Hebrew alphabet

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  History of the Alphabet
  Wadi el-Hol 19th c. BC Proto-Canaanite 14th c. BC Ugaritic 13th c. BC *Phoenician 11th c. BC **Hebrew 9th c. BC **Aramaic 9th c. BC ***Brahmi 3rd c. BC ****Devanagari 12th c. ****Thai 13th c. ***Syriac 2nd c. BC ***Arabic 4th c. **Greek 9th c. BC ***Coptic 4th c. ***Gothic 4th c. ***Glagolitic 862 ***Cyrillic 10th c. **Old Italic 8th c. BC ***Latin 7th c. BC ***Runes 2nd c. *South Arabian 9th c. BC
  Georgian 5th c. BC
  Armenian 405
  Orkhon 6th c.
  Ogham 6th c.
  Hangul 1446

This article is mainly about Hebrew letters. For Hebrew diacritical marks, see niqqud (for the vowel points) and cantillation.

The Hebrew alphabet is a set of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. It is has also been used in mildly adapted forms for writing several languages of the Jewish diaspora, most famously Yiddish, Ladino, and Judaeo-Arabic (for a full and detailed list, see Jewish languages). Hebrew is written from right to left.

The Hebrew word for "alphabet" is אלף-בית (alef-bet), named after the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The Hebrew alphabet was in origin an abjad, in other words it had letters for consonants only, but means were later devised to indicate vowels, first by using consonant letters as matres lectionis, later by separate vowel points or niqqud.

The number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, their order, their names, and their phonetic values are virtually identical to those of the Aramaic alphabet, as both Hebrews and Arameans borrowed the Phoenician alphabet for their uses during the end of the 2nd millennium BC.

The modern script used for writing Hebrew (usually called the Jewish script by scholars, and also traditionally known as the square script, or the Assyrian script), evolved during the 3rd century BC from the Aramaic script, which was used by Jews for writing Hebrew since the 6th century BC. Prior to that, Hebrew was written using the old Hebrew script, which evolved during the 9th century BC from the Phoenician script; the Samaritans still write Hebrew in a variant of this script for religious works (see Samaritan alphabet).

Table of contents

1 Short table 2 Description 3 Main table 3.1 Notes 3.2 Vowel formation 3.3 Ancient Hebrew 4 History 5 Hebrew in Unicode 6 See also 7 External links

Short table

The Hebrew alphabet consists of the following letters. Some letters have a different form used at the ends of words: these are shown in the table below the normal form. >

Alef	Bet	Gimel	Dalet	He	Vav	Zayin	Het	Tet	Yod	Kaf
א א	ב ב	ג ג	ד ד	ה ה	ו ו	ז ז	ח ח	ט ט	י י	כ כ
										ך ך
Lamed	Mem	Nun	Samekh	Ayin	Pe	Tsadi	Qof	Resh	Shin	Tav
ל ל	מ מ	נ נ	ס ס	ע ע	פ פ	צ צ	ק ק	ר ר	ש ש	ת ת
	ם ם	ן ן			ף ף	ץ ץ

Description

Both the old Hebrew script and the modern Jewish script have only one case, but in the modern script some letters have special final forms used only at the end of a word. This is similar to the Arabic alphabet, although much simpler. The Hebrew alphabet is an abjad: vowels are normally not indicated. Where they are it is because a weak consonant such as א alef, ה he, ו vav, or י yod has combined with a previous vowel and become silent or by imitation of such cases in spelling of other forms.

To preserve the proper vowel sounds, scholars developed several different sets of diacritic symbols called niqqud (ניקוד; literally: "applying points"). One of these, the Tiberian system, eventually prevailed. Aaron ben Moses ben Asher, and his family for several generations, are credited for creating and maintaining the system. These points are normally used only for special purposes, such as Biblical books intended for study, in poetry, or when teaching the language to children. The Tiberian system also includes a set of cantillation marks used to indicate how scriptural passages should be chanted, and decorative "crowns" used only for Torah scrolls.

Hebrew letters may also be used as numbers; see the entry on Hebrew numerals. This use of letters as numbers is used in Qabbalah (Jewish mysticism) in a practice known as gematria.

