Hebrew alphabet

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Hebrew alphabet
Type	Abjad
Spoken languages	Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic (see Jewish languages)
Time period	3rd century BCE to present
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic Proto-Canaanite alphabet Phoenician alphabet Aramaic alphabet Hebrew alphabet
Sister systems	Nabataean Syriac Palmyrenean Mandaic Brāhmī Pahlavi Sogdian
Unicode range	U+0590 to U+05FF, U+FB1D to U+FB40
ISO 15924	Hebr
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The Hebrew alphabet (Hebrew: אָלֶף-בֵּית עִבְרִי‎,^[1] Alephbet 'Ivri), known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, and because of its place of origin, the Assyrian script^[2] (not to be confused with the Syriac alphabet) is the better-known of two script standards used to write the Hebrew language — the other being the Samaritan script. In adapted forms, is also used for writing other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. The Hebrew alphabet is written from right to left. It has 22 letters, 5 of which have different final form.

The Hebrew word for "alphabet" is alephbet (אלפבית), and it is derived from the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet; Aleph and Bet. However, Hebrew is not a true alphabet, but in fact an abjad, having letters only for consonants. Like other abjads such as the Arabic alphabet, means were later devised to indicate vowels by separate vowel points, known in Hebrew as niqqud. In rabbinic Hebrew, the consonant letters אהוי are used as matres lectionis to represent vowels.

According to contemporary scholars, the Hebrew alphabet is a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet, from which it descends and evolved from during the 3rd century BCE.^[2] Prior to this, Hebrew was written in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet by the ancient Israelites, both Jews and Samaritans.

History

Aleppo Codex: 10th century CE Hebrew Bible with Masoretic pointing. Text of Joshua 1:1

According to contemporary scholars, the original Hebrew script developed alongside others in the region during the course of the late second and first millennia BCE; it is closely related to the Phoenician script, which itself probably gave rise to the use of alphabetic writing in Greece (Greek). It is sometimes claimed that a distinct Hebrew variant, the original "Hebrew script", emerged around the 10th century BCE,^[3] and was widely used in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah until they fell in the 8th and 6th centuries BCE, respectively. But it is not straightforward to distinguish Israelite–Judahite scripts from others which were in use in the immediate area, most notably by the Moabites and Ammonites.

Following the Babylonian exile, Jews gradually stopped using the original Hebrew script, and instead adopted the Aramaic script, which was another offshoot of the same family of scripts. The Samaritan script, used for writing Hebrew by the Samaritans, is descended directly from the original Hebrew script. The Aramaic script, as used for writing Hebrew by Jews, later evolved into the Jewish, or "square" script, that is still used and known today as the "Hebrew alphabet". Closely 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.

The Hebrew alphabet was later adapted in order to write the languages of the Jewish diaspora (Karaim, Judæo-Arabic, Ladino, Yiddish, etc.). The Hebrew alphabet was retained as the alphabet used for writing the Hebrew language during its rebirth in the 18th to 19th century.

In Jewish Religion

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 provenence of the currently-used Hebrew alphabet and deal with them as a mundane subject (the Jerusalem Talmud, for example, records that "the Israelites took for themselves square calligraphy", and that the letters "came with the Israelites from Ashur [Assyria]"^[4]); 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 illustrate the idea that they cannot be destroyed.^[5]

The idea of the letters' creative power finds its greatest vehicle in the Sefer Yezirah, 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, 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.^[6][7]

The four-pronged Shin.

Another book, the thirteenth-century Kabbalistic text Sefer HaTemunah, holds that a single letter of unknown pronunciation, held by some to be the four-pronged shin on one side of the teffilin 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.^[8] 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".^[8]

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 (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 of Yisrael Meir Kagan.

Description

Pseudo-Hebrew script on the bustier of Jan van Scorel's Maria Magdalena, 1530.

In its traditional usage in Hebrew (as opposed to Yiddish and to some extent modern Israeli Hebrew), the Hebrew alphabet is an abjad: vowels are normally not indicated. Where they are, it is because a weak consonant such as א aleph, ה hey, ו vav, or י yod has combined with a previous vowel and become silent, or by imitation of such cases in the spelling of other forms. When used to write Yiddish, all vowels are indicated, using certain letters, either with or without niqqud-diacritics (e.g., respectively: "אָ", "יִ" or "י", "ע", see Yiddish orthography), 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 vocalisation and diacritical 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 refining 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, used in synagogue recitations of scripture (although these marks do not appear in the scrolls), called "trope". In everyday writing of modern Hebrew, niqqud are absent; however, patterns of how words are derived from Hebrew roots (called shorashim, or triliteral roots) 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.

