Hebrew alphabet

Hebrew alphabet
Script type	Abjad
Time period	2nd–1st century BCE to present[1]
Direction	right-to-left script
Languages	Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Mozarabic, Levantine Arabic
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic script Phoenician alphabet Aramaic alphabet Hebrew alphabet
Child systems	Yiddish alphabet Square Aramaic Alphabet
Sister systems	Arabic Nabataean Syriac Palmyrene Mandaic Pahlavi scripts Sogdian
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Hebr, 125 , ​Hebrew
Unicode
Unicode alias	Hebrew
Unicode range	U+0590 to U+05FF Hebrew, U+FB1D to U+FB4F Alphabetic Presentation Forms
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

This article contains Hebrew text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Hebrew letters.

The Hebrew alphabet (Hebrew: אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי‎,^[a] Alefbet ivri), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian. It is also used informally in Israel to write Levantine Arabic, especially among Druze.^[2][3][4] It is an offshoot of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, which flourished during the Achaemenid Empire and which itself derives from the Phoenician alphabet.

Historically, two separate abjad scripts have been used to write Hebrew. The original, old Hebrew script, known as the paleo-Hebrew alphabet, has been largely preserved in a variant form as the Samaritan alphabet. The present "Jewish script" or "square script", on the contrary, is a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet and was technically known by Jewish sages as Ashurit (lit. "Assyrian script"), since its origins were alleged to be from Assyria.^[5]

Various "styles" (in current terms, "fonts") of representation of the Jewish script letters described in this article also exist, including a variety of cursive Hebrew styles. In the remainder of this article, the term "Hebrew alphabet" refers to the square script unless otherwise indicated.

The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters. It does not have case. Five letters have different forms when used at the end of a word. Hebrew is written from right to left. Originally, the alphabet was an abjad consisting only of consonants, but is now considered an "impure abjad". As with other abjads, such as the Arabic alphabet, during its centuries-long use scribes devised means of indicating vowel sounds by separate vowel points, known in Hebrew as niqqud. In both biblical and rabbinic Hebrew, the letters י‎ ו‎ ה‎ א‎ can also function as matres lectionis, which is when certain consonants are used to indicate vowels. There is a trend in Modern Hebrew towards the use of matres lectionis to indicate vowels that have traditionally gone unwritten, a practice known as "full spelling".

The Yiddish alphabet, a modified version of the Hebrew alphabet used to write Yiddish, is a true alphabet, with all vowels rendered in the spelling, except in the case of inherited Hebrew words, which typically retain their Hebrew consonant-only spellings.

The Arabic and Hebrew alphabets have similarities because they are both derived from the Aramaic alphabet, which in turn derives either from paleo-Hebrew or the Phoenician alphabet, both being slight regional variations of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet used in ancient times to write the various Canaanite languages (including Hebrew, Moabite, Phoenician, Punic, et cetera).

History[]

Paleo-Hebrew alphabet containing 22 letters, period, geresh, and gershayim

The Aleppo Codex, a tenth century Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible. Book of Joshua 1:1

A Hebrew variant of the Phoenician alphabet, called the paleo-Hebrew alphabet by scholars, began to emerge around 800 BCE.^[6] Examples of related early Semitic inscriptions from the area include the tenth-century Gezer calendar, and the Siloam inscription (c. 700 BCE).^[7]

The paleo-Hebrew alphabet was used in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Following the exile of the Kingdom of Judah in the 6th century BCE during the Babylonian captivity, Jews began using a form of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, another offshoot of the same family of scripts, which flourished during the Achaemenid Empire. The Samaritans, who remained in the Land of Israel, continued to use the paleo-Hebrew alphabet. During the 3rd century BCE, Jews began to use a stylized, "square" form of the Aramaic alphabet that was used by the Persian Empire (and which in turn had been adopted from the Assyrians),^[8] while the Samaritans continued to use a form of the paleo-Hebrew script called the Samaritan alphabet. After the fall of the Persian Empire in 330 BCE, Jews used both scripts before settling on the square Assyrian form.

