel and Judah. It is considered to be the script ...
by scholars, began to emerge around 800 BCE. An example is the
Siloam inscription (c. 700 BCE).
The paleo-Hebrew alphabet was used in the ancient kingdoms of
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
and
Judah. Following the exile of the Kingdom of Judah in the 6th century BCE (the
Babylonian captivity
The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat ...
),
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
began using a form of the
Imperial Aramaic alphabet
The ancient Aramaic alphabet was adapted by Arameans from the Phoenician alphabet and became a distinct script by the 8th century BC. It was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian tribes throughout the Fert ...
, another offshoot of the same family of scripts, which flourished during the
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
. The
Samaritans
Samaritans (; ; he, שומרונים, translit=Šōmrōnīm, lit=; ar, السامريون, translit=as-Sāmiriyyūn) are an ethnoreligious group who originate from the ancient Israelites. They are native to the Levant and adhere to Samarit ...
, who remained in the Land of Israel, continued to use the paleo-Hebrew alphabet. During the 3rd century BCE, Jews began to use a stylized, "square" form of the
Aramaic alphabet
The ancient Aramaic alphabet was adapted by Arameans from the Phoenician alphabet and became a distinct script by the 8th century BC. It was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian tribes throughout the Fertil ...
that was used by the
Persian Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...
(and which in turn had been adopted from the
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...
ns),
while the Samaritans continued to use a form of the paleo-Hebrew script called the
Samaritan alphabet
The Samaritan script is used by the Samaritans for religious writings, including the Samaritan Pentateuch, writings in Samaritan Hebrew, and for commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic.
Samaritan is a direc ...
. After the fall of the Persian Empire in 330 BCE, Jews used both scripts before settling on the square Assyrian form.
The square Hebrew alphabet was later adapted and used for writing languages of the
Jewish diaspora
The Jewish diaspora ( he, תְּפוּצָה, təfūṣā) or exile (Hebrew: ; Yiddish: ) is the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland (the Land of Israel) and their subsequent settlement in other parts of t ...
– such as
Karaim, the
Judeo-Arabic languages
Judeo-Arabic dialects (, ; ; ) are ethnolects formerly spoken by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Under the ISO 639 international standard for language codes, Judeo-Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage under the code jrb, encomp ...
, Judaeo-Spanish, and Yiddish. The Hebrew alphabet continued in use for scholarly writing in Hebrew and came again into everyday use with the rebirth of the Hebrew language as a spoken language in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
.
Description
General
In the traditional form, the Hebrew alphabet is an
abjad
An abjad (, ar, أبجد; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels ...
consisting only of
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
s,
written from right to left. It has 22 letters, five of which use different forms at the end of a word.
Vowels
In the traditional form, vowels are indicated by the weak
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
s
Aleph
Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician , Hebrew , Aramaic , Syriac , Arabic ʾ and North Arabian 𐪑. It also appears as South Arabian 𐩱 and Ge'ez .
These letter ...
(),
He (),
Waw/Vav (), or
Yodh
Yodh (also spelled jodh, yod, or jod) is the tenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Yōd /𐤉, Hebrew Yōd , Aramaic Yod , Syriac Yōḏ ܝ, and Arabic . Its sound value is in all languages for which it is used; in many lan ...
() serving as vowel letters, or
''matres lectionis'': the letter is combined with a previous vowel and becomes silent, or by imitation of such cases in the spelling of other forms. Also, a system of vowel points to indicate vowels (diacritics), called
niqqud
In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in the ...
, was developed. In modern forms of the alphabet, as in the case of
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
and to some extent
Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...
,
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s may be indicated. Today, the trend is toward
full spelling
''Ktiv hasar niqqud'' (; he, כתיב חסר ניקוד, literally "spelling lacking niqqud"), colloquially known as ''ktiv maleh'' (; , literally "full spelling"), are the rules for writing Hebrew without vowel points (niqqud), often replacing ...
with the weak letters acting as true vowels.
When used to
write Yiddish, vowels are indicated, using certain letters, either with niqqud diacritics (e.g. or ) or without (e.g. or ), except for Hebrew words, which in Yiddish are written in their Hebrew spelling.
To preserve the proper vowel sounds, scholars developed several different sets of vocalization and diacritical symbols called ''nequdot'' (, literally "points"). One of these, the
Tiberian system, eventually prevailed.
Aaron ben Moses ben Asher
Aaron ben Moses ben Asher (Hebrew: ; Tiberian Hebrew: ''ʾAhărōn ben Mōše ben ʾĀšēr''; 10th century, died c.960) was a Jewish scribe who lived in Tiberias in northern Israel and refined the Tiberian system of writing vowel sounds in Hebr ...
, and his family for several generations, are credited for refining and maintaining the system. These points are normally used only for special purposes, such as
Biblical
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
books intended for study, in
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
or when teaching the language to children. The Tiberian system also includes a set of
cantillation marks
Hebrew cantillation is the manner of chanting ritual readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic Text of the Bible, to compleme ...
