Hebrew alphabet
From Includipedia, the inclusionist encyclopedia
| History of the alphabet |
|---|
|
Middle Bronze Age 19th c. BCE
|
| Meroitic 3rd c. BCE |
| Ogham 4th c. |
| Hangul 1443 |
| Canadian Syllabics 1840 |
| Zhuyin 1913 |
| complete genealogy |
- Note: This article contains special characters.
The Hebrew alphabet (Template:Lang-he-n [1], alephbet ’ivri) consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. Five of these letters have a different form when appearing as the last letter in a word. The Hebrew letters are also used in mildly adapted forms for writing several languages of the Jewish diaspora, most famously Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic (for a full and detailed list, see Jewish languages). Hebrew is written from right to left.
The Hebrew word for "alphabet" is אלפבית (alephbet), named after the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The Hebrew alphabet is an abjad, having letters for consonants, but means were later devised to indicate vowels by separate vowel points or niqqud. In rabbinic Hebrew, the consonant letters אהוי are used as matres lectionis to represent vowels.
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, block script, or Assyrian script — not to be confused with the Eastern variant of the Syriac alphabet) 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 10th century BC from the Phoenician script; the Samaritans still write Hebrew in a variant of this script for religious works (see Samaritan alphabet).
Contents |
[edit] History
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 around the 10th century BCE [2], a distinct Hebrew variant, the original "Hebrew script", emerged, which was widely used in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah until they fell in the 8th and 6th centuries BCE, respectively. It is not straightforward, however, 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 Hebrew script, and instead adopted the Aramaic script (another offshoot of the same family of scripts). This script, used for writing Hebrew, later evolved into the Jewish, or "square" script, that is still used today. 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 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 18th to 19th century.
[edit] Letter table
The Hebrew alphabet consists of the following letters, five of which have a different form at the ends of words, known as the final form. These are shown in the table below the normal form.
| Aleph | Bet/Vet | Gimel | Dalet | He | Vav | Zayin | Chet | Tet | Yod | Kaph/Khaph |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| א | ב | ג | ד | ה | ו | ז | ח | ט | י | כ |
| ך | ||||||||||
| Lamed | Mem | Nun | Samekh | Ayin | Pe/Phe | Tsadi | Quph | Resh | Shin/Sin | Tav |
| ל | מ | נ | ס | ע | פ | צ | ק | ר | ש | ת |
| ם | ן | ף | ץ |
[edit] Description
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.[3] 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).[4]
The Hebrew alphabet is an abjad: vowels are normally not indicated. Where they are, it is because a weak consonant such as
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew aleph,
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew he,
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew vav, or
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew 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, the Hebrew writing system uses consonants to indicate all the vowels (see Yiddish orthography), except where Hebrew words are written in Yiddish.
To preserve the proper vowel sounds, scholars developed several different sets of vocalisation and diacritical symbols called niqqud (
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew, 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".
Hebrew letters may also be used as numbers; see the entry on Hebrew numerals. This use of letters as numbers is common in Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) in a practice known as gematria.
[edit] Names, scripts, values, and transliteration of the letters
The following table is a breakdown of each letter in the Hebrew alphabet, showing the letter, its name, its numerical value, and its transliteration for English. There are five letters with a second, "final form", used at the end of words, represented below on the right-hand side of the letter's column.
- unwritten in initial and final positions, though often not written at all
- unwritten in final positions
- "h" initial or after consonants, "ch" everywhere else
- "i" in final positions or before consonants
- often not written at all
[edit] Pronunciation
The description that follows is 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.
[edit] Shin and sin
Shin and sin are represented by the same letter,
- REDIRECT Template:Script/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.
| Symbol | Name | Transliteration | IPA | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sin | s | /s/ | sour |
| shin | sh | /ʃ/ | shop |
[edit] Dagesh
Historically, the consonants
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew bet,
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew gimel,
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew dalet,
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew kaf,
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew pe and
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew 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 (
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew), while the soft sounds lack a dagesh. In modern Hebrew, however, the dagesh only changes the pronunciation of
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew bet,
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew kaf,
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew pe, and
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew tav (tav only changes in Ashkenazi pronunciation).
| With dagesh | Without dagesh | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Symbol | Name | Transliteration | IPA | Example | Symbol | Name | Transliteration | IPA | Example |
| bet | b | /b/ | bun |
| vet | v | /v/ | van |
[5]
| kaph | k | /k/ | kangaroo |
| khaph | kh/ch/k | /χ/ | loch |
| pe | p | /p/ | pass |
| phe | ph/f | /f/ | find |
| tav | t | /t/ | talent |
| sav* | s | /s/ | sorry |
* Only in Ashkenazi pronunciation. 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 are not used in Modern Hebrew.