Main table

The following table is a breakdown of each letter in the Hebrew alphabet, describing its written glyph or glyphs, its name or names, its Latin script transliteration values used in academic work, and its pronunciation in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet. If two glyphs are shown for a letter, then the left-most glyph is the Final form of the letter (or right-most glyph if your browser doesn't support right-to-left text layout).

Symbol	Name						Transliteration				Numer- ical Value	Pronunciation (IPA)
	Academic			Uni- code Stan- dard	Israeli	Ash- kenazi	Academic			Israeli		Modern Israeli	Ash- kenazi	Seph- ardi	Yeme- nite	Tiber- ian	Reconstructed
	Uni- code	Font-friendly	ISO-8859-1-friendly				Uni- code	Font-friendly	ISO-8859-1-friendly								Mish- naic	Bib- lical
א		’āleph	'àleph	alef	alef	alef, olef		’	'	' (1)	1	;, -	silent
ב		bêth, bhêth	bêth, bhêth	bet	bet, vet	beis, veis		b, bh	b, bh	b, v	2
ג		gímel, ghímel	gímel, ghímel	gimel	gimel	gimmel		g, gh	g, gh	g	3
ד		dāleth, dhāleth	dàleth, dhàleth	dalet	dalet	doles		d, dh	d, dh	d	4
ה	?	hê	hê	he	he, hei, e, ei	hei		?	?	h (2)	5
ו		wāw	wàw	vav	vav	vov, vof	?	w	w	v	6
ז	?	záyin	záyin	zayin	zayin	zayin	?	z	z	?	7
ח		ħêth, (3) xêth	h`êth, (3) xêth	het	chet	ches		ħ, (3) x	h`, (3) x	h, ch (4)	8
ט		ţêth	t`êth	tet	tet	tes		ţ	t`	t	9				(5)		(6)	(7)
י		yôdh	yôdh	yod	yod, yud	yud	?	y	y	y, i (8)	10
ך כ		kāph, khāph	kàph, khàph	kaf	kaf, chaf	kof, chof		k, kh	k, kh	k, ch	20
ל		lāmedh	làmedh	lamed	lamed	lomed	?	l	l	l	30
ם מ	mēm	mēm	mèm	mem	mem	mem	?	m	m	m	40
ן נ	?	nûn	nûn	nun	nun	nun	?	n	n	n	50
ס		sāmekh	sàmekh	samekh	samech	somech	?	s	s	s	60
ע	(3)	‘áyin, (3) ġáyin	`áyin, (3) 3áyin	ayin	ayin	ayin, oyin	, (3)	‘, (3) ġ	`, (3) 3	' (9)	70	[ , - ]	silent	[ - ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]
ף פ		pê, phê	pê, phê	pe	pe, pei, fe/fei	pei, fei		p, ph	p, ph	p, f	80
ץ צ		şādhê	s`àdhê	tsadi	tzadi, tzadik	tsodi, tsodik		ş	s`	tz, ts, z	90				(5)		(6)	(7)
ק	?	qôph	qôph	qof	kof, kuf	kuf	?	q	q	k	100							(7)
ר		rêš	rêsh	resh	resh, reish	reish	?	r	r	r	200
ש		šîn, śîn	shîn, lhîn	shin	shin, sin	shin, sin		š, ś	sh, lh	sh, s	300
ת		tāw, thāw	tàw, thàw	tav	tav	tov, tof, sov, sof		t, th	t, th	t	400

Notes

1. unwritten in initial and final positions, though often not written at all
2. unwritten in final positions
3. archaic
4. h initial or after consonants, ch everywhere else
5. velarized or pharyngealized
6. pharyngealized
7. ejective
8. i in final positions or before consonants
9. often not written at all