, called ''trope'' or , used to indicate how scriptural passages should be chanted in synagogue recitations of scripture (although these marks do not appear in the scrolls). In everyday writing of modern Hebrew, ''niqqud'' are absent; however, patterns of how words are derived from
Hebrew roots
The Hebrew Roots movement is a religious movement that advocates adherence to the Torah and believes in Yeshua as the Messiah.
History
Since the early 20th century, different religious organizations have been teaching a belief in Jesus (calle ...
(called ''shorashim'' or "triliterals") allow Hebrew speakers to determine the vowel-structure of a given word from its consonants based on the word's context and part of speech.
Alphabet
Unlike the Paleo-Hebrew writing script, the modern Ashuri script has five
letters
Letter, letters, or literature may refer to:
Characters typeface
* Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet.
* Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
that have special
final forms, called sofit ( he, סופית, meaning in this context "final" or "ending") form, used only at the end of a word, somewhat as in the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
or in the
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
and
Mandaic alphabet
The Mandaic alphabet is thought to have evolved between the 2nd and 7th century CE from either a cursive form of Aramaic (as did Syriac) or from the Parthian chancery script. The exact roots of the script are difficult to determine.
It was deve ...
s. These are shown below the normal form in the following table (letter names are
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
standard
[Unicode names of Hebrew characters at fileformat.info](_blank)
). Although Hebrew is read and written from right to left, the following table shows the letters in order from left to right.
Pronunciation
Alphabet
The descriptions that follow are based on the pronunciation of modern standard Israeli Hebrew.
By analogy with the other dotted/dotless pairs, dotless tav, ת, would be expected to be pronounced /θ/ (
voiceless dental fricative
The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in ''think''. Though rather rare as a phoneme in the world's inventory of languages, it is en ...
), and dotless dalet ד as /ð/ (
voiced dental fricative
The voiced dental fricative is a consonant sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the ''th'' sound in ''father''. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is eth, or and was taken from the Old Engli ...
), but these were lost among most Jews due to their not existing in the countries where they lived (such as in nearly all of Eastern Europe). Yiddish modified /θ/ to /s/ (cf.
seseo
In Spanish dialectology, the realization of coronal fricatives is one of the most prominent features distinguishing various dialect regions. The main three realizations are the phonemic distinction between and ('), the presence of only alveo ...
in Spanish), but in modern Israeli Hebrew, it is simply pronounced /t/. Likewise, historical /ð/ is simply pronounced /d/.
Shin and sin
''Shin'' and ''sin'' are represented by the same letter, , but are two separate
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s. When vowel diacritics are used, the two phonemes are differentiated with a ''shin''-dot or ''sin''-dot; the ''shin''-dot is above the upper-right side of the letter, and the ''sin''-dot is above the upper-left side of the letter.
Historically, ''left-dot-sin'' corresponds to
Proto-Semitic
Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical reconstructed proto-language ancestral to the Semitic languages. There is no consensus regarding the location of the Proto-Semitic ''Urheimat''; scholars hypothesize that it may have originated in the Levant (m ...
*, which in biblical-Judaic-Hebrew corresponded to the
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral fricatives is , ...
, as evidenced in the Greek transliteration of Hebrew words such as ''
balsam
Balsam is the resinous exudate (or sap) which forms on certain kinds of trees and shrubs. Balsam (from Latin balsamum "gum of the balsam tree", ultimately from Semitic, Aramaic ''busma'', Arabic ''balsam'' and Hebrew ''basam'', "spice", "perfume ...
'' () (the ''ls'' – 'שׂ') as is evident in the ''
Targum Onkelos
Interlinear text of Hebrew Numbers 6.3–10 with British_Library.html"_;"title="Aramaic_Targum_Onkelos_from_the_British_Library">Aramaic_Targum_Onkelos_from_the_British_Library.
Targum_Onkelos_(or_Onqelos;_Hebrew_language.html" "title="B ...
''.
Dagesh
Historically, the consonants ''bet'', ''gimmel'', ''daleth'', ''kaf'', ''pe'' and ''tav'' each had two sounds: one hard (
plosive
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
), and one soft (
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
), depending on the position of the letter and other factors. When vowel diacritics are used, the hard sounds are indicated by a central dot called ''dagesh'' (), while the soft sounds lack a ''dagesh''. In modern Hebrew, however, the ''dagesh'' only changes the pronunciation of ''bet'', ''kaf'', and ''pe'', and does not affect the name of the letter. The differences are as follows:
In other dialects (mainly liturgical) there are variations from this pattern.
*In some
Sephardi
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), ...
and
Mizrahi
''Mizrachi'' or ''Mizrahi'' ( he, מזרחי) has two meanings.
