The Hebrew alphabet or aleph-bet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language. Alphabets based on the Hebrew script are used to write other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian. In modern Hebrew, vowels are increasingly introduced. The Hebrew script is used informally in Israel to write Levantine Arabic, especially among Druze.Gaash, Amir. "Colloquial Arabic written in Hebrew characters on Israeli websites by Druzes (and other non-Jews)." Jerusalem studies in Arabic and Islam 43 (2016): 15.Shachmon, Ori, and Merav Mack. "Speaking Arabic, Writing Hebrew. Linguistic Transitions in Christian Arab Communities in Israel". Wiener Zeitschrift Für Die Kunde Des Morgenlandes, vol. 106, 2016, pp. 223–239. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26449346. Accessed 15 July 2021. The script is an offshoot of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, which flourished during the Achaemenid Empire, and which itself derives from the Phoenician alphabet.

Historically, a different abjad script was used to write Hebrew: the original, old Hebrew script, now known as the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, has been largely preserved in a variant form as the Samaritan alphabet, and is still used by the Samaritans. 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 (), since its origins were known to be from Assyria (Mesopotamia).Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 21b–22a); Jerusalem Talmud (Megillah 10a). Cf. Mishnah (Megillah 1:8): "The Books [of Scripture] differ from phylacteries and Mezuzahs only in that the Books may be written in any language, while phylacteries and Mezuzahs may be written in the Assyrian writing only." See: The Mishnah (ed. Herbert Danby), Oxford University Press: London 1977, p. 202.

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 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 in acrophony because it is said that they are both derived from the Aramaic alphabet, which in turn derives from 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

The Canaanite dialects were largely indistinguishable before around 1000 BCE. An example of related early Semitic inscriptions from the area include the tenth-century Gezer calendar over which scholars are divided as to whether its language is Hebrew or Phoenician and whether the script is Proto-Canaanite or Paleo-Hebrew.

A Hebrew variant of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, called the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet by scholars, began to emerge around 800 BCE. An example is the Siloam inscription ().

The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was used in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Following the Babylonian exile of the Kingdom of Judah in the 6th century BCE, Jews began using a form of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, another offshoot of the same family of scripts, which flourished during the Achaemenid Empire (and which in turn had been adopted from the Assyrians). The Samaritans, who remained in the Land of Israel, continued to use the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. During the 3rd century BCE (after the end of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BCE), Jews began to use a stylized, "square" form of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, while the Samaritans continued to use a form of the Paleo-Hebrew script called the Samaritan alphabet. For a few centuries, Jews used both scripts (although use of Paleo-Hebrew was limited then) before eventually, after the 1st century BCE, settling on the square Assyrian form.

The square Hebrew alphabet was later adapted and used for writing languages of the Jewish diasporasuch 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 (), He (), Waw/Vav (), or Yodh () 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. or ) or without (e.g. or ), 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 (, 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 , 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 Hebrew script has five letters that have special final forms, called sofit (, 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. These are shown below the normal form in the following table (letter names are Unicode standardUnicode names of Hebrew characters at fileformat.info.). Although Hebrew is read and written from right to left, the following table shows the letters in order from left to right:

Note to editors wishing to change He → Hei, Yod → Yud, Pe → Pei, Tsadi → Tsadiq, Qof → Quf, Tav → Taf: The letter names in this table are from the Unicode standard. Variants of letter names and their pronunciation, such as colloquial Hebrew pronunciation and Yiddish pronunciation, are listed extensively in the following section, "Pronunciation of letter names". Please do not change the Unicode names in this table without explaining your rationale and having it discussed on the talk page – thank you! --> AlefBetGimelDaletHeWaw/VavZayinChetTetYodKaf LamedMemNunSamechAyinPeTsadiQofReshShinTav

Order As far back as the 13th century BCE, ancient Hebrew abecedaries indicate a slightly different ordering of the alphabet. The Zayit Stone,Tappy, Ron E., et al. "An Abecedary of the Mid-Tenth Century B.C.E. from the Judaean Shephelah." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 344, 2006, pp. 5–46. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25066976. Accessed 17 May 2024. Izbet Sartah abecedary,A. Dotan. "The Alphabet Inscription of 'Izbet Ṣarṭah / כתובת הא"ב מעזבת צרטה.” Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies / ארץ-ישראל: מחקרים בידיעת הארץ ועתיקותיה, vol. 16 (טז), 1982, pp. 62–69. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23619530. Accessed 17 May 2024. and one inscription from Kuntillet Ajrud each contain a number of reverse letter orders; such as -, -, -, etc.

A reversal to can be clearly seen in the Book of Lamentations, whose first four chapters are ordered as alphabetical acrostics. In the Masoretic Text, the first chapter has the now-usual ordering, and the second, third and fourth chapters exhibit . In the Dead Sea Scrolls version (4QLam/4Q111), reversed ordering also appears in the first chapter (i.e. in all the first four chapters). The fact that these chapters follow the pre-exilic order is evidence for them being written shortly after the events described, rather than being later, post-exilic compositions.

Pronunciation

Alphabet

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

LetterIPAName of letterPronunciationUnicodeHebrewKaplan, Aryeh. Sefer Yetzirah: The Book of Creation. pp. 8, 22.Modern HebrewpronunciationYiddish / AshkenazipronunciationSephardipronunciationYemenitepronunciationApproximate western European equivalent , Alef When ʔ, as in button [ˈbʌʔn̩] or clipboard [ˈklɪʔ⁠bɔɹd] Bet , b as in black , v as in vogue Gimel g as in gourd [ɣ] gh as in Arabic ghoul Dalet , , d as in doll th as in that He , h as in hold Vav v as in vogue Zayin , z as in zoo [χ]Chet ch as in Bach Tet t as in tool Yod , y as in yolk Kaf k as in king ch as in bach ~ ch as in bach Lamed l as in luck Mem m as in mother Nun n as in night Samekhְs as in sight ~, Ayin , When ʔ, as in button [ˈbʌʔn̩] or clipboard [ˌklɪʔ⁠ˈbɔɹd]. When ʕ, no English equivalent. Pe , p as in pine , f as in fine , f as in fine Tsadi , ts as in cats , Qof , k as in king Resh r as in French ⟨r⟩ Shin sh as in shower s as in sour Tav , , t as in tool , th as in thin

Shin and sin

Symbol Name Transliteration IPA Example (right dot) shin sh shower (left dot) sin s sour

Historically, left-dot-sin corresponds to Proto-Semitic *, which in biblical-Judaic-Hebrew corresponded to the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative (or /ś/).

Dagesh

Historically, the consonants bet, gimmel, daleth, kaf, pe and 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 (), while the soft sounds lack a dagesh. In modern Hebrew, however, the dagesh only changes the pronunciation of bet, kaf, and pe, and does not affect the name of the letter. The differences are as follows: