Hebrew Alphabet

Level: Basic

The Hebrew and Yiddish languages use a different alphabet than English. The picture below illustrates the Hebrew alphabet, in Hebrew alphabetical order. Note that Hebrew is written from right to left, rather than left to right as in English, so Alef is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and Tav is the last. The Hebrew alphabet is often called the "alefbet," because of its first two letters.

Letters of the Alefbet

If you are familiar with Greek, you will no doubt notice substantial similarities in letter names and in the order of the alphabet.

The "Kh" and the "Ch" are pronounced as in German or Scottish, a throat clearing noise, not as the "ch" in "chair."

Note that there are two versions of some letters. Kaf, Mem, Nun, Pe and Tzade all are written differently when they appear at the end of a word than when they appear in the beginning or middle of the word. The version used at the end of a word is referred to as Final Kaf, Final Mem, etc. The version of the letter on the left is the final version. In all cases except Final Mem, the final version has a long tail.

Vowels and Points

Like most early Semitic alphabetic writing systems, the alefbet has no vowels. People who are fluent in the language do not need vowels to read Hebrew, and most things written in Hebrew in Israel are written without vowels.

However, as Hebrew literacy declined, particularly after the Romans expelled the Jews from Israel, the sages recognized the need for aids to pronunciation, so they developed a system of dots and dashes called nikkud (points). These dots and dashes are written above, below or inside the letter, in ways that do not alter the spacing of the line. Text containing these markings is referred to as "pointed" text.

Most nikkud are used to indicate vowels. The table at right illustrates the vowel points, along with their pronunciations. Pronunciations are approximate; I have heard quite a bit of variation in vowel pronunciation. Vowel points are shown in blue. The letter Alef, shown in red, is used to illustrate the position of the points relative to the consonents. The letters shown in purple are technically consonents and would appear in unpointed texts, but they function as vowels in this context.

There are a few other nikkud, illustrated and explained below.

The dot that appears in the center of some letters is called a dagesh. It can appear in just about any letter in Hebrew. With most letters, the dagesh does not significantly affect pronunciation of the letter; it simply marks a split between syllables, where the letter is pronounced both at the end of the first syllable and the beginning of the second. With the letters Bet, Kaf and Pe, however, the dagesh indicates that the letter should be pronounced with its hard sound rather than its soft sound. See the table above. In Ashkenazic pronunciation (the pronunciation used by many Orthodox Jews and by many older Jews), Tav also has a soft sound, and is pronounced as an "s" when it does not have a dagesh.

Vav, usually a consonant pronounced as a "v," is sometimes a vowel pronounced "oo" (u) or "oh" (o). When it is pronounced "oo" as in "food", pointed texts have a dagesh. When it is pronounced "oh" as in "Oh!," pointed texts have a dot on top.

Shin is pronounced "sh" when it has a dot over the right branch and "s" when it has a dot over the left branch.

At right is an example of pointed text. Nikkud are shown in blue. This line would be pronounced (in Sephardic pronunciation, which is what most people use today): V'ahavtah l'reyahkhah kamokhah. (And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Leviticus 19:18).

Styles of Writing

The style of writing illustrated above is the one most commonly seen in Hebrew books. It is referred to as block print or sometimes Assyrian text.

For sacred documents, such as torah scrolls or the scrolls inside tefillin and mezuzot, there is a special writing style with "crowns" (crows-foot-like marks coming up from the upper points) on many of the letters. This style of writing is known as STA"M, an acronym for "Sifrei Torah, Tefillin and Mezuzot," which is where you will see that style of writing. For more information about the STA"M alphabet, including illustrations and relevant rules according to "Rabbinical" Judaism, not biblical Judaism, see Hebrew Alphabet used in writing STA"M.

There is another style used for handwriting, in much the same way that cursive is used for the Latin (English) alphabet. This modern script style is illustrated at right.

Another style is used in certain texts to distinguish the body of the text from commentary upon the text. This style is known as Rashi Script, in honor of Rashi the greatest commentator on the Torah and the Talmud according to "Rabbinical" Judaism, but not according to "Biblical" Judaism. According to Biblical Judaism his comments are merely a "hit and miss" when it comes to truth and common sense. Rashi himself did not even use this script; it is only named in his honor. The alefbet at left is an example of Rashi Script.

Transliteration

The process of writing Hebrew words in the Roman (English) alphabet is known as transliteration. Transliteration is more an art than a science, and opinions on the correct way to transliterate words vary widely. This is why the Jewish festival of lights (in Hebrew, Chet-Nun-Kaf-He) is spelled Chanukah, Chanukkah, Hanuka, and many other interesting ways.

Numerical Values

Each letter in the alefbet has a numerical value. These values can be used to write numbers, as the Romans used some of their letters (I, V, X, L, C, M) to represent numbers. The table at right shows each letter with its corresponding numerical value. Note that final letters have the same value as their non-final counterparts.

The numerical value of a word is determined by adding up the values of each letter. The order of the letters is irrelevant to their value: the number 11 could be written as Yod-Alef, Alef-Yod, Heh-Vav, Dalet-Dalet-Gimmel or many other ways. Ordinarily, however, numbers are written with the smallest possible number of letters and with the largest number first (that is, to the right). The number 11 would be written Yod-Alef, the number 12 would be Yod-Bet, the number 21 would be Kaf-Alef, the number 611 would be Tav-Resh-Yod-Alef, etc. The only significant exception to this pattern is the numbers 15 and 16, which if rendered as 10+5 or 10+6 would be a name of G-d, so they are normally written Tet-Vav (9+6) and Tet-Zayin (9+7).

Because of this system of assigning numerical values to letters, every word has a numerical value. For example, the word Torah (Tav-Vav-Resh-He) has the numerical value 611 (400+6+200+5).

I have received several e-mails pointing out that the numerical value of Vav (often transliterated as W) is 6, and therefore WWW (as in "www.???.com") has the numerical value of 666! It's an amusing notion, but Hebrew numbers just don't work that way. In Hebrew numerals the position of the letter/digit is irrelevant; the letters are simply added up to determine the value. To say that Vav-Vav-Vav is six hundred and sixty-six would be like saying that the Latin ["Roman"] numeral III is one hundred and eleven. The numerical value of Vav-Vav-Vav in Hebrew would be 6+6+6=18. It is also worth noting that this Hebraic numerolgy is found in the book of Revelation, a "Christian" book, written by a Jewish man. "666" would have to be something like this in order to fit the Hebrew alef-bet:

Thus, the number of the false messiah's name shall equal 666. There are many combinations that can equal this number, so a varity of people can have the potental of being this person.