In the literal Hebrew meaning ''Eastern'', it may refer to:
*Mizrahi Jews, Jews from the Middle East
* Mizrahi (surname), a Sephardic surname, given to Jews who got to the Iberian P ...
dialects, ''bet'' without dagesh is pronounced , like ''bet'' with dagesh
*In
Syrian
Syrians ( ar, سُورِيُّون, ''Sūriyyīn'') are an Eastern Mediterranean ethnic group indigenous to the Levant. They share common Levantine Semitic roots. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend of both indi ...
and
Yemenite Hebrew
Yemenite Hebrew ( ''ʿĪvrīṯ Tēmŏnīṯ''), also referred to as Temani Hebrew, is the pronunciation system for Hebrew traditionally used by Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Hebrew has been studied by language scholars, many of whom believe it to retai ...
, ''gimel'' without dagesh is pronounced .
*In Yemenite Hebrew, and in the Iraqi pronunciation of the word "Adonai", ''dalet'' without dagesh is pronounced as in "these"
*In
Ashkenazi Hebrew
Ashkenazi Hebrew ( he, הגייה אשכנזית, Hagiyya Ashkenazit, yi, אַשכּנזישע הבֿרה, Ashkenazishe Havara) is the pronunciation system for Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew favored for Jewish liturgical use and Torah study by Ashk ...
, as well as
Krymchaki Hebrew, ''tav'' without dagesh is pronounced as in "silk"
*In Iraqi and
Yemenite Hebrew
Yemenite Hebrew ( ''ʿĪvrīṯ Tēmŏnīṯ''), also referred to as Temani Hebrew, is the pronunciation system for Hebrew traditionally used by Yemenite Jews. Yemenite Hebrew has been studied by language scholars, many of whom believe it to retai ...
, and formerly in some other dialects, ''tav'' without dagesh is pronounced as in "thick"
Sounds represented with diacritic geresh
The sounds , , , written ⟨⟩, ⟨⟩, ⟨⟩, and , non-standardly sometimes transliterated ⟨⟩, are often found in slang and loanwords that are part of the everyday Hebrew colloquial vocabulary. The symbol resembling an apostrophe after the Hebrew letter modifies the pronunciation of the letter and is called a ''
geresh
Geresh ( in Hebrew language, Hebrew: or , or Tiberian vocalization, medieval ) is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings.
#An apostrophe-like sign (also known colloquially as a ''chupchik'') placed after a letter:
#* as a d ...
''.
The pronunciation of the following letters can also be modified with the geresh diacritic. The represented sounds are however foreign to
Hebrew phonology, i.e., these symbols mainly represent sounds in foreign words or names when transliterated with the Hebrew alphabet, and not
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
s.
''Geresh'' is also used to denote an abbreviation consisting of a single Hebrew letter, while ''gershayim'' (a doubled ''geresh'') are used to denote
acronym
An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
s pronounced as a string of letters; ''geresh'' and ''gershayim'' are also used to denote
Hebrew numeral
The system of Hebrew numerals is a quasi-decimal alphabetic numeral system using the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
The system was adapted from that of the Greek numerals in the late 2nd century BCE.
The current numeral system is also known as t ...
s consisting of a single Hebrew letter or of multiple Hebrew letters, respectively. Geresh is also the name of a cantillation mark used for
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...
recitation, though its visual appearance and function are different in that context.
Identical pronunciation
In much of
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
's general population, especially where
Ashkenazic
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
pronunciation is prevalent, many letters have the same pronunciation. They are as follows:
* Varyingly
Ancient Hebrew pronunciation
Some of the variations in sound mentioned above are due to a systematic feature of Ancient Hebrew. The six consonants were pronounced differently depending on their position. These letters were also called ''
BeGeD KeFeT'' letters . The full details are very complex; this summary omits some points. They were pronounced as
plosive
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
s at the beginning of a syllable, or when doubled. They were pronounced as
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
s when preceded by a vowel (commonly indicated with a macron, ḇ ḡ ḏ ḵ p̄ ṯ). The plosive and double pronunciations were indicated by the ''dagesh''. In Modern Hebrew the sounds ḏ and ḡ have reverted to and , respectively, and ṯ has become , so only the remaining three consonants show variation. ''resh'' may have also been a "doubled" letter, making the list ''BeGeD KePoReT''. (
Sefer Yetzirah
''Sefer Yetzirah'' ( ''Sēp̄er Yəṣīrā'', ''Book of Formation'', or ''Book of Creation'') is the title of a book on Jewish mysticism, although some early commentators treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed ...
, 4:1)
* ''chet'' and ''ayin'' represented
pharyngeal fricatives
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
, ''tsadi'' represented the
emphatic consonant
In Semitic linguistics, an emphatic consonant is an obstruent consonant which originally contrasted with series of both voiced and voiceless obstruents. In specific Semitic languages, the members of this series may be realized as uvularized or ...
, ''tet'' represented the emphatic consonant , and ''qof'' represented the
uvular plosive . All these are common
Semitic consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...
s.
* ''sin'' (the variant of ''shin'') was originally different from both ''shin'' and ''samekh'', but had become the same as ''samekh'' by the time the vowel pointing was devised. Because of
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
s with other
Semitic language
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant a ...
s, this phoneme is known to have originally been a
lateral consonant
A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English ''L'', as in ''Larr ...
