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Taw, tav, or taf is the twenty-second and last
letter 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 ...
of the
Semitic abjads 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 ...
, including Phoenician Tāw ,
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 ...
Tav ,
Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
Taw ,
Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
Taw ܬ, and
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 ...
ت
Tāʼ Taw, tav, or taf is the twenty-second and last letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Tāw , Hebrew Tav , Aramaic Taw , Syriac Taw ܬ, and Arabic ت Tāʼ (22nd in abjadi order, 3rd in modern order). In Arabic, it is also gives r ...
(22nd in
abjadi order The Abjad numerals, also called Hisab al-Jummal ( ar, حِسَاب ٱلْجُمَّل, ), are a decimal alphabetic numeral system/alphanumeric code, in which the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet are assigned numerical values. They have been us ...
, 3rd in modern order). In Arabic, it is also gives rise to the derived letter Ṯāʼ. Its original sound value is . The Phoenician letter gave rise to 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 ...
''
tau Tau (uppercase Τ, lowercase τ, or \boldsymbol\tau; el, ταυ ) is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiceless dental or alveolar plosive . In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 300. The name in English ...
'' (Τ),
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
T, and
Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...
Т.


Origins of taw

Taw is believed to be derived from the
Egyptian hieroglyph Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,00 ...
representing a
tally mark Tally marks, also called hash marks, are a unary numeral system ( arguably). They are a form of numeral used for counting. They are most useful in counting or tallying ongoing results, such as the score in a game or sport, as no intermediate r ...
(viz. a decussate cross) Z9


Arabic tāʼ

The letter is named '. It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word: Final ('' fatha'', then with a
sukun The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include: consonant pointing known as (), and supplementary diacritics known as (). The latter include the vowel marks termed (; singular: , '). The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where sh ...
on it,
pronounced 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 ...
, though diacritics are normally omitted) is used to mark feminine gender for third-person
perfective The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imp ...
/
past tense The past tense is a grammatical tense whose function is to place an action or situation in the past. Examples of verbs in the past tense include the English verbs ''sang'', ''went'' and ''washed''. Most languages have a past tense, with some hav ...
verbs, while final (, ) is used to mark past-tense second-person singular masculine verbs, final (, ) to mark past-tense second-person singular feminine verbs, and final (, ) to mark past-tense first-person singular verbs. The plural form of Arabic letter is ' (), a
palindrome A palindrome is a word, number, phrase, or other sequence of symbols that reads the same backwards as forwards, such as the words ''madam'' or ''racecar'', the date and time ''11/11/11 11:11,'' and the sentence: "A man, a plan, a canal – Panam ...
. Recently, the isolated has been used online as an
emoticon An emoticon (, , rarely , ), short for "emotion icon", also known simply as an emote, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using Character (symbol), characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers, and letters—to express a ...
, because it resembles a smiling face.


Tāʼ marbūṭa

An alternative form called (ـَة, ة) (), "bound '") is used at the end of words to mark
feminine gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
for
noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
s and
adjective In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Tra ...
s. Regular ', to distinguish it from , is referred to as ' (, "open "). In words such as ('letter, message', 'epistle'), the () + combination () is
transliterated Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or ...
as ' or ' (' or '), and pronounced as (as if there were only a ). Historically, was pronounced as the sound in all positions, but now the sound is dropped in coda positions. However, when a word ending with a ' is suffixed with a grammatical case ending or any other suffix, the is clearly pronounced. For example, the word ('letter, message', 'epistle') is pronounced as in
pausa In linguistics, pausa (Latin for 'break', from Greek παῦσις, ''pausis'' 'stopping, ceasing') is the hiatus between prosodic declination units. The concept is somewhat broad, as it is primarily used to refer to allophones that occur in cer ...
but is pronounced in the nominative case ( being the nominative case ending), in the genitive case ( being the genitive case ending), and in the accusative case ( being the accusative case ending). When the possessive suffix ('my') is added, it becomes ('my letter') . The /t/ is also always pronounced when the word is in
construct state In Afro-Asiatic languages, the first noun in a genitive phrase of a possessed noun followed by a possessor noun often takes on a special morphological form, which is termed the construct state (Latin ''status constructus''). For example, in Arabi ...
(), for example in ('The Epistle of Forgiveness'). Note that the isolated and final forms of this letter combine the shape of () and the two dots of (). When words containing the symbol are borrowed into other languages written in the Arabic alphabet (such as
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
), ' usually becomes either a regular or a regular .


