Hebrew alphabet

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The Hebrew alphabet (אָלֶף-בֵּית עִבְרִי, Alephbet 'Ivri), known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two script forms in use. The original old Hebrew script is known as the paleo-Hebrew script (which has been largely preserved, in an altered form, in the Samaritan script), while the present "square" form of the Hebrew alphabet is a stylized form of the Aramaic script. Various "styles" (in current terms, "fonts") of representation of the letters exist. There is also a cursive Hebrew script, which has also varied over time and place.

The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters, five of them have different forms when they are used at the end of a word. Hebrew is written from right to left. Originally, the alphabet was an abjad consisting only of 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 letters א ה ו י are also used as matres lectionis to represent vowels. In modern usage of the alphabet, as in the case of Yiddish (except that ע replaces ה) and to some extent modern Israeli Hebrew, vowels may be indicated. Today, the trend is toward full spelling with these letters acting as true vowels.

Before the adoption of the present script, Hebrew was written by the ancient Israelites, both Jews and Samaritans, using the paleo-Hebrew alphabet. During the 3rd century BC, Jews began to use a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet,^[1] while the Samaritans continued to use a form of the paleo-Hebrew script, called the Samaritan script. The present "square script" Hebrew alphabet is a stylized version of the Aramaic alphabet which was adopted from that used by the Persian Empire (which in turn was adopted from the Arameans). After the fall of the Persian Empire, Jews used both scripts before settling on the Aramaic form. For a limited time thereafter, the use of the paleo-Hebrew script among Jews was retained only to write the Tetragrammaton, but soon that custom was also abandoned.

History

See Also History of the Hebrew alphabet

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 used in the region during the late second and first millennia BC. It is closely related to the Phoenician script, which itself probably gave rise to the use of alphabetic writing in Greece (Greek). A distinct Hebrew variant, called the paleo-Hebrew alphabet, emerged by the 10th century BCE,^[2] an example of which is represented in the Gezer calendar. It was commonly used in the ancient Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

Following the fall of the Kingdom of Judah in the 6th century BC, in the Babylonian exile, Jews adopted the Aramaic script, which was another offshoot of the same family of scripts, evolved into the Jewish, or "square" script, that is still in use today and known as the "Hebrew alphabet". The Samaritan script, used in writing Samaritan Hebrew, is descended directly from the paleo-Hebrew script.

The Hebrew alphabet was later adapted and used for writing languages of the Jewish diaspora - such as Karaim, Judæo-Arabic, Ladino, Yiddish, etc. The Hebrew alphabet came again into everyday use with the rebirth of the Hebrew language as a spoken language in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Description

General

In the traditional form, the Hebrew alphabet is an abjad consisting only of consonants, written from right to left. It has 22 letters, five of which use different forms at the end of a word. The Hebrew alphabet has only one case; there are no distinct capital or lowercase letters.

Vowels

In the traditional form, vowels are indicated by the weak consonants Aleph (א), He (ה), Vav (ו), or Yodh (י) 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, was developed. In modern forms of the alphabet, as in the case of Yiddish and to some extent modern Israeli Hebrew, vowels 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 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 vocalization 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.

The alphabet

Neither the old Hebrew script nor the modern Hebrew script have case, but five 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. These are shown below the normal form, in the following table (letter names are Unicode standard; see variants of names and their pronunciation below). Hebrew is written from right to left.

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

See Also Cursive Hebrew, Rashi script, Ashuri alphabet

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				Image:Paleo-hebrew - alef.png
Bet	ב	ב	ב	Image:Hebrew letter Bet handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician beth.png
Gimel	ג	ג	ג	Image:Hebrew letter Gimel handwriting.png
Dalet	ד	ד	ד	Image:Hebrew letter Daled handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician daleth.png
He	ה	ה	ה	Image:Hebrew letter He handwriting.png
Vav	ו	ו	ו	Image:Hebrew letter Vav handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician waw.png
Zayin	ז	ז	ז	Image:Hebrew letter Zayin handwriting.png
Het	ח	ח	ח	Image:Hebrew letter Het handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician heth.png
Tet	ט	ט	ט	Image:Hebrew letter Tet handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician teth.png
Yod	י	י	י	Image:Hebrew letter Yud handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician yodh.png
Kaf	כ	כ	כ	Image:Hebrew letter Kaf handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician kaph.png
Final Kaf	ך	ך	ך	Image:Hebrew letter Kaf-final handwriting.png
Lamed	ל	ל	ל	Image:Hebrew letter Lamed handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician lamedh.png
Mem	מ	מ	מ	Image:Hebrew letter Mem handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician mem.png
Final Mem	ם	ם	ם	Image:Hebrew letter Mem-final handwriting.png
Nun	נ	נ	נ	Image:Hebrew letter Nun handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician nun.png
Final Nun	ן	ן	ן	Image:Hebrew letter Nun-final handwriting.png
Samekh	ס	ס	ס	Image:Hebrew letter Samekh handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician samekh.png
Ayin	ע	ע	ע	Image:Hebrew letter Ayin handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician ayin.png
Pe	פ	פ	פ	Image:Hebrew letter Pe handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician pe.png
Final Pe	ף	ף	ף	Image:Hebrew letter Pe-final handwriting.png
Tsadi	צ	צ	צ	Image:Hebrew letter Tsadik handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician sade.png		,
Final Tsadi	ץ	ץ	ץ	Image:Hebrew letter Tsadik-final handwriting.png
Qof	ק	ק	ק	Image:Hebrew letter Kuf handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician qoph.png
Resh	ר	ר	ר	Image:Hebrew letter Resh handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician res.png
Shin	ש	ש	ש	Image:Hebrew letter Shin handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician sin.png
Tav	ת	ת	ת	Image:Hebrew letter Taf handwriting.png		Image:Phoenician taw.png

Yiddish symbols

Numeric values of letters

See Also Hebrew numerals

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,<ref name=SBL>See online overview at Biblical Hebrew Resources</ref> 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").

Notes

Template:Note labelTemplate:Note labelTemplate:Note labelTemplate:Note label^{A1Template:Note2Template:Note3Template:Note4Template:Note}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: Template:IPAblink (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.

Template:Note labelTemplate:Note labelTemplate:Note label^{B1Template:Note2Template:Note3Template:Note}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 "ו׳" and "וו" ^[e1] are sometimes used to represent Template:IPAslink, which like Template:IPAslink, Template:IPAslink and Template:IPAslink appears in Hebrew slang and loanwords; see Hebrew Vav for the orthographic variants of vav.

Template:Note labelTemplate:Note label^{C1Template:Note2Template:Note}The Sound Template:IPAslink (as "ch" in loch) is often transcribed "ch", inconsistently with the guidelines specified by the Academy of the Hebrew Language: חם /χam/ → "cham"; סכך /sχaχ/ → "schach".

Template:Note label^{DTemplate:Note}Although the Bible does include a single occurrence of a final pe with a dagesh (Book of Proverbs 30, 6: "Template:Hebrew"), in modern Hebrew Template:IPAslink 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 /ʃop/ "shop"), foreign names (e.g. פִילִיפּ /ˈfilip/ "Philip") and some slang (e.g. חָרַפּ /χaˈrap/ "slept deeply").

Pronunciation

Template:Further

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

Template:Further

Shin and sin are represented by the same letter, Template:Hebrew, 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 *Template:Transl, 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 (בֹּשֶׂם) (the ls - 'שׂ') as is evident in the Targum OnkelosTemplate:Citation needed. Rendering of proto-semitic *Template:Transl as /ɬ/, is still evident in the Soqotri languageTemplate:Citation needed.

Dagesh

See Also 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, and פ pe. The differences are as follows:

In other dialects (mainly liturgical) there are variations from this pattern.

• In some Sephardi and Mizrahi dialects, bet without dagesh is pronounced [b], like bet with dagesh
• In Syrian and Yemenite Hebrew, gimel without dagesh is pronounced [ɣ]
• In Yemenite Hebrew, and in the Iraqi pronunciation of the word "Adonai", dalet without dagesh is pronounced [ð] as in "these"
• In Ashkenazi Hebrew, tav without dagesh is pronounced [s] as in "silk"
• In Iraqi and Yemenite Hebrew, and formerly in some other dialects, tav without dagesh is pronounced [θ] is in "thick"

Identical pronunciation

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

* Varyingly

Ancient Hebrew pronunciation

Template:Further

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 BeGeD KePHeT letters (Template:Pron-en 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. Template:Hebrew "reish" may have also been a "doubled" letter, making the list BeGeD KePoReS. (Sefer Yetzirah, 4:1)

• Template:Hebrew chet and Template:Hebrew ayin represented pharyngeal fricatives, Template:Hebrew tsadi represented the emphatic consonant /sˤ/, Template:Hebrew tet represented the emphatic consonant /tˤ/, and Template:Hebrew qoph represented the uvular plosive /q/. All these are common Semitic consonants.
• Template:Hebrew sin (the /s/ variant of Template:Hebrew shin) was originally different from both Template:Hebrew shin and Template:Hebrew samekh, but had become /s/ the same as Template:Hebrew 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

See Also Mater lectionis

Template:Hebrew aleph, Template:Hebrew he, Template:Hebrew vav and Template:Hebrew yod are letters that can sometimes indicate a vowel instead of a consonant (which would be, respectively, /ʔ/, /h/, /v/ and /j/). When they do, Template:Hebrew and Template:Hebrew 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 Template:Hebrew and Template:Hebrew 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/	‏ִי	ḥiríq malé	î
			‏ֵי	tseré malé	ê, ệ

Vowel points

See Also Niqqud

Niqqud 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, /i e a o u/, but many more written symbols for them:

Note 1: The symbol "O" represents whatever Hebrew letter is used.
Note 2: The pronunciation of zeire 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 (vav) is used since it can only be represented by that letter.

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