---

• Historically, the consonants ב bet, ג gimel, ד dalet, כ kaf, פ pe, and ת tav each had two sounds: one hard (plosive consonant), and one soft (fricative consonant), 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 (דגש), while the soft sounds lack a dagesh. In masoretic manuscripts, the soft fricative consonants are indicated by a small line on top of the letter; this diacritical mark is called raphe (רפה), but its use has been largely discontinued in printed texts.
• א alef, ה he, ו vav and י yod are consonants that can sometimes fill the position of a vowel. vav and yod in particular are more often vowels than they are consonants.
• ש shin and sin are two separate phonemes written with the same letter. They are not mutually allophonic. 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 sin-dot is above the upper-left side of the letter.
• In Israel's general population, many consonants have merged to the same pronunciation. They are:
  • א alef with ayin and (varyingly) ה he
  • ב bet (without dagesh) with ו vav
  • ח het with כ kaf (without dagesh)
  • ט tet with ת tav (both with and without dagesh)
  • כ kaf (with dagesh) with ק qof
  • ס samekh with שׂ sin (but not with שׁ shin)
  • צ tsadi with the consonant cluster תס tav-samekh

Vowel formation

Some of the letters, as well as their consonantal function, also acted as matres lectionis to represent vowels, as follows:

Symbol	Name	Vowel formation
א	alef	ê, ệ, ậ, â, ô
ה	he	ê, ệ, ậ, â, ô
ו	vav	ô, û
י	yod	î, ê, ệ

Ancient Hebrew

Some of the variations in sound mentioned above are due to a systematic feature of Ancient Hebrew. The six consonants /p t k b d g/ were pronounced differently depending on their position. These letters were also called BeGeDKePHaT (pronounced ) letters. (The full details are very complex; this summary omits some points.) They were pronounced as stops [p t k b d g] at the beginning of a syllable, or when doubled. They were pronounced as fricatives — IPA when preceded by a vowel. The stop and double pronunciations were indicated by the dagesh. In Modern Hebrew the sounds and have reverted to [d] and [g], and has become [t], so only the remaining three letters show variation.

ו vav was a semivowel /w/ (as in English, not as in German).

ח het and ע ayin were pharyngeal fricatives, צ tsadi was an emphatic /s/, ט tet was an emphatic /t/, and ק qof was /q/. All these are common Semitic consonants.

שׂ sin (the /s/ variant of ש shin) was originally different from both שׁ shin and ס samekh, but had become /s/ the same as ס samekh by the time the vowel pointing was devised. Because of cognates with other Semitic languages, this phoneme is known to have originally been a lateral consonant, most likely IPA the fricative (as in Welsh /ll/) or the affricate (as in Náhuatl /tl/).

History

Archeological evidence indicates that the original Hebrew script is related to the Phoenician script that was in wide use in the Middle East region at the end of the 2nd millennium BCE. Eventually this alphabet evolved in Europe into the Greek and Roman alphabets. This script was borrowed by the Hebrews during the 12th or 11th century BCE, and around the 9th century BCE, a distinct Hebrew variant, the original "Hebrew script", emerged. This script was widely used in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah until they fell in the 8th and 6th centuries BCE, respectively.

Following the Babylonian exile, Jews gradually stopped using the Hebrew script, and instead adopted the Babylonian Aramaic script (which was also originally derived from the Phoenician script). This script, used for writing Hebrew, later evolved into the Jewish, or "square" script, that is still used today. "Square"-related scripts were in use all over the Middle East for several hundred years, but following the rise of Christianity (and later, the rise of Islam), they gave way to the Roman and Arabic alphabets, respectively. According to traditional Jewish thought, the Hebrew writing system contained all the current letters at the time of Moses, although Ezra is known for his contribution to the square form.

Following the decline of Hebrew and Aramaic as the spoken languages of the Jews, the Hebrew alphabet was adopted in order to write down the languages of the Jewish diaspora (Karaim, Judæo-Arabic, Ladino, Yiddish, etc.). The Hebrew alphabet was retained as the alphabet used for writing down the Hebrew language during its rebirth in the end of the 19th century, despite several unsuccessful attempts to replace it with the Latin alphabet.

Hebrew in Unicode

The Unicode Hebrew block extends from U+0590 to U+05FF. It includes letters, ligaturess, combining diacritical marks (niqqud and cantillation marks) and punctuation.

A free online course to learn the Hebrew consonants

The original Hebrew translit, new and improved

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