[edit] Same pronunciation
In Israel's general population, many consonants have the same pronunciation. They are:
| Letters | Transliteration | Pronunciation (IPA) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| - | /ʔ/ | ||
|
| v | /v/ | ||
|
| kh/ch/h | /h~ʔ/, - | ||
|
| t | /t/ | ||
|
| k | /k/ | ||
|
| s | /s/ | ||
|
| and |
| ts/tz | /ts/ |
* Varyingly
[edit] Matres lectiones
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew aleph,
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew he,
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew vav and
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew yod are consonants that can sometimes fill the position of a vowel. The latter two in particular are more often vowels than they are consonants.
Symbol Name Vowel value א aleph ê, ệ, ậ, â, ô ה he ê, ệ, ậ, â, ô ו vav ô, û י yud î, ê, ệ
[edit] Pronunciation of Ancient Hebrew
Some of the variations in sound mentioned above are due to a systematic feature of Ancient Hebrew. The six consonants /b g d k p t/ were pronounced differently depending on their position. These letters were also called BeGeDKePHeT (Template:PronEng) letters. (The full details are very complex; this summary omits some points.) They were pronounced as stops [b g d k p t] at the beginning of a syllable, or when doubled. They were pronounced as fricatives [f θ x v ð ɣ] when preceded by a vowel (commonly indicated with a macron, [p̄ ṯ ḵ ḇ ḏ ḡ]). The stop and double pronunciations were indicated by the dagesh. In Modern Hebrew the sounds [ḏ] and [ḡ] have reverted to [d] and [g] respectively, and [ṯ] has become [t], so only the remaining three consonants /b k p/ show variation.
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew vav was a semivowel /w/ (as in English, not as in German).
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew chet and
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew ayin were pharyngeal fricatives,
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew tsadi was an emphatic /s/,
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew tet was an emphatic /t/, and
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew qoph was /q/. All these are common Semitic consonants.
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew sin (the /s/ variant of
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew shin) was originally different from both
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew shin and
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew samekh, but had become /s/ the same as
- REDIRECT Template:Script/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).
[edit] Diacritics
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, foreign words, and words which would be ambiguous to pronounce.
[edit] Vowel points
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 | Image:4 Hiriq.PNG | [i] | i | ski |
| Zeire | Image:5 Zeire.PNG | [ɛ] and [ɛi] | e and ei | men, main |
| Segol | Image:6 Segol.PNG | [ɛ], ([ɛi] with succeeding yod) | e, (ei with succeeding yod) | men |
| Patach | Image:7 Patah.PNG | [a] | a | spa |
| Kamatz | Image:8 Qamaz.PNG | [a], (or [ɔ]) | a, (or o) | spa |
| Holam | Image:Minus Holam.PNG | [ɔ] | o | cone |
| Shuruk | Image:Equal Shuruk.PNG | [u] | u | tube |
| Kubutz | Image:Backslash Qubuz.PNG | [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.
[edit] 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 | ||
| Sh'va | Image:Tilde Schwa.png | [ɛ] or Ø | apostrophe, e, or nothing | silent |
| Reduced Segol | Image:1 Hataf Segol.PNG | [ɛ] | e | men |
| Reduced Patach | Image:2 Hataf Patah.PNG | [a] | a | spa |
| Reduced Kamatz | Image:3 Hataf Qamaz.PNG | [ɔ] | o | cone |
[edit] Comparison table
| Vowel Comparison Table | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vowel Length (phonetically not manifested in Israeli Hebrew) | IPA | Transliteration | English Example | ||
| Long | Short | Very Short | |||
|
|
| spa | ||
|
|
| temp | ||
|
|
| coke | ||
|
| n/a | [u] | u | tube |
|
| [i] | i | ski | |
| Note Ⅰ: | By adding two vertical dots (sh'va)
| ||||
| Note Ⅱ: | The short o and long a have the same niqqud. | ||||
| Note Ⅲ: | The short o is is usually promoted to a long o in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation | ||||
| Note Ⅳ: | The short u is is usually promoted to a long u in Israeli writing for the sake of disambiguation | ||||
[edit] Not used in Hebrew
| Symbol | Explanation |
|---|---|
| These are intended for Yiddish. They are not used in Hebrew[6][7]. See: Yiddish orthography. |
| The rafe (
|
[edit] Gershayim
The symbol
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew 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.