Both the old Hebrew script and the modern Hebrew script have only one case, but some letters have special final forms, called sofit (Heb. סופית, meaning in this case "final" or "ending") form, used only at the end of a word, somewhat as in the Arabic and Mandaic alphabets.^[9] As can be seen in the tables given here, only five letters have a sofit form: ך → כ (kaph and khaph), ם → מ (mem), ן → נ (nun), ף → פ (pe and phe), ץ → צ (tsadi or tsade).^[10] These are shown below the normal form, in the following table (letter names are Unicode standard; see variants of names and their pronunciation below).

Note: The chart reads from right to left.

Pronunciation of letter names

See Hebrew phonology and Yiddish phonology for phonetic guides to the phonemic transcriptions.

Orthographic variants

The following table displays orthographic 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 three lettering variants currently in use are block, cursive and Rashi. Block and Rashi are used in books. Block lettering dominates, with Rashi lettering typically used for certain editorial inserts (as in the glosses of Isserles to the Shulchan Aruch) or biblical commentaries (as in the commentary of Rashi) in various standard literary works. Cursive is used almost exclusively when handwriting, unless block lettering is desired for stylistic purposes (as in signage).

For additional ancestral scripts, see Ancestral scripts and script variants.

Letter name (Unicode)	Variants
	Modern Hebrew				Ancestral
	Serif	Sans- serif	Mono- spaced	Cursive	Rashi	Phoenician	Paleo-Hebrew	Aramaic
Alef	א	א	א
Bet	ב	ב	ב
Gimel	ג	ג	ג
Dalet	ד	ד	ד
He	ה	ה	ה
Vav	ו	ו	ו
Zayin	ז	ז	ז
Het	ח	ח	ח
Tet	ט	ט	ט
Yod	י	י	י
Kaf	כ	כ	כ
Final Kaf	ך	ך	ך
Lamed	ל	ל	ל
Mem	מ	מ	מ
Final Mem	ם	ם	ם
Nun	נ	נ	נ
Final Nun	ן	ן	ן
Samekh	ס	ס	ס
Ayin	ע	ע	ע
Pe	פ	פ	פ
Final Pe	ף	ף	ף
Tsadi	צ	צ	צ					,
Final Tsadi	ץ	ץ	ץ
Qof	ק	ק	ק
Resh	ר	ר	ר
Shin	ש	ש	ש
Tav	ת	ת	ת

Yiddish symbols

Numeric values of letters

Hebrew letters are also used to denote numbers, nowadays used only in specific contexts, e.g. denoting dates in the Hebrew calendar, denoting grades of school in Israel, other listings (e.g. שלב א׳, שלב ב׳ – "phase a, phase b"), commonly in Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) in a practice known as gematria, and often in religious contexts.

The numbers 500, 600, 700, 800 and 900 are often 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 5769 is portrayed as ה׳תשס״ט, where ה represents 5000, and תשס״ט represents 769.

Transliterations and Transcriptions of Hebrew Letters

Main articles: Romanization of Hebrew, Hebrew phonology

The following table lists transliterations and transcriptions of Hebrew letters used in Modern Hebrew. For Hebrew vowel diacritics, see niqqud; for the phonology of Biblical Hebrew, see Biblical Hebrew; for the Yiddish language, see Yiddish orthography and Yiddish phonology.

Clarifications:

• For some letters, the Academy of the Hebrew Language offers a precise transliteration which differs from the regular standard it has set. When omitted, no such precise alternative exists and the regular standard applies.
• The IPA phonemic transcription is specified whenever it uses a different symbol than the one used for the regular standard Israeli transliteration.
• The IPA phonetic transcription is specified whenever it differs from IPA phonemic transcription.

Note: SBL's transliteration system, recommended in its Handbook of Style^[13], differs slightly from the 2006 precise transliteration system of the Academy of the Hebrew Language; for "ו" SBL uses "v" (≠ AHL "w"), 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").

⁽¹⁾In 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", [ʔim]), אֵם ("mother", [ʔe̞m]) and אֹם ("nut", [ʔo̞m]), the letter א always represents the same consonant: [ʔ] (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.