Hebrew Tav

Hebrew spelling:


Hebrew pronunciation

The letter ''tav'' 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 ...
usually represents a
voiceless alveolar plosive The voiceless alveolar, dental and postalveolar plosives (or stops) are types of consonantal sounds used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postal ...
: .


Variations on written form and pronunciation

The letter ''tav'' is one of the six letters that can receive a
dagesh kal The dagesh () is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew language, 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 alphabet, Hebrew ...
diacritic; the others are
bet Black Entertainment Television (acronym BET) is an American basic cable channel targeting African-American audiences. It is owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global via BET Networks and has offices in New York City, Los A ...
,
gimel Gimel is the third letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Gīml , Hebrew Gimel , Aramaic Gāmal , Syriac Gāmal , and Arabic (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order). Its sound value in the original Phoenician and in all d ...
,
dalet Dalet (, also spelled Daleth or Daled) is the fourth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Dālet 𐤃, Hebrew Dālet , Aramaic Dālath , Syriac Dālaṯ , and Arabic (in abjadi order; 8th in modern order). Its sound value is t ...
,
kaph Kaph (also spelled kaf) is the eleventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician kāp , Hebrew kāf , Aramaic kāp , Syriac kāp̄ , and Arabic kāf (in abjadi order). The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek kappa (Κ), Lati ...
and pe. Bet, kaph and pe have their sound values changed in modern Hebrew from the fricative to the plosive, by adding a dagesh. In modern Hebrew, the other three do not change their pronunciation with or without a dagesh, but they have had alternate pronunciations at other times and places. In traditional
Ashkenazi 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, tav represents an without 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 ...
and has the plosive form when it has the dagesh. Among
Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
and 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 ), ...
areas, tav without a dagesh represented a
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 ...
—a pronunciation hailed by the Sfath Emeth work as wholly authentic, while the tav with the dagesh is the plosive . In traditional
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...
pronunciation, tav without a dagesh is sometimes . Tav with 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 ...
() is sometimes used in order to represent the TH digraph in loanwords.


Significance of tav

In
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 ...
, tav represents the number 400, the largest single number that can be represented without using the ' (final) forms (see
kaph Kaph (also spelled kaf) is the eleventh letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician kāp , Hebrew kāf , Aramaic kāp , Syriac kāp̄ , and Arabic kāf (in abjadi order). The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek kappa (Κ), Lati ...
,
mem Mem (also spelled Meem, Meme, or Mim) is the thirteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Hebrew mēm , Aramaic Mem , Syriac mīm ܡ, Arabic mīm and Phoenician mēm . Its sound value is . The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek mu ...
,
nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...
, pe, and
tzade Tsade (also spelled , , , , tzadi, sadhe, tzaddik) is the eighteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ṣādē , Hebrew ṣādi , Aramaic ṣāḏē , Syriac ṣāḏē ܨ, Ge'ez ṣädäy ጸ, and Arabic . Its oldest phoneti ...
). In representing names from foreign languages, 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 ...
'' or ''chupchik'' can also be placed after the tav (), making it represent . (See also:
Hebraization of English The Hebraization of English (or Hebraicization) is the use of the Hebrew alphabet to write English. Because Hebrew uses an abjad, it can render English words in multiple ways. There are many uses for hebraization, which serve as a useful tool for ...
)