, most likely the
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral fricatives is , ...
(the sound of modern
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
''ll'') or the
voiceless alveolar lateral affricate
The voiceless alveolar lateral affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is (often simplified to ), and in Americanist phonetic notation it is (barred lambda). T ...
(like
Náhuatl
Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...
''tl'').
Regional and historical variation
The following table contains the
pronunciation
Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or language in a specific dialect ("correct pronunciation") or simply the way a particular ...
of the Hebrew letters in reconstructed historical forms and
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
s using the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
. The apostrophe-looking symbol after some letters is not a
yud but a
geresh
Geresh ( in Hebrew language, Hebrew: or , or Tiberian vocalization, medieval ) is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings.
#An apostrophe-like sign (also known colloquially as a ''chupchik'') placed after a letter:
#* as a d ...
. It is used for loanwords with non-native Hebrew sounds. The dot in the middle of some of the letters, called a "
dagesh
The dagesh () is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud (vowel points). It takes the form of a dot placed inside a Hebrew letter and has the effect of mod ...
kal", also modifies the sounds of the letters
ב, כ and פ in
modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...
(in some forms of Hebrew it modifies also the sounds of the letters
ג, ד and/or ת; the "dagesh chazak" – orthographically indistinguishable from the "dagesh kal" – designates
gemination
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
, which today is realized only rarely – e.g. in biblical recitations or when using
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
s).
:
#
velarized
Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four diac ...
or
pharyngealized
Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound.
IPA symbols
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicated ...
# pharyngealized
# sometimes said to be
ejective
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some l ...
but more likely
glottalized
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice (partial closure). Glottalization of obstruent consonan ...
.
Vowels
Matres lectionis
''alef'', ''ayin'', ''waw/vav'' and ''yod'' are letters that can sometimes indicate a vowel instead of a consonant (which would be, respectively, ). When they do, and are considered to constitute part of the vowel designation in combination with a niqqud symbol – a vowel diacritic (whether or not the diacritic is marked), whereas and are considered to be mute, their role being purely indicative of the non-marked vowel.
:
Vowel points
''
Niqqud
In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in the ...
'' is the system of dots that help determine vowels and consonants. In Hebrew, all forms of ''niqqud'' are often omitted in writing, except for children's books, prayer books, poetry, foreign words, and words which would be ambiguous to pronounce. Israeli Hebrew has five vowel phonemes, , but many more written symbols for them:
Note 1: The circle represents whatever Hebrew letter is used.
Note 2: The pronunciation of ''tsere'' and sometimes ''segol'' – with or without the letter ''yod'' – is sometimes ''ei'' in Modern Hebrew. This is not correct in the normative pronunciation and not consistent in the spoken language.
Note 3: The ''dagesh
The dagesh () is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud (vowel points). It takes the form of a dot placed inside a Hebrew letter and has the effect of mod ...
'', ''mappiq
The mappiq (, also ''mapiq'', ''mapik'', ''mappik'', lit. "causing to go out") is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It is part of the Masoretes' system of niqqud (vowel points), and was added to Hebrew orthography at the same time. It takes ...
'', and ''shuruk
Kubutz or qubbutz (modern he, קֻבּוּץ; , formerly , ''qībūṣ'') and shuruk ( he, שׁוּרוּק, ) are two Hebrew niqqud vowel signs that represent the sound . In an alternative, Ashkenazi naming, the kubutz (three diagona ...
'' have different functions, even though they look the same.
Note 4: The letter ו (''waw/vav'') is used since it can only be represented by that letter.
=Meteg
=
By adding a vertical line (called ''
Meteg
Meteg (or meseg or metheg, Hebrew: , lit. 'bridle', also , lit. 'bellowing', , or ) is a punctuation mark used in Biblical Hebrew for stress marking. It is a vertical bar placed under the affected syllable.
Usage
Meteg is primarily used in ...
'') underneath the letter and to the left of the vowel point, the vowel is made long. The ''meteg'' is only used in
Biblical Hebrew
Biblical Hebrew (, or , ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite branch of Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Israel, roughly west of ...
, not
Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...
.
=Sh'va
=
By adding two vertical dots (called ''
Sh'va
Shva or, in Biblical Hebrew, shĕwa ( he, שְׁוָא) is a Hebrew niqqud vowel sign written as two vertical dots () beneath a letter. It indicates either the phoneme (shva na', mobile shva) or the complete absence of a vowel (/ Ø/) (shva n ...
'') underneath the letter, the vowel is made very short. When sh'va is placed on the first letter of the word, mostly it is "è" (but in some instances, it makes the first letter silent without a vowel (vowel-less): e.g.
וְ ''wè'' to "w")
=Comparison table
=
Gershayim
The symbol is called a
gershayim
Gershayim (Hebrew: , without niqqud ), also occasionally grashayim. (), is two distinct typographical marks in the Hebrew language. The name literally means "double geresh".