⁽²⁾ The diacritic geresh – "׳" – is used with some other letters as well (ד׳, ח׳, ט׳, ע׳, ר׳, ת׳, see geresh), 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 (i.e., inconsistently with the guidelines specified by the Academy of the Hebrew Language) "ו׳" and "וו" are sometimes used to represent /w/, which like /d͡ʒ/, /ʒ/ and /t͡ʃ/ appears in Hebrew slang and loanwords. However, the guidelines of the Academy of the Hebrew Language specify that /w/ and /v/ be indistinguishably represented by "ו" (vav); see Hebrew Vav for the orthographic variants of vav.

⁽³⁾The Sound /χ/ (as "ch" in loch) is often transcribed "ch", inconsistently with the guidelines specified by the Academy of the Hebrew Language: "cham"; "schach".

⁽⁴⁾"ךּ" (final kaf with dagesh) is rare but exists, e.g. last word in Deuteronomy 7 1 (דברים פרק ז׳ פסוק א׳) in the word "מִמֶּךָּ"^[16]

⁽⁵⁾When representing /p/, pe is always written in its regular, not final, form "פ", even when in final word position, which occurs with loanwords (e.g. שׁוֹפּ /ʃop/ "shop"), foreign names (e.g. פִילִיפּ /ˈfilip/ "Philip") and some slang (e.g. חָרַפּ /χaˈrap/ "slept deeply").

Pronunciation

The descriptions that follow are based on the pronunciation of modern standard Israeli Hebrew. For a concise summary, see the article International Phonetic Alphabet for Hebrew. For further information on regional and historical variations in pronunciation, see Hebrew phonology.

Shin and sin

Shin and sin are represented by the same letter, ש, but are two separate phonemes. 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 the sin-dot is above the upper-left side of the letter.

Historically, left-dot-sin, corresponds to Proto-Semitic *ś, which in biblical-Judaic-Hebrew corresponded to a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative /ɬ/, as is evident in Greek transliteration of Hebrew words such as Balsam (בוֹשׂם)(the ls - 'שׂ') as is evident in the Targum Onkelos^{[citation needed]}. Rendering of proto-semitic *ś as /ɬ/, is still evident in the Soqotri language^{[citation needed]}.

Dagesh

Historically, the consonants ב bet,beis, ג gimel, ד dalet, כ kaf,kof, פ pe,pey, and ת tav each had two sounds: one hard (plosive), and one soft (fricative), 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 modern Hebrew, however, the dagesh only changes the pronunciation of ב bet, כ kaf, פ pe, and ת tav (tav only changes in Ashkenazi (sof) and Yemenite pronunciations).

* Only in Ashkenazi pronunciations. In Israeli Hebrew, it is always a tav, with a /t/ sound.
** The letters gimmel (ג) and dalet (ד) also have dagesh (dotted) forms, but these do not differ phonetically from the forms without the dagesh in most of the Modern Hebrew dialects. Israeli Hebrew also exhibits no phonetic distinction between tav (ת) with or without a dagesh.

Identical pronunciation

In Israel's general population, many consonants have the same pronunciation. They are:

* Varyingly

Ancient Hebrew pronunciation

Some of the variations in sound mentioned above are due to a systematic feature of Ancient Hebrew. The six consonants /b ɡ d k p t/ were pronounced differently depending on their position. These letters were also called BeGeDKePHeT letters (pronounced /ˌbeɪɡɛdˈkɛfɛt/ in English). (The full details are very complex; this summary omits some points.) They were pronounced as stops b ɡ d k p t at the beginning of a syllable, or when doubled. They were pronounced as fricatives v ɣ ð x f θ when preceded by a vowel (commonly indicated with a macron, ḇ ḡ ḏ ḵ p̄ ṯ). The stop and double pronunciations were indicated by the dagesh. In Modern Hebrew the sounds ḏ and ḡ have reverted to [d] and [ɡ], respectively, and ṯ has become [t], so only the remaining three consonants /b k p/ show variation. ר "reish" may have also been a "doubled" letter, making the list BeGeD KePoReS and also rendering Hebrew one of the only languages to possess two 'r' sounds. (Sefer Yetzirah, 4:1, this depends on the antiquity of this book.)

• ו vav was a semivowel /w/ (as in English, not as in German).
• ח chet and ע ayin were pharyngeal fricatives, צ tsadi was an emphatic /s/, ט tet was an emphatic /t/, and ק qoph 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 the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative /ɬ/ (the sound of modern Welsh ll) or the voiceless alveolar lateral affricate /tɬ/ (like Náhuatl tl).

Vowels

Matres lectionis

א aleph, ה he, ו vav and י yod are letters that can sometimes indicate a vowel instead of a consonant (which would be, repectively, /ʔ/, /h/, /v/ and /j/). When they do, ו and י 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 א and ה are considered to be mute, their role being purely indicative of the non-marked vowel.