In Judaism

Tav is the last letter of the Hebrew word ''emet'', which means '
truth Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs ...
'. The
midrash ''Midrash'' (;"midrash"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.
he, מִדְרָשׁ; ...
explains that ''emet'' is made up of the first, middle, and last letters of the
Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet ( he, wikt:אלפבית, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew languag ...
(
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 ...
,
mem Mem (also spelled Meem, Meme, or Mim) is the thirteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Hebrew mēm , Aramaic Mem , Syriac mīm ܡ, Arabic mīm and Phoenician mēm . Its sound value is . The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek mu ...
, and tav: ). ''Sheqer'' (שקר, falsehood), on the other hand, is made up of the 19th, 20th, and 21st (and penultimate) letters. Thus, truth is all-encompassing, while falsehood is narrow and deceiving. In
Jewish mythology Jewish mythology is the body of myths associated with Judaism. Elements of Jewish mythology have had a profound influence on Christian mythology and on Islamic mythology, as well as on world culture in general. Christian mythology directly inhe ...
it was the word ''emet'' that was carved into the head of the
golem A golem ( ; he, , gōlem) is an animated, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is entirely created from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century ...
which ultimately gave it life. But when the letter ''aleph'' was erased from the golem's forehead, what was left was "''met''"—dead. And so the golem died.
Ezekiel Ezekiel (; he, יְחֶזְקֵאל ''Yəḥezqēʾl'' ; in the Septuagint written in grc-koi, Ἰεζεκιήλ ) is the central protagonist of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Ezekiel is acknow ...
9:4 depicts a vision in which the ''tav'' plays a
Passover Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holidays, Jewish holiday that celebrates the The Exodus, Biblical story of the Israelites escape from slavery in Ancient Egypt, Egypt, which occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew calendar, He ...
role similar to the blood on the lintel and doorposts of a Hebrew home in Egypt. In Ezekiel's vision, the Lord has his angels separate the demographic wheat from the chaff by going through Jerusalem, the capital city of ancient Israel, and inscribing a mark, a tav, "upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof." In Ezekiel's vision, then, the Lord is counting tav-marked Israelites as worthwhile to spare, but counts the people worthy of annihilation who lack the tav and the critical attitude it signifies. In other words, looking askance at a culture marked by dire moral decline is a kind of
shibboleth A shibboleth (; hbo, , šībbōleṯ) is any custom or tradition, usually a choice of phrasing or even a single word, that distinguishes one group of people from another. Shibboleths have been used throughout history in many societies as passwor ...
for loyalty and zeal for God.Cf. the New Testament's condemnation of lukewarmness in ''Revelation'' 3:15-16


Sayings with taf

"From aleph to taf" describes something from beginning to end, the Hebrew equivalent of the English "From A to Z."


Syriac taw

In the
Syriac alphabet The Syriac alphabet ( ) is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language since the 1st century AD. It is one of the Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet, and shares similarities with ...
, as in the Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets, ''taw'' () or ''tăw'' ( ''or'' ) is the final letter in the alphabet, most commonly representing the
voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...
dental
stop Stop may refer to: Places * Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States * Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina Facilities * Bus stop * Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck d ...
and
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 ...
consonant pair, differentiated phonemically by hard and soft markings. When left as unmarked or marked with a ''qūššāyā'' dot above the letter indicating 'hard' pronunciation, it is realized as a
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 ...
. When 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 ...
is marked with a ''rūkkāḵā'' dot below the letter indicating 'soft' pronunciation, the
phone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into ele ...
is spirantized to a
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 ...
. Hard taw (''taw qšīṯā'') is
Romanized Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
as a plain ''t'', while the soft form of the letter (''taw rakkīḵtā'') is transliterated as ' or '.


Character encodings


See also

*
Tav (number) In his work on set theory, Georg Cantor denoted the collection of all cardinal numbers by the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, (transliterated as Tav, Taw, or Sav.) As Cantor realized, this collection could not itself have a cardinality, as th ...


Footnotes


External links

{{Northwest Semitic abjad Phoenician alphabet Arabic letters Hebrew letters Cross symbols