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This article is mainly about Hebrew letters. For Hebrew diacritical marks, see Niqqud (for the vowel points) and Cantillation . The Hebrew Alphabet is a set of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew Language . It has also been used in mildly adapted forms for writing several languages of the Jewish diaspora, most famously Yiddish , Ladino , and Judaeo-Arabic (for a full and detailed list, see Jewish Languages ). Hebrew is written from right to left. The Hebrew word for "alphabet" is אלף-בית (''alef-bet''), named after the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The Hebrew alphabet was in origin an Abjad , in other words it had letters for Consonant s only, but means were later devised to indicate vowels, first by using consonant letters as Matres Lectionis , later by separate vowel points or Nikud . 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''', or the '''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 ). SHORT TABLE The Hebrew alphabet consists of the following letters. Some letters have a different form used at the ends of words: these are shown in the table below the normal form. DESCRIPTION Both the old Hebrew script and the modern Hebrew script have only one are normally not indicated. Where they are it is because a weak Consonant such as א ''alef'', ה he, ו ''vav'', or י ''yod'' has combined with a previous vowel and become silent or by imitation of such cases in spelling of other forms. When used to write Yiddish , the Hebrew writing system is a true alphabet (see Yiddish Orthography ), except where Hebrew words are written in Yiddish. To preserve the proper vowel sounds, scholars developed several different sets of , 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). Hebrew letters may also be used as Numbers ; see the entry on Hebrew Numerals . This use of letters as numbers is used in Kabbalah ( Jewish Mysticism ) in a practice known as Gematria . MAIN TABLE The following table is a breakdown of each letter in the Hebrew alphabet, describing its written Glyph or glyphs, its name or names, its Latin Script Transliteration values used in academic work, and its Pronunciation in reconstructed historical forms and Dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet . If two glyphs are shown for a letter, then the left-most glyph is the Final form of the letter (or right-most glyph if your browser doesn't support right-to-left text layout). Name and transliteration Numerical value and pronunciation Notes # unwritten in initial and final positions, though often not written at all # unwritten in final positions # archaic # h initial or after consonants, ch everywhere else # Velarized or Pharyngealized # pharyngealized # sometimes said to be Ejective but more likely Glottalized . # i in final positions or before consonants # often not written at all
Vowel formation Some of the letters, as well as their consonantal function, also acted as ''matres lectionis'' to represent vowels, as follows: Vowels and Consonants in Ancient Hebrew Some of the variations in sound mentioned above are due to a systematic feature of Ancient Hebrew . The six consonants /p t k b d g/ were pronounced differently depending on their position. These letters were also called BeGeDKePHeT ( Pronounced ) letters. (The full details are very complex; this summary omits some points.) They were pronounced as stops t k b d g at the beginning of a syllable, or when doubled. They were pronounced as Fricative s — IPA when preceded by a vowel. The stop and double pronunciations were indicated by the ''dagesh''. In Modern Hebrew the sounds and have reverted to and [g respectively, and has become [t], so only the remaining three consonants /b k p/ show variation. ו ''vav'' was a semivowel /w/ (as in English, not as in German). ח ''het'' and ע ''ayin'' were Pharyngeal Fricatives , צ ''tsadi'' was an Emphatic /s/, ט ''tet'' was an emphatic /t/, and ק ''qof'' was /q/. All these are common Semitic Consonant s. 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 Cognate s with other Semitic Language s, this phoneme is known to have originally been a Lateral Consonant , most likely IPA the Fricative (as in Welsh ''ll'') or the Affricate (as in Náhuatl ''tl''). HISTORY and Judah until they fell in the 8th and 6th centuries BCE, respectively. Following the Babylonian Exile , Jews gradually stopped using the Hebrew script, and instead adopted the Babylonian Aramaic Script (which was also originally derived from the Phoenician script). This script, used for writing Hebrew, later evolved into the Jewish, or "square" script, that is still used today. "Square"-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. According to traditional Jewish thought, the Hebrew writing system contained all the current letters at the time of Moses , although Ezra is known for his contribution to the square form. Following the decline of Hebrew and Aramaic as the spoken languages of the Jews, the Hebrew alphabet was adopted 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 end of the 19th Century , despite several unsuccessful attempts to replace it with the Latin alphabet. Possible Linguistic Origins The Hebrew alphabet is thought to have developed in the same way as the Phoenician Alphabet ; each letter representing a picture. This is noted in the Mathers Table , appearing in a Kabbalistic book, ''The Kabbalah Unveiled'' (an English translation of Christian Knorr Von Rosenroth 's Latin translation of '' The Kabbalah Denudata '' -- a version of the '' Zohar '', a primary Kabbalistic text.). Over time, historical scholars believe, the letters evolved into the modern rectangular alphabet:
UNICODE TABLE The Unicode Hebrew block extends from U+0590 to U+05FF and from U+FB20 to U+FB40. It includes Letter s, Ligature s, Combining Diacritical Mark s ('' Niqqud '' and Cantillation marks) and Punctuation . Note: The codes װ ױ ײ are intended for Yiddish. They are not used in Hebrew. HTML CODE TABLE These are the Hebrew Numeric Character References . 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. Alef-Bet Vowels and Unique Characters SEE ALSO REFERENCES (using new citation method) Roots of the Hebrew Alphabet
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