Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet, 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. Hebrew script is used informally in Israel to write Levantine Arabic, especially among Druze. 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.
Various styles 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 Yodh Waw He Aleph 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.

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. 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 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 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, 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 or without, 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. 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. In everyday writing of modern Hebrew, niqqud are absent; however, patterns of how words are derived from Hebrew roots 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 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. Although Hebrew is read and written from right to left, the following table shows the letters in order from left to right:

Alef	Bet	Gimel	Dalet	He	Waw/Vav	Zayin	Chet	Tet	Yod	Kaf


Lamed	Mem	Nun	Samech	Ayin	Pe	Tsadi	Qof	Resh	Shin	Tav

Order

As far back as the 13th century BCE, ancient Hebrew abecedaries indicate a slightly different ordering of the alphabet. The Zayit Stone, Izbet Sartah ostracon, 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, reversed ordering also appears in the first chapter. 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.

Shin and sin

Symbol	Name	Transliteration	IPA	Example
	shin	sh		shower
	sin	s		sour

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

Dagesh

Historically, the consonants bet, gimmel, daleth, kaf, pe and tav each had two sounds: one hard, and one soft, 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:
In other dialects there are variations from this pattern.

In some Sephardi and Mizrahi dialects, bet without dagesh is pronounced, like bet with dagesh
In Syrian and Yemenite Hebrew, gimel without dagesh is pronounced.
In Yemenite Hebrew, and in the Iraqi pronunciation of the word Adonai, dalet without dagesh is pronounced as in these
In Ashkenazi Hebrew, as well as Krymchaki Hebrew, tav without dagesh is pronounced as in silk
In Iraqi and Yemenite Hebrew, and formerly in some other dialects, tav without dagesh is pronounced as in ''thick''