Dalet (, also spelled Daleth or Daled) is the fourth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Dālet 𐤃, Hebrew Dālet , Aramaic Dālath Daleth

, Syriac Dālaṯ , and Arabic (in abjadi order; 8th in modern order). Its sound value is the voiced alveolar plosive (). The letter is based on a glyph of the Proto-Sinaitic script, probably called ''dalt'' "door" (''door'' in Modern Hebrew is delet), ultimately based on a hieroglyph depicting a door: O31

Phoenician

The Phoenician dālet gave rise to the Greek

delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta") * Delta Air Lines, US * Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 Delta may also re ...

(Δ), Latin D, and the

Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...

letter Д.

Aramaic

Hebrew

Hebrew spelling: The letter is ''dalet'' in the modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation (see

Tav (letter) 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 ri ...

. ''Dales'' is still used by many

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 ...

Jews and ''daleth'' by some Jews of

Middle-Eastern The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (European ...

background, especially in the Jewish diaspora. In some academic circles, it is called ''daleth'', following the Tiberian Hebrew pronunciation. It is also called ''daled''. The ד like the English D represents a voiced alveolar stop. Just as in English, there may be subtle varieties of the sound that are created when it is spoken.

Variations

Dalet can receive a dagesh, being one of the six letters that can receive Dagesh Kal (see Gimel). There are minor variations to this letter's pronunciation, such as * ד ( among Teimanim,

Mizrachim Mizrahi Jews ( he, יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () or ''Mizrachi'' () and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained i ...

and some Sephardim; among some Ashkenazim.) or * דּ . In addition, in modern Hebrew, the combination ד׳ (dalet followed by a geresh) is used when transcribing foreign names to denote .

Significance

In gematria, dalet symbolizes the number four. The letter dalet, along with the He (and very rarely Gimel) is used to represent the Names of God in Judaism. The letter He is used commonly, and the dalet is rarer. A good example is the keter (crown) of a tallit, which has the blessing for donning the ''tallit'', and has the name of God usually represented by a dalet. A reason for this is that He is used as an abbreviation for HaShem "The Name" and the dalet is used as a non-sacred way of referring to God. Dalet as a

prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the Word stem, stem of a word. Adding it to the beginning of one word changes it into another word. For example, when the prefix ''un-'' is added to the word ''happy'', it creates the word ''unhappy'' ...

in Aramaic (the language of the Talmud) is a preposition meaning "that", or "which", or also "from" or "of"; since many Talmudic terms have found their way into Hebrew, one can hear dalet as a prefix in many phrases (as in ''

Mitzvah In its primary meaning, the Hebrew word (; he, מִצְוָה, ''mīṣvā'' , plural ''mīṣvōt'' ; "commandment") refers to a commandment commanded by God to be performed as a religious duty. Jewish law () in large part consists of discus ...

Doraitah''; a mitzvah from the Torah.) In modern Hebrew the frequency of the usage of dalet, out of all the letters, is 2.59%.

Syriac daled/dolath

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 ...

, the fourth letter is — in western pronunciation, and in eastern pronunciation (). It is one of six letters that represents two associated sounds (the others are bet, gimel,

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 ...

, pe and

taw 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 ri ...

). When daled/dolath has a hard pronunciation (''qûššāyâ'') it is a . When it has a soft pronunciation (''rûkkāḵâ'') it is traditionally pronounced as a . The letter is very common in Syriac as it is often attached to the beginning of words as the relative pronoun. Daled/dolath is always written with a point below it to distinguish it from the letter resh (), which is identical apart from having a point above. As a numeral, dalad/dolath stands for the number four. With various systems of dots and dashes, it can also stand for 4,000 and 40,000.

Arabic dāl

The letter is named ''dāl'' دَالْ, and is written in several ways depending on its position in the word: The letter represents a sound.

Character encodings

References

External links

{{Northwest Semitic abjad Hebrew letters Phoenician alphabet Arabic letters