The square Hebrew alphabet was later adapted and used for writing languages of the Jewish diaspora – such as Karaim, the Judeo-Arabic languages, Judaeo-Spanish, and Yiddish. The Hebrew alphabet continued in use for scholarly writing in Hebrew and came again into everyday use with the rebirth of the Hebrew language as a spoken language in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in Israel.

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.

Vowels[]

In the traditional form, vowels are indicated by the weak consonants Aleph (א‎), He (ה‎), Waw/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 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 niqqud diacritics (e.g. אָ‎ or יִ‎) or without (e.g. ע‎ or י‎), 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 nequdot (ניקודות‎, literally "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, called trope or te'amim, used to indicate how scriptural passages should be chanted in synagogue recitations of scripture (although these marks do not appear in the scrolls). In everyday writing of modern Hebrew, niqqud are absent; however, patterns of how words are derived from Hebrew roots (called shorashim or "triliterals") 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.

Alphabet[]

Unlike the Paleo-Hebrew writing script, the modern Ashuri script has five letters that have special final forms,^[c] called sofit (Hebrew: סופית‎, meaning in this context "final" or "ending") form, used only at the end of a word, somewhat as in the Greek or in the Arabic and Mandaic alphabets.^[b] These are shown below the normal form in the following table (letter names are Unicode standard^[9][10]). Although Hebrew is read and written from right to left, the following table shows the letters in order from left to right.

Pronunciation[]

Alphabet[]

The descriptions that follow are based on the pronunciation of modern standard Israeli Hebrew.

Note that dotless tav, ת, would be expected to be pronounced /θ/ (voiceless dental fricative), and dotless dalet ד as /ð/ (voiced dental fricative), but these were lost among most Jews due to their not existing in the countries where they lived (such as in nearly all of Eastern Europe). Yiddish modified /θ/ to /s/ (cf. seseo in Spanish), but in modern Israeli Hebrew, it is simply pronounced /t/. Likewise, historical /ð/ is simply pronounced /d/.

Shin and sin[]

Shin and sin are represented by the same letter, ש‎, but are two separate phonemes. 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 the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative /ɬ/, as evidenced in the Greek transliteration of Hebrew words such as balsam (בֹּשֶׂם‎) (the ls - 'שׂ') as is evident in the Targum Onkelos.^{[citation needed]}

Dagesh[]

Historically, the consonants ב‎ beth, ג‎ gimel, ד‎ daleth, כ‎ kaf, פ‎ pe 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, and does not affect the name of the letter. 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, as well as Romaniote 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] as in "thick"

Sounds represented with diacritic geresh[]

The sounds [t͡ʃ], [d͡ʒ], [ʒ], written ⟨צ׳‎⟩, ⟨ג׳‎⟩, ⟨ז׳‎⟩, and [w], non-standardly sometimes transliterated ⟨וו‎⟩, 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.

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 mainly represent sounds in foreign words or names when transliterated with the Hebrew alphabet, and not loanwords.

A geresh is also used to denote acronyms pronounced as a string of letters, 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.

Identical pronunciation[]

In much of Israel's general population, especially where Ashkenazic pronunciation is prevalent, many letters have the same pronunciation. They are as follows:

* 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 BeGeD KeFeT letters /ˌbeɪɡɛdˈkɛfɛt/. The full details are very complex; this summary omits some points. They were pronounced as plosives /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 plosive 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 resh may have also been a "doubled" letter, making the list BeGeD KePoReT. (Sefer Yetzirah, 4:1)

• ח‎ chet and ע‎ ayin represented pharyngeal fricatives, צ‎ tsadi represented the emphatic consonant /sˤ/, ט‎ tet represented the emphatic consonant /tˤ/, and ק‎ qof represented the uvular plosive /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).

