Judaism 101: Hebrew Alphabet
Hebrew Alphabet
 Hebrew uses a different alphabet than English
 Hebrew is written right-to-left
 The Hebrew alphabet has no vowels, but pronunciation aids are often added
 There are several styles of Hebrew writing
 Hebrew letters have numerical values
 Writing in Hebrew may require a special word processor and fonts
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
Table 1: The Hebrew Alphabet
If this sounds like Greek to you, you're not far off! Many letters in the Greek  alphabet have similar names and occur in the same order (though they don't look  anything alike!): Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta ... Zeta ... Theta, Iota, Kappa,  Lambda, Mu, Nu ... Pi ... Rho, Sigma Tau.
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, Pei and Tzadei  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.
See and hear the letters in a quick reading of the  letters or a more  in-depth introduction !
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 rabbis 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.
Table 2: Vowel Points
Table 2: Vowel Points
Most nikkud are used to indicate vowels. Table 2 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 consonants. The letters  shown in purple are technically consonants and would appear in unpointed texts,  but they function as vowels in this context.
There are a few other nikkud, illustrated in Table 3.
Table 3: Other Nikkud
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 Beit, Kaf and Pei,  however, the dagesh indicates that the letter should be pronounced with its  hard sound (b, k, p) rather than its soft sound (v, kh, f). See Table 3. 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.
Shin is pronounced "sh" when it has a dot over the right branch and "s" when it  has a dot over the left branch.
Vav, usually a consonant pronounced as a "v," is sometimes a vowel pronounced  "oo" as in "food" (transliterated "oo" or "u") or "oh" as in "Oh!"  (transliterated "o"). When it is pronounced "oo," pointed texts have a dagesh  (though sometimes, Vav with a dagesh is pronounced "v"). When it is pronounced  "oh," pointed texts have a dot on top (though sometimes, Vav with a dot on top  is pronounced "vo").
Illustration 1: Pointed Text
Illustration 1 is an example of pointed text. Nikkud are shown in blue for  emphasis (they would normally be the same color as the consonants). In Sephardic pronunciation (which is what most  people use today), this line would be pronounced: 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, square script or sometimes Assyrian script.
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, see Hebrew  Alphabet used in writing STA"M .
Table 4: Hebrew Cursive Font
There is another style commonly used when writing Hebrew by hand, often  referred to as Hebrew cursive or Hebrew manuscript. Table 4 shows the complete  Hebrew alphabet in a font that emulates Hebrew cursive.
Table 5: Rashi Script
Another style is used in certain texts, particularly the Talmud , 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 . Rashi himself did not use this script; it  is only named in his honor. Table 5 shows the complete Hebrew alphabet in a  Rashi Script font.
K'tav Ivri: Ancient Hebrew Script
As mentioned above, the Hebrew alphabet that we use today is referred to as  Assyrian Script (in Hebrew, K'tav Ashuri). But there was once another way of  writing the alphabet that the rabbis called K'tav  Ivri, which means "Hebrew Script." Many examples of this ancient way of writing  the Hebrew alphabet has been found by archaeologists: on coins and other  artifacts. It is quite similar to the ancient Phoenician writing. An example of  this script is seen at Scripts of  the Hebrew Language , side-by-side with other styles of Hebrew writing that  were discussed above.
The rabbis of the Talmudic period were well aware  of this ancient K'tav Ivri, and they raised the question whether the Torah was originally given in K'tav Ivri or K'tav  Ashuri. A variety of opinions are expressed in the Talmud at Sanhedrin 21c-22a:  one opinion states that the Torah was originally given in K'tav Ivri, but was  changed to K'tav Ashuri in the days of Ezra, after the Babylonian Exile (the  Babylonians, and consequently the Jews in exile, used K'tav Ashuri). Another  opinion says that the Torah was written in K'tav Ashuri, but that holy script  was denied the people when they sinned and was replaced with another one; when  the people repented, the K'tav Ashuri was restored. A third opinion states that  the Torah was always in K'tav Ashuri.
The general consensus is that the Torah was given in K'tav Ashuri, because the  Talmud makes other references that don't make sense in K'tav Ivri. The Talmud  talks about final forms of letters in the original Torah, but K'tav Ivri  doesn't have final forms. It talks about the center of the Samekh and the Final  Mem miraculously floating when the Ten Commandments were carved all the way through the tablets, but there is no Final Mem in K'tav  Ivri, and neither Samekh nor Mem would have a floating center in K'tav Ivri as  they do in K'tav Ashuri.
All authorities maintain that today, the only holy script is K'tav Ashuri. Any torah scrolls , tefillin or mezuzot must be written in K'tav Ashuri, and  specifically in a style of K'tav Ashuri known as STA"M, discussed above .
K'tav Ivri is understood to be in the nature of a font, like Rashi script,  rather than in the nature of a different alphabet, like Greek, Cyrillic or  Roman. The names of the letters, the order of the letters, and the numerical value of the letters are apparently the same  in both K'tav Ashuri and K'tav Ivri; thus, any religious significance that  would be found in the numerical value of words or the sequence of the alphabet  is the same in both scripts. The only difference is the appearance.