Punctuation mark
Gershayim most commonly refers to the punctuation mark ...
and is a punctuation mark used in the Hebrew language to denote acronyms. It is written before the last letter in the acronym, e.g. . Gershayim is also the name of a
cantillation mark
Hebrew cantillation is the manner of chanting ritual readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic Text of the Bible, to compleme ...
in the reading of the
Torah
The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...
, printed above the accented letter, e.g. .
Stylistic variants
The following table displays typographic and chirographic variants of each letter. For the five letters that have a different final form used at the end of words, the final forms are displayed beneath the regular form.
The block (square, or "print" type) and cursive ("handwritten" type) are the only variants in widespread contemporary use. Rashi is also used, for historical reasons, in a handful of standard texts.
Yiddish symbols
Numeric values of letters
Following the adoption of Greek Hellenistic alphabetic numeration practice, Hebrew letters started being used to denote numbers in the late 2nd century BC, and performed this arithmetic function for about a thousand years. Nowadays alphanumeric notation is used only in specific contexts, e.g. denoting dates in the
Hebrew calendar
The Hebrew calendar ( he, הַלּוּחַ הָעִבְרִי, translit=HaLuah HaIvri), also called the Jewish calendar, is a lunisolar calendar used today for Jewish religious observance, and as an official calendar of the state of Israel. I ...
, denoting grades of school in Israel, other listings (e.g. שלב א׳, שלב ב׳ – "phase a, phase b"), commonly in
Kabbalah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...
(
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
mysticism
Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...
) in a practice known as
gematria
Gematria (; he, גמטריא or gimatria , plural or , ''gimatriot'') is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase according to an alphanumerical cipher. A single word can yield several values depending on the cipher ...
, and often in religious contexts.
![Hohe Synagoge Prag 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Hohe_Synagoge_Prag_1.jpg)
The numbers 500, 600, 700, 800 and 900 are commonly represented by the juxtapositions
ק״ת, ר״ת, ש״ת, ת״ת, and ק״תת respectively.
Adding a
geresh
Geresh ( in Hebrew language, Hebrew: or , or Tiberian vocalization, medieval ) is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings.
#An apostrophe-like sign (also known colloquially as a ''chupchik'') placed after a letter:
#* as a d ...
("׳") to a letter multiplies its value by one thousand, for example, the year 5778 is portrayed as ה׳תשע״ח, where ה׳ represents 5000, and תשע״ח represents 778.
Transliterations and transcriptions
The following table lists transliterations and transcriptions of Hebrew letters used in
Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...
.
Clarifications:
*For some letters, the
Academy of the Hebrew Language
The Academy of the Hebrew Language ( he, הָאָקָדֶמְיָה לַלָּשׁוֹן הָעִבְרִית, ''ha-akademyah la-lashon ha-ivrit'') was established by the Israeli government in 1953 as the "supreme institution for scholarship on t ...
offers a ''precise'' transliteration that differs from the ''regular'' standard it has set. When omitted, no such precise alternative exists and the regular standard applies.
*The
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA may also refer to:
Organizations International
* Insolvency Practitioners ...
phonemic
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
transcription is specified whenever it uses a different symbol from the one used for the regular standard Israeli transliteration.
*The
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA may also refer to:
Organizations International
* Insolvency Practitioners ...
phonetic
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
transcription is specified whenever it differs from IPA phonemic transcription.
Note:
SBL's transliteration system, recommended in its ''Handbook of Style'',
differs slightly from the 2006 ''precise'' transliteration system of the Academy of the Hebrew Language; for "
צ" SBL uses "ṣ" (≠ AHL "ẓ"), and for
בג״ד כפ״ת with no dagesh, SBL uses the same symbols as for with dagesh (i.e. "b", "g", "d", "k", "f", "t").
;Notes:
A1234In transliterations of modern Israeli Hebrew, initial and final ע (in regular transliteration), silent or initial א, and silent ה are ''not'' transliterated. To the eye of readers orientating themselves on Latin (or similar) alphabets, these letters might seem to be transliterated as vowel letters; however, these are in fact transliterations of the vowel diacritics – niqqud (or are representations of the spoken vowels). E.g., in אִם ("if", ), אֵם ("mother", ) and אֹם ("
nut
Nut often refers to:
* Nut (fruit), fruit composed of a hard shell and a seed, or a collective noun for dry and edible fruits or seeds
* Nut (hardware), fastener used with a bolt
Nut or Nuts may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Com ...
", ), the letter א always represents the same consonant: (
glottal stop
The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
), whereas the vowels /i/, /e/ and /o/ respectively represent the spoken vowel, whether it is orthographically denoted by diacritics or not. Since the Academy of the Hebrew Language ascertains that א in initial position is not transliterated, the symbol for the glottal stop
ʾ is omitted from the transliteration, and only the subsequent vowels are transliterated (whether or not their corresponding vowel diacritics appeared in the text being transliterated), resulting in "im", "em" and "om", respectively.
B123The
diacritic
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
geresh
Geresh ( in Hebrew language, Hebrew: or , or Tiberian vocalization, medieval ) is a sign in Hebrew writing. It has two meanings.