Regional and historical variation[]

The following table contains the pronunciation of the Hebrew letters in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The apostrophe-looking symbol after some letters is not a yud but a geresh. It is used for loanwords with non-native Hebrew sounds. The dot in the middle of some of the letters, called a "dagesh kal", also modifies the sounds of the letters ב, כ and פ in modern Hebrew (in some forms of Hebrew it modifies also the sounds of the letters ג, ד and/or ת; the "dagesh chazak" – orthographically indistinguishable from the "dagesh kal" – designates gemination, which today is realized only rarely – e.g. in biblical recitations or when using Arabic loanwords).

Symbol	Pronunciation
	Israeli	Ashkenazi	Sephardi	Yemenite	Reconstructed			Arabic equivalent
					Tiberian	Mishnaic	Biblical
א	[ʔ, -]	[ - ]	[ʔ, -]	[ʔ, -]	[ʔ, -]	[ʔ, -]	[ʔ]	ا
בּ	[b]	[b]	[b]	[b]	[b]	[b]	[b]	ب
ב	[v]	[v~v̥]	[b~β~v]	[β]	[v]	[β]		ؤ \ ﭪ
גּ	[ɡ]	[ɡ~ɡ̊]	[ɡ]	[dʒ]	[ɡ]	[ɡ]	[ɡ]	ج
ג			[ɡ~ɣ]	[ɣ]	[ɣ]	[ɣ]		غ
דּ	[d]	[d~d̥]	[d̪]	[d̪]	[d̪]	[d̪]	[d̪]	د
ד			[d̪~ð]	[ð]	[ð]	[ð]		ذ
ה	[h~ʔ, -]	[h, -]	[h, -]	[h, -]	[h, -]	[h, -]	[h]	ه
ו	[v]	[v~v̥]	[v]	[w]	[w]	[w]	[w]	و
וּ	[u]	[uː, iː]	[uː]	[əw]	?	?	?	ـُو
וֹ	[o̞]	[əʊ, ɔj, ɛj, ɐʊ]	[o]	[œ]	?	?	?	ـَو
ז	[z]	[z~z̥]	[z]	[z]	[z]	[z]	[z]	ز
ח	[x~χ]	[x]	[ħ]	[ħ]	[ħ]	[ħ]	[ħ, χ]	ح
ט	[t]	[t]	[t̪]	[t̴̪] (1)	[t̴̪]	[t̪ˤ] (2)	[t̪ʼ] (3)	ط
י	[j]	[j]	[j]	[j]	[j]	[j]	[j]	ي
ִי	[i]	[i]	[i]	[i]	?	?	?	ـِي
כּ	[k]	[k]	[k]	[k]	[k]	[k]	[k]	ك
כ ך	[x~χ]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]	[x]		خ
ל	[l]	[l~ɫ]	[l]	[l]	[l]	[l]	[l]	ل
מ ם	[m]	[m]	[m]	[m]	[m]	[m]	[m]	م
נ ן	[n]	[n]	[n̪]	[n̪]	[n̪]	[n̪]	[n̪]	ن
ס	[s]	[s]	[s]	[s]	[s]	[s]	[s]	ض \ س* *possibly rooted from Ancient Egyptian ḏ or dj
ע	[ʕ, - ]	[ - ]	[ʕ, ŋ, - ]	[ʕ]	[ʕ]	[ʕ]	[ʕ, ʁ]	ع
פּ	[p]	[p]	[p]	[p]	[p]	[p]	[p]	پ
פ ף	[f]	[f]	[f]	[f]	[f]	[ɸ]		ف
צ ץ	[t͡s]	[t͡s]	[t͡s]	[s̴] (1)	[s̴]	[sˤ] (2)	[sʼ, ɬʼ, θʼ] (3)	ص
ק	[k]	[k]	[k]	[ɡ], [ɢ], [q]	[q]	[q]	[kʼ] (3)	ق
ר	[ɣ~ʁ]	[ɹ]~[ʀ]	[r]~[ɾ]	[r]~[ɾ]	[ʀ]	[r]	[r]	ر
שׁ	[ʃ]	[ʃ]	[ʃ]	[ʃ]	[ʃ]	[ʃ]	[ʃ]	ش
שׂ	[s]	[s]	[s]	[s]	[s]	[s]	[ɬ]	س
תּ	[t]	[t]	[t]	[t̪]	[t̪]	[t̪]	[t̪]	ت
ת		[s]		[θ]	[θ]	[θ]		ث

1. velarized or pharyngealized
2. pharyngealized
3. sometimes said to be ejective but more likely glottalized.

Vowels[]

Matres lectionis[]

א‎ alef, ע ayin, ו‎ waw/vav and י‎ yod are letters that can sometimes indicate a vowel instead of a consonant (which would be, respectively, /ʔ/, /ʕ/, /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 ע 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	alef	/ʔ/	—	—	ê, ệ, ậ, â, ô
ע‎	ayin	/ʔ/ or /ʕ/	—	—	ê, ệ, ậ, â, ô
ו‎	waw/vav	/w/ or /v/	וֹ‎	ḥolám malé	ô
			וּ‎	shurúq	û
י‎	yud	/j/	ִי‎	ḥiríq malé	î
			ֵי‎	tseré malé	ê, ệ

Vowel points[]

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:

Name	Symbol	Written Position	Israeli Hebrew
			IPA	Transliteration	English example
Hiriq		vowel written below consonant	[i]	i	meet
Tsere		vowel written below consonant	[e̞], ([e̞j] with succeeding yod)	eh (precise pronunciation); ei (imprecise due to modern pronunciation, even if with succeeding yod – see Note 2)	bed, penguin
Segol		vowel written below consonant	[e̞]	e	men
Patach		vowel written below consonant	[ä]	a	father
Kamatz		vowel written below consonant	[ä], (or [o̞])	ah, (or oh)	father, loɡin
Holam Haser		vowel written above consonant	[o̞]	o	home
Holam Male	וֹ‎	isolated vowel written on its own
Shuruk	וּ‎	isolated vowel written on its own	[u]	u	tulip
Kubutz		vowel written below consonant

Note 1: The circle represents whatever Hebrew letter is used.
Note 2: The pronunciation of tsere 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.^[15]
Note 3: The dagesh, mappiq, and shuruk have different functions, even though they look the same.
Note 4: The letter ו (waw/vav) is used since it can only be represented by that letter.

Meteg[]

By adding a vertical line (called Meteg) underneath the letter and to the left of the vowel point, the vowel is made long. The meteg is only used in Biblical Hebrew, not Modern Hebrew.

Sh'va[]

By adding two vertical dots (called Sh'va) underneath the letter, the vowel is made very short. When sh'va is placed on the first letter of the word, mostly it is "è" (but in some instances, it makes the first letter silent without a vowel (vowel-less): e.g. וְ wè to "w")

Name	Symbol	Israeli Hebrew
		IPA	Transliteration	English example
Shva		[e̞] or ∅	apostrophe, e, or silent	met or silent
Reduced Segol		[e̞]	e	met
Reduced Patach		[ä]	a	cat
Reduced Kamatz		[o̞]	o	on

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, e.g. ר״ת‎. Gershayim is also the name of a note of cantillation in the reading of the Torah, printed above the accented letter, e.g. א֞‎.

Stylistic variants[]

The following table displays typographic and chirographic 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 block (square, or "print" type) and cursive ("handwritten" type) are the only variants in widespread contemporary use. Rashi is also used, for historical reasons, in a handful of standard texts.

Letter name (Unicode)	Variants
	Contemporary			Early modern	Ancestral
	Block serif	Block sans-serif	Cursive	Rashi	Phoenician	Paleo-Hebrew	Aramaic
Alef	א	א