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,  Cheit-Nun-Kaf-Hei) is spelled Chanukah, Chanukkah, Hanuka, and many other  interesting ways. Each spelling has a legitimate phonetic and orthographic  basis; none is right or wrong.
Numerical Values
Table 6: Values of Hebrew Letters
Table 6: Values of Hebrew Letters
Each letter in the alefbet has a numerical value. These values can be used as  numerals, similar to the way Romans used some of their letters (I, V, X, L, C,  D, M) as numerals. Table 6 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, Hei-Vav, Dalet-Dalet-Gimel or many  other ways. Ordinarily, however, numbers are written with the fewest possible  letters and with the largest numeral first (that is, to the right). The number  11 would be written Yod-Alef (with the Yod on the right, because Hebrew is  written right-to-left), the number 12 would be Yod-Beit, the number 21 would be  Kaf-Alef, the number 611 would be Tav-Reish-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 Teit-Vav (9+6) and Teit-Zayin (9+7).
Because every letter of the alphabet has a numerical value, every word also has  a numerical value. For example, the word Torah (Tav-Vav-Reish-Hei) has the  numerical value 611 (400+6+200+5). There is an entire discipline of Jewish mysticism known as Gematria that is  devoted to finding hidden meanings in the numerical values of words. For  example, the number 18 is very significant, because it is the numerical value  of the word Chai, meaning life or living. Donations to Jewish charities are  routinely made in denominations of 18 for that reason.
Some have suggested that the final forms of the letters Kaf, Mem, Nun, Pei and  Tzadei have the numerical values of 500, 600, 700, 800 and 900, providing a  numerical system that could easily render numbers up to 1000. However, there  does not appear to be any basis for that interpretation in Jewish tradition. A  cursory glance at any Jewish tombstone will show that these letters are not  normally used that way: the year 5766 (2005-2006) is written  Tav-Shin-Samekh-Vav (400+300+60+6; the 5000 is assumed), not Final  Nun-Samekh-Vav (700+60+6). Indeed, writing it in that way would look absurd to  anyone familiar with Hebrew, because a final letter should never appear at the  beginning of a word! But even where numerology is used only to determine the  numerical values of words, you will not find examples in Jewish tradition of  final letters being given different values. For example, in traditional  sources, the numerical value of one name of G-d that ends in Final Mem is 86, not 646.
I have received several e-mails pointing out that the numerical value of Vav  (often transliterated as W) is 6, and therefore WWW has the numerical value of  666! The Internet, they say, is the number of the beast! 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 Roman numeral III is one hundred and eleven. The  numerical value of Vav-Vav-Vav in Hebrew would be 6+6+6=18, so WWW is  equivalent to life! (It is also worth noting that the significance of the  number 666 is a part of Christian numerology, and has no basis that I know of  in Jewish thought).
While we're on the subject of bad numbers, it is worth noting that the number  13 is not a bad number in Jewish tradition or numerology. Normally written as  Yod-Gimel, 13 is the numerical value of the word ahava (love,  Alef-Hei-Beit-Hei) and of echad (one, as in the daily prayer declaration, G-d is One!, Alef-Cheit-Dalet). Thirteen is the age  of responsibility, when a boy becomes bar  mitzvah . We call upon G-d's mercy by reciting his Thirteen Attributes of  Mercy, found in Exodus 34:6-7. Rambam summed up  Jewish beliefs in Thirteen Principles .
Hebrew Fonts and Word Processors
Many fonts have a built-in Hebrew character set. Current versions of Windows  should have the Hebrew characters built into their fonts; if not, your browser  may be able to automatically download fonts for viewing Hebrew on the web  simply by viewing a Hebrew web page. In Windows, you can see these characters  using the Windows Character Map tool. Persuading your computer to type these  characters, however, can be a bit of a trick!
This page displays some standard fonts that should  include Hebrew characters, so you can see if your browser supports them. If you  do not already have Hebrew web fonts installed, your browser should give you an  opportunity to download them.
This page includes a JavaScript tool that will help  you type Hebrew, if you have Hebrew support. The results of that script can be  copied and pasted into your word processor, if it supports Hebrew characters.  Depending on your word processor, you may need to reverse the results for them  to appear properly. The page can reverse them for you. Feel free to download  that page and use it on your own computer. The scripts you need to run it are  all in the file.
If you are serious about writing a significant amount of text in Hebrew, you  will need a proper Hebrew word processor. I have used DavkaWriter , from Davka Software . DavkaWriter comes with many  attractive Hebrew fonts including both consonants and vowels that will map to  your keyboard in an intuitive phonetic way or in the standard Israeli keyboard  format. It is very easy to switch between Hebrew and English within a document.  DavkaWriter even comes with little stickers to put on the keys of your keyboard  so you can learn their keyboard mappings, and an onscreen display shows you  their keyboard mappings. Davka also has a lot of fonts available, as well as a  lot of other Hebrew and Judaic software. For mobile devices, there are a number  of apps, many of them free, that will allow you to type Hebrew characters.
© Copyright 5756-5771 (1995-2011), Tracey R Rich
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