#An apostrophe-like sign (also known colloquially as a ''chupchik'') placed after a letter:
#* as a d ...
– "׳" – is used with some other letters as well (ד׳, ח׳, ט׳, ע׳, ר׳, ת׳), but only to transliterate ''from'' other languages ''to'' Hebrew – never to spell Hebrew words; therefore they were not included in this table (correctly translating a Hebrew text with these letters would require using the spelling in the language from which the transliteration to Hebrew was originally made). The non-standard "ו׳" and "וו" are sometimes used to represent , which like , and appears in Hebrew slang and loanwords.
C12The Sound (as "ch" in
loch
''Loch'' () is the Scottish Gaelic, Scots language, Scots and Irish language, Irish word for a lake or sea inlet. It is Cognate, cognate with the Manx language, Manx lough, Cornish language, Cornish logh, and one of the Welsh language, Welsh w ...
) is often transcribed "ch", inconsistently with the guidelines specified by the Academy of the Hebrew Language: חם → "cham"; סכך → "schach".
DAlthough the Bible does include a single occurrence of a final pe with a dagesh (
Book of Proverbs
The Book of Proverbs ( he, מִשְלֵי, , "Proverbs (of Solomon)") is a book in the third section (called Ketuvim) of the Hebrew Bible and a book of the Christian Old Testament. When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different ...
30, 6: ""), in modern Hebrew is always represented by
pe in its regular, not final, form "פ", even when in final word position, which occurs with loanwords (e.g. שׁוֹפּ ''"shop"''), foreign names (e.g. פִילִיפּ ''"Philip"'') and some slang (e.g. חָרַפּ ''"slept deeply"'').
Religious use
The letters of the Hebrew alphabet have played varied roles in Jewish religious literature over the centuries, primarily in mystical texts. Some sources in classical
rabbinical literature
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, is the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writ ...
seem to acknowledge the historical provenance of the currently used Hebrew alphabet and deal with them as a mundane subject (the
Jerusalem Talmud
The Jerusalem Talmud ( he, תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, translit=Talmud Yerushalmi, often for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century ...
, for example, records that "the Israelites took for themselves square calligraphy", and that the letters "came with the Israelites from Ashur
ssyria); others attribute mystical significance to the letters, connecting them with the process of creation or
the redemption. In mystical conceptions, the alphabet is considered eternal, pre-existent to the Earth, and the letters themselves are seen as having holiness and power, sometimes to such an extent that several stories from the
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
illustrate the idea that they cannot be destroyed.
The idea of the letters' creative power finds its greatest vehicle in the
Sefer Yezirah
''Sefer Yetzirah'' ( ''Sēp̄er Yəṣīrā'', ''Book of Formation'', or ''Book of Creation'') is the title of a book on Jewish mysticism, although some early commentators treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed ...
, or ''Book of Creation'', a mystical text of uncertain origin which describes a story of creation highly divergent from that in the
Book of Genesis
The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning") ...
, largely through exposition on the powers of the letters of the alphabet. The supposed creative powers of the letters are also referenced in the Talmud and
Zohar
The ''Zohar'' ( he, , ''Zōhar'', lit. "Splendor" or "Radiance") is a foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah (the five ...
.
[Zohar 1:3; 2:152]
![Tefillin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Tefillin.JPG)
Another book, the 13th-century
Kabbalistic
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and Jewish theology, school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "rece ...
text
Sefer HaTemunah
''Sefer HaTemunah'' ( he, ספר התמונה ) (lit. "Book of the Figure", i.e. shape of the Hebrew letters) is a 13–14th century kabbalistic text. It is quoted in many ''Halakhic'' sources.
Origins
''Sefer HaTemunah'' was probably written a ...
, holds that a single letter of unknown pronunciation, held by some to be the four-pronged shin on one side of the
teffilin
Tefillin (; Israeli Hebrew: / ; Ashkenazic pronunciation: ), or phylacteries, are a set of small black leather boxes with leather straps containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah. Tefillin are worn by adult Jews during ...
box, is missing from the current alphabet. The world's flaws, the book teaches, are related to the absence of this letter, the eventual revelation of which will
repair the universe.
[''The Book of Letters''. Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock. 1990] Another example of messianic significance attached to the letters is the teaching of Rabbi Eliezer that the five letters of the alphabet with final forms hold the "secret of redemption".
In addition, the letters occasionally feature in
aggadic
Aggadah ( he, ''ʾAggāḏā'' or ''Haggāḏā''; Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: אַגָּדְתָא ''ʾAggāḏəṯāʾ''; "tales, fairytale, lore") is the non-legalistic exegesis which appears in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism, ...
portions of non-mystical rabbinic literature. In such aggada the letters are often given
anthropomorphic
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology.
Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...
qualities and depicted as speaking to God. Commonly their shapes are used in parables to illustrate points of ethics or theology. An example from the
Babylonian Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
(a parable intended to discourage speculation about the universe before creation):
Extensive instructions about the proper methods of forming the letters are found in Mishnat Soferim, within
Mishna Berura
The ''Mishnah Berurah'' ( he, משנה ברורה "Clear Teaching") is a work of ''halakha'' (Jewish law) by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (Poland, 1838–1933, also known as ''Chofetz Chaim''). It is a commentary on ''Orach Chayim'', the first section ...
of
Yisrael Meir Kagan
Rabbi Yisrael Meir ha-Kohen Kagan (January 26, 1838 – September 15, 1933), known popularly as the Chofetz Chaim, after his book on lashon hara, who was also well known for the Mishna Berurah, his book on ritual law, was an influential Lithuan ...
.
Mathematical use
See
aleph number
In mathematics, particularly in set theory, the aleph numbers are a sequence of numbers used to represent the cardinality (or size) of infinite sets that can be well-ordered. They were introduced by the mathematician Georg Cantor and are named af ...
and
beth number
In mathematics, particularly in set theory, the beth numbers are a certain sequence of infinite cardinal numbers (also known as transfinite numbers), conventionally written \beth_0,\ \beth_1,\ \beth_2,\ \beth_3,\ \dots, where \beth is the second H ...
and
gimel function In axiomatic set theory, the gimel function is the following function mapping cardinal numbers to cardinal numbers:
:\gimel\colon\kappa\mapsto\kappa^
where cf denotes the cofinality function; the gimel function is used for studying the continuum f ...
.
In
set theory
Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory, as a branch of mathematics, is mostly conce ...
,
, pronounced aleph-naught or aleph-zero, is used to mark the
cardinal number
In mathematics, cardinal numbers, or cardinals for short, are a generalization of the natural numbers used to measure the cardinality (size) of sets. The cardinality of a finite set is a natural number: the number of elements in the set. Th ...
of an infinite
countable set
In mathematics, a set is countable if either it is finite or it can be made in one to one correspondence with the set of natural numbers. Equivalently, a set is ''countable'' if there exists an injective function from it into the natural numbers; ...
, such as
, the set of all integers. More generally, the
(aleph) notation marks the ordered sequence of all distinct infinite cardinal numbers.
Less frequently used, the
(beth) notation is used for the iterated
power set
In mathematics, the power set (or powerset) of a set is the set of all subsets of , including the empty set and itself. In axiomatic set theory (as developed, for example, in the ZFC axioms), the existence of the power set of any set is po ...
s of
. The 2nd element
is the
cardinality of the continuum
In set theory, the cardinality of the continuum is the cardinality or "size" of the set of real numbers \mathbb R, sometimes called the continuum. It is an infinite cardinal number and is denoted by \mathfrak c (lowercase fraktur "c") or , \mathb ...
. Very occasionally, gimel is used in cardinal notation.
Unicode and HTML
![Hebrew keyboard layout](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Hebrew_keyboard_layout.svg)
The
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
Hebrew block extends from U+0590 to U+05FF and from U+FB1D to U+FB4F. It includes
letters
Letter, letters, or literature may refer to:
Characters typeface
* Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet.
* Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
,
ligatures,
combining diacritical mark
In digital typography, combining characters are characters that are intended to modify other characters. The most common combining characters in the Latin script are the combining diacritical marks (including combining accents).
Unicode also ...
s (''
Niqqud
In Hebrew orthography, niqqud or nikud ( or ) is a system of diacritical signs used to represent vowels or distinguish between alternative pronunciations of letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Several such diacritical systems were developed in the ...
'' and
cantillation marks
Hebrew cantillation is the manner of chanting ritual readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic Text of the Bible, to compleme ...
) and
punctuation
Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...
.
The
Numeric Character References
A numeric character reference (NCR) is a common markup construct used in SGML and SGML-derived markup languages such as HTML and XML. It consists of a short sequence of characters that, in turn, represents a single character. Since WebSgml, XML ...
is included for HTML. These can be used in many markup languages, and they are often used in Wiki to create the Hebrew
glyphs
A glyph () is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A g ...
compatible with the majority of web browsers.
Standard Hebrew keyboards have a 101-key layout. Like the standard
QWERTY
QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six Computer keyboard keys#Types, keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created f ...
layout, the Hebrew layout was derived from the order of letters on Hebrew
typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...
s.
See also
*
Hebrew braille
Hebrew Braille ( he, ברייל עברי) is the braille alphabet for Hebrew. The International Hebrew Braille Code is widely used. It was devised in the 1930s and completed in 1944. It is based on international norms, with additional letters dev ...
*
Hebrew diacritics
Hebrew orthography includes three types of diacritics:
* ''Niqqud'' in Hebrew is the way to indicate vowels, which are omitted in modern orthography, using a set of ancillary glyphs. Since the vowels can be understood from surrounding, context ...
*
Cursive Hebrew
Cursive Hebrew ( he, כתב עברי רהוט , "flowing Hebrew writing", or , "Hebrew handwriting", often called simply ', "writing") is a collective designation for several styles of handwriting the Hebrew alphabet. Modern Hebrew, especially i ...
*
Hebrew punctuation
Hebrew punctuation is similar to that of English and other Western languages, Modern Hebrew having imported additional punctuation marks from these languages in order to avoid the ambiguities sometimes occasioned by the relative paucity of such ...
*
Hebrew spelling Hebrew spelling refers to the way words are spelled in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters, all of which are primarily consonants. This is because the Hebrew script is an abjad, that is, its letters indicate consonants, not ...
*
Help:Hebrew
*
Inverted nun
Inverted ( "isolated " or "inverted " or "" in Hebrew language, Hebrew) is a rare glyph used in classical Hebrew. Its function in the ancient texts is disputed. It takes the form of the letter in mirror image, and appears in the Masoreti ...
*
Koren Type
Koren Type refers to two Hebrew fonts, Koren Bible Type and Hebrew Book Type created by Israeli typographer and graphic designer Elyahu Koren. Koren created Koren Bible Type for the specific purpose of printing The Koren Bible, published by Koren ...
*
Ktiv hasar niqqud
''Ktiv hasar niqqud'' (; he, כתיב חסר ניקוד, literally "spelling lacking niqqud"), colloquially known as ''ktiv maleh'' (; , literally "full spelling"), are the rules for writing Hebrew without vowel points (niqqud), often replacin ...
("spelling lacking niqqud")
*
Significance of numbers of Judaism
Significance is a synonym for importance. It can also refer to:
* ''Significance'' (magazine), a magazine published by the Royal Statistical Society and the American Statistical Association
* Significance (policy debate), a stock issue in polic ...
Notes
a"Alef-bet" is commonly written in Israeli Hebrew without the ' (, "
ebrewhyphen"), , as opposed to with the hyphen, .
bThe
Arabic letters generally (as six of the primary letters can have only two variants) have four forms, according to their place in the word. The same goes with the
Mandaic ones, except for three of the 22 letters, which have only one form.
cIn forms of Hebrew older than Modern Hebrew, כ״ף, בי״ת and פ״א can only be read ''b'', ''k'' and ''p'', respectively, at the beginning of a word, while they will have the sole value of ''v'', ''kh'' and ''f'' in a ''sofit'' (final) position, with few exceptions.
In medial positions, both pronunciations are possible. In Modern Hebrew this restriction is not absolute, e.g. פִיזִיקַאי and never (= "physicist"), סְנוֹבּ and never (= "snob"). A ''
dagesh
The dagesh () is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud (vowel points). It takes the form of a dot placed inside a Hebrew letter and has the effect of mod ...
'' may be inserted to unambiguously denote the
plosive
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips ...
variant: בּ = , כּ = , פּ =; similarly (though today very rare in Hebrew and common only in
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
) a
rafé placed above the letter unambiguously denotes the
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
variant: בֿ = , כֿ = and פֿ = . In
Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...
orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
, the sound at the end of a word is denoted by the regular form "פ", as opposed to the final form "ף", which always denotes (see
table of transliterations and transcriptions, comment).
dHowever, וו (two separate vavs), used in
Ktiv male
In orthography, a ''plene scriptum'' (; Latin , "fully" and ''scriptum'', plural ''scripta'', " omethingwritten") is a word containing an additional letter, usually one which is superfluous, not normally written in such words, nor needed for the ...
, is to be distinguished from the ''Yiddish ligature'' װ (also two vavs but together as one character).
e1e2e3e4e5The Academy of the Hebrew Language states that both and be indistinguishably represented in Hebrew using the letter Vav.
[ Sometimes the Vav is indeed doubled, however not to denote as opposed to but rather, when spelling without niqqud, to denote the ]phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
/v/ at a non-initial and non-final position in the word, whereas a single Vav at a non-initial and non-final position in the word in spelling without niqqud denotes one of the phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s /u/ or /o/. To pronounce foreign words and loanword
A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
s containing the sound , Hebrew readers must therefore rely on former knowledge and context.
Explanatory footnotes
References
Bibliography
* ff.
Hoffman, Joel M. 2004. ''In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language.'' New York: New York University Press.
Saenz-Badillos, Angel. 1993. ''A History of the Hebrew Language.'' Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
* Mathers table
The Mathers table of Hebrew and " Chaldee" (Aramaic) letters is a tabular display of the pronunciation, appearance, numerical values, transliteration, names, and symbolism of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet appearing in '' The Kabba ...
External links
General
How to draw letters
Official Unicode standards document for Hebrew
Unicode collation charts
including Hebrew letters, sorted by shape
Keyboards
LiteType.com
– Virtual & Interactive Hebrew Keyboard
Mikledet.com
– For typing Hebrew with an English keyboard (Hebrew keyboard, Hebrew layout)
Prize Find: Oldest Hebrew Inscription
Biblical Archaeology Review
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hebrew Alphabet
1st-millennium BC introductions
Alphabets
Assyrian (Ashuri) script
Language and mysticism
Right-to-left writing systems
Hebrews
Abjad writing systems