Letter	Name of letter	Consonant indicated when letter consonantal	Vowel designation	Name of vowel designation	Indicated Vowel
א	aleph	/ʔ/	—	—	ê, ệ, ậ, â, ô
ה	he	/h/	—	—	ê, ệ, ậ, â, ô
ו	vav	/v/	וֹ	ḥolám malé	ô
			וּ	shurúq	û
י	yud	/j/	יִ	ḥiríq malé	î
			יֵ	tseré malé	ê, ệ

Vowel points

Niqqud is the system of dots the 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, /i e a o u/, but many more written symbols for them:

Name	Symbol	Israeli Hebrew
		IPA	Transliteration	English example
Hiriq		[i]	i	see
Zeire		[ɛ] and [ɛi]	e and ei	men, main
Segol		[ɛ], ([ɛi] with succeeding yod)	e, (ei with succeeding yod)	men
Patach		[a]	a	car
Kamatz		[a], <car>(or [ɔ])	a, (or o)</car>	car
Holam	סׁ	[ɔ]	o	cone
Shuruk		[u]	u	tube
Kubutz		[u]	u	tube

Note Ⅰ: The symbol "O" represents whatever Hebrew letter is used.
Note Ⅰ: The zeire is pronounced correctly as ei in modern Hebrew.
Note Ⅱ: The dagesh, mappiq, and shuruk have different functions, even though they look the same.
Note Ⅲ: The letter ו (vav) is used since it can only be represented by that letter.

Sh'va

By adding two vertical dots (called Sh'va) underneath the letter, the vowel is made very short.

Name	Symbol	Israeli Hebrew
		IPA	Transliteration	English example
Shva		[ɛ] or Ø	apostrophe, e, or nothing	silent
Reduced Segol		[ɛ]	e	men
Reduced Patach		[a]	a	cup
Reduced Kamatz		[ɔ]	o	cone

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. Gershayim is also the name of a note of cantillation in the reading of the Torah, printed above the accented letter.

Sounds represented with diacritic geresh

The sounds [t͡ʃ], [d͡ʒ], [ʒ], written "צ׳", "ג׳", "ז׳", and [w], non-standardly sometimes transliterated וו or ו׳^[12], are often found in slang and loanwords that are part of the everyday Hebrew colloquial vocabulary. The apostrophe-looking symbol after the Hebrew letter modifies the pronunciation of the letter and is called a geresh. (As mentioned above, while still done, using ו׳ to represent [w] is non-standard; standard spelling rules allow no usage of ו׳ whatsoever.^[17])

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 only represent sounds in foreign words or names when transliterated with the Hebrew alphabet, and never loanwords.

A geresh is also used to denote initialisms and to denote a Hebrew numeral. Geresh also is the name of one of the notes of cantillation in the reading of the Torah, but its appearance and function is different.

Unicode and HTML

The Unicode Hebrew block extends from U+0590 to U+05FF and from U+FB1D to U+FB40. It includes letters, ligatures, combining diacritical marks (niqqud and cantillation marks) and punctuation. 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.

See also

• Hebrew punctuation
• Significance of numbers of Judaism
• Mater lectionis
• History of the Hebrew language
• Syriac alphabet
• Niqqud
• Dagesh
• Gershayim
• Hebrew braille
• Cursive Hebrew
• Rashi script
• Ashuri alphabet
• Hebrew keyboard
• Romanization of Hebrew
• Help:IPA for Hebrew
• Hebrew phonology
• Inverted nun
• Koren Type
• Help:Hebrew

References

Bibliography

Roots of the Hebrew Alphabet

• 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.
• Steinberg, David. History of the Hebrew Language.
• Mathers table
• Aleph-Beth Quick Study Chart. February 28, 2005. Qumran Bet Community. Retrieved January 5, 2006.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hebrew alphabet

• Hebrew alphabet lesson
• How to draw letters
• Official Unicode standards document for Hebrew
• Transliterate your English name into Hebrew Letters

Keyboards

• LiteType.com - Virtual & Interactive Hebrew Keyboard
• Hebrew translit - for typing Hebrew with an English keyboard (transliteration with niqqud)
• Mikledet.com - for typing Hebrew with an English keyboard (Hebrew keyboard|Hebrew layout)
• Hebrew Writing - Typing Hebrew and Nikud using extended English keyboard (Hebrew keyboard|Hebrew Writing layout)

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