[edit] Non-native sounds
[edit] Loanwords and foreign words
The sounds [ʧ], [ʤ], [ʒ], written "
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew", "
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew", "
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew" and [w], standardly transliterated as "
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew" (while "
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew" normally is a [v]), non-standardly sometimes transliterated
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew or
- REDIRECT Template:Script/Hebrew [6]), are found in many loanwords that are part of the everyday Hebrew colloquial vocabulary, even among people who don't know the source languages. The apostrophe-looking symbol after the Hebrew letter modifies the pronunciation of the letter and is called a geresh.
| Everyday Colloquial Hebrew | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Symbol | IPA | Transliteration | Example | Letter |
| Jimel |
| [ʤ] | j | jump | J |
| Zhayin |
| [ʒ] | varies | vision, azure | see examples |
| Tshadi |
| [ʧ] | ch | channel | "ch" |
| Double Vav or Vav with a Geresh (non-standard)[6] |
| [w] | w | wing | W |
| Vav |
| ||||
| Foreign-Sounding Loanwords | |||||
| Dhal |
| [ð] | th | then | "th", Ḏāl (ذ) |
| Kha |
| [χ] | Arabic | Ḫāʼ (خ) | |
| Za |
| [ðˁ] | Arabic | Ẓāʼ (ظ) | |
| Ghayin |
| [ʁ] | Arabic | Ġayn (غ) | |
| Tshadi |
| [dˁ] | Arabic | Ḍād (ض) | |
| Thav |
| [θ] | th | thing | "th", Ṯāʼ (ث) |
Using וו to represent [w] is, however, non-standard, while still done; standard spelling rules determine that in ktiv male—i.e. text without niqqud—a "double vav" (וו) is used to indicate a vav in a non-initial and non-final position denoting the consonant [v], as opposed to a vav denoting the vowels [u] or [ɔ], which is indicated by a single ו.[8]
A geresh is also used to denote initialisms, to denote a Hebrew numeral and as a note of cantillation in the reading of the Torah.
[edit] Transliteration
| This section does not cite any references or sources. Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (December 2007) |
When transliterating foreign words, for example in Israeli bilingual dictionaries, special combinations of letters and niqqud-diacritics are used —in addition to those given above — to indicate their pronunciation. These are approximative equivalents only, not phonetic symbols, as differences in vowel roundedness are generally not taken into account.
| Foreign Sounds Transliteration | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Symbol | IPA | Examples | |||
| Language | Letter(s) | Example | Transliteration | ||
| /ŋ/ | English: | ng | ring | רינג |
| Wolof: | ŋ | njàŋalekat | |||
| Cantonese: | 五 | 落伍 | |||
| /y/ | German: | ü, y | Gemüse | |
| French: | u, û | mûr | |||
| Norwegian: | y | skyld | |||
| /ø/, /ɵ/, /œ/ /ə/, /ɞ/ | Valdotain: | e, eu, final as | trouveur | |
| Tamil: | unstressed அ, உ | யாவது | |||
| Estonian: | ö, õ | põllutööline | |||
| /ũ/, /ʊ̃/ | Gujarati: | ઉં | હાડકું | |
| Breton: | uñ | puñs | |||
| Lakhota: | un | šunka | |||
| /õ/, /ɔ̃/ | some Ovdalsk: | os | monað | |
| Polish: | ą | osiąść | |||
| Dine: | ǫ | sǫʼłání | |||
| /ĩ/, /ẽ/[9] | Ban-lam-gu: | eng | kè-sêng | |
| Urdu: | ـیں | ہــیں | |||
| Avaneʼe: | ĩ | peteĩchaʼ | |||
| /ẽ/, /ɛ̃/ | Hindi: | ऐं | किताबें | |
| Gege: | ê | gjêndje | |||
| Nheengatu: | ẽ | Iúmuhẽn | |||
| /ã/ | Portuguese: | ã | libertação | |
| Telugu: | -ఁ, -ం | మందారం | |||
| Yoruba: | an | nnkan | |||
[edit] 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.
[edit] Literary and cultural references
- In his science fiction novel The Forever War, author Joe Haldeman names collapsars after letters of the Hebrew alphabet (examples include Aleph and Yod-42).
- In the Discworld novel Feet of Clay, a corrupted version of the Hebrew alphabet (altered slightly to look like roman letters) is used to represent the writing of golems, creatures originating from Jewish mythology.
[edit] See also
| Hebrew alphabet |
|---|
[[Aleph (Hebrew)|
|
[[Zayin|
|
[[Lamedh|
|
[[Tsade|
|