The Hebrew alphabet ( he,
אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the
Ktav Ashuri, 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 vow ...
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 preserve ...
and other
Jewish languages, most notably
Yiddish,
Ladino,
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, enco ...
, and
Judeo-Persian. It is also used informally in Israel to write
Levantine Arabic, especially among
Druze.
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 Ferti ...
, which flourished during the
Achaemenid Empire 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 al ...
.
Historically, two separate abjad scripts have been used to write Hebrew. The original, old Hebrew script, known as the
paleo-Hebrew alphabet, has been largely preserved in a variant form as the
Samaritan alphabet. The present "Jewish script" or "square script", on the contrary, is a stylized form of the
Aramaic alphabet 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, "
fonts") of representation of the Jewish script letters described in this article also exist, including a variety of
cursive Hebrew 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 ca ...
. 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 w ...
s, but is now considered an "
impure abjad". 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 (len ...
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 ...
.'' In both biblical and rabbinic Hebrew, the letters
can also function as ''
matres lectionis'', 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".
The
Yiddish alphabet, 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 or the
Phoenician alphabet, both being slight regional variations of the
Proto-Canaanite alphabet used in ancient times to write the various
Canaanite languages (including Hebrew, Moabite, Phoenician, Punic, et cetera).
History
The
Canaanite dialects were largely indistinguishable before around 1000 BCE. An example of related early
Semitic inscriptions from the area include the tenth-century
Gezer calendar 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 or
paleo-Hebrew.
A Hebrew variant of the
Proto-Canaanite alphabet, called the
paleo-Hebrew alphabet 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),
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 Ferti ...
, another offshoot of the same family of scripts, which flourished during the
Achaemenid Empire. The
Samaritans, 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 that was used by the
Persian Empire (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. 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 th ...
– such as
Karaim, the
Judeo-Arabic languages, 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 vow ...
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 w ...
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 w ...
s
Aleph (),
He (),
Waw/Vav (), or
Yodh () 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 ...
, was developed. In modern forms of the alphabet, as in the case of
Yiddish 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 (len ...
s may be indicated. Today, the trend is toward
full spelling 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, 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 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 meani ...
or when teaching the language to children. The Tiberian system also includes a set of
cantillation marks, 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 alpha ...
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 or in the
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a 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. E.Watson; Walter ...
and
Mandaic alphabets. 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 standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
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), and dotless dalet ד as /ð/ (
voiced dental fricative), 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 alve ...
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-wes ...
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 *, which in biblical-Judaic-Hebrew corresponded to the
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative , as evidenced in the Greek transliteration of Hebrew words such as ''
balsam'' () (the ''ls'' – 'שׂ') as is evident in the ''
Targum Onkelos''.
Dagesh
Historically, the consonants ''bet'', ''gimmel'', ''daleth'', ''kaf'', ''pe'' and ''tav'' each had two sounds: one hard (
plosive), 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 ...
), 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: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...
and
Mizrahi dialects, ''bet'' without dagesh is pronounced , like ''bet'' with dagesh
*In
Syrian and
Yemenite Hebrew, ''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, as well as
Krymchaki Hebrew, ''tav'' without dagesh is pronounced as in "silk"
*In Iraqi and
Yemenite Hebrew, 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''.
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 ...
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 numerals 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 ...
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 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
plosives 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 ...
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, 4:1)
* ''chet'' and ''ayin'' represented
pharyngeal fricatives, ''tsadi'' represented the
emphatic consonant , ''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 w ...
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
cognates 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 ...
s, this phoneme is known to have originally been a
lateral consonant, most likely the
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative (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 peopl ...
''ll'') or the
voiceless alveolar lateral affricate (like
Náhuatl ''tl'').
Regional and historical variation
The following table contains the
pronunciation 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 linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...
s using the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
. The apostrophe-looking symbol after some letters is not a
yud but a
geresh. It is used for loanwords with non-native Hebrew sounds. The dot in the middle of some of the letters, called a "
dagesh 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 ...
, which today is realized only rarely – e.g. in biblical recitations or when using
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a 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. E.Watson; Walter ...
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 ...
s).
:
#
velarized 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 indic ...
# pharyngealized
# sometimes said to be
ejective but more likely
glottalized.
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 ...
'' 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'', '' mappiq'', and '' shuruk'' 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'') underneath the letter and to the left of the vowel point, the vowel is made long. The ''meteg'' is only used in
Biblical Hebrew, 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'') 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 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 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 ...
, 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 ...
, 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 mysticism) in a practice known as
gematria, and often in religious contexts.
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 ("׳") 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 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 A ...
phonemic 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 A ...
phonetic 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", ), the letter א always represents the same consonant: (
glottal stop), 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 ''diacrit ...
geresh – "׳" – 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) 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 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 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 ce ...
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.
[Zohar 1:3; 2:152]
Another book, the 13th-century
Kabbalistic 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 duri ...
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 portions of non-mystical rabbinic literature. In such aggada the letters are often given
anthropomorphic 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 cent ...
(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.
Mathematical use
See
aleph number and
beth number and
gimel function.
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 concern ...
,
, 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. ...
of an infinite
countable set, 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 sets of
. The 2nd element
is the
cardinality of the continuum. Very occasionally, gimel is used in cardinal notation.
Unicode and HTML
The
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...
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 alpha ...
,
ligatures,
combining diacritical marks (''
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 ...
'' and
cantillation marks) 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. A ...
.
The
Numeric Character References is included for HTML. These can be used in many markup languages, and they are often used in Wiki to create the Hebrew
glyphs 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 keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden ty ...
layout, the Hebrew layout was derived from the order of letters on Hebrew
typewriters.
See also
*
Hebrew braille
*
Hebrew diacritics
*
Cursive Hebrew
*
Hebrew punctuation
*
Hebrew spelling
*
Help:Hebrew
*
Inverted nun
*
Koren Type
*
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 replacing ...
("spelling lacking niqqud")
*
Significance of numbers of Judaism
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'' may be inserted to unambiguously denote the
plosive variant: בּ = , כּ = , פּ =; similarly (though today very rare in Hebrew and common only in
Yiddish) 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 ...
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, 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, 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-wes ...
/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-wes ...
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 ...
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
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