Hebrew › Introduction to Hebrew › The Alphabet · אלפבית עברי
Lessons · Vocabulary · Grammar · Appendices · Texts
The Alphabet
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Notes on AlphabeteditType of writing system: abjad Direction of writing: right to left in horizontal lines. Number of letters: 22 consonants, plus final letters and diacritics Used to write: Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, Ladino, Yiddish and many other Jewish languages. Some letters (kaf, mem, nun, fe and tzadi) have a final form (sofit), which is used when they appear at the end of a word. There are no separate numerals in Hebrew, instead standard western numerals (1, 2, 3, etc) are used. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ConsonantseditMost Hebrew consonants will present absolutely no problem to speakers of English or Romance languages as they are clear and do not vary. These consonants are:
There are four consonants in Hebrew in which their pronunciation varies. This variation cannot be identified from the text in "unpointed" spelling, but instead must be realized through context. These consonants are:
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Notes on ConsonantseditThree of these consonants use a geresh to render sounds that are not native to Hebrew, but are used in the language as foreign words are adopted. They are:
Difficult Consonants Some Hebrew consonants will be difficult for the English speaker to pronounce. They are:
The /χ/ sound is not used in the English language. However, you may be familiar with the words Chaim, chutzpah, loch, Chanukah, achtung, or loch that all have the same sound. The letter is pronounced as a strong h in the back of your throat. Consonants that Sound-alike There are four pairs of consonants which sound alike and often present problems for the speller new to the language. They are:
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Vowelsedit
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Notes on VowelseditThe letters of the Hebrew alphabet are consonantal. Vowels are mostly indicated by markings placed below or above these consonants. In Israel, Modern Hebrew texts are printed without these vowel markings which are often reserved for children's books, poetry, and liturgical pieces. That means that the correct pronunciation of every word must be learned and subsequently read from context. At first, this may seem near impossible. However, if you apply this practice to English you will soon realize it is indeed possible to read in such a way. Dn't gv p nw!
There are only five vowel sounds in Modern Hebrew and they are all pronounced fully like Italian. They are: a like in far, e like in less, o like in more, ee like in free, and oo like in food. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Semi-consonants also Acting as VowelseditAlef (א) which can represent “a”, “i”, or “o” (as in “ראש” and “ראשון”)editHeh (ה) which can represent “a” or “e”, but only at the end of a word (as in "אתה")editVav (ו) which can represent “o” or “u” (as in "שלום")editYod (י) which can represent “i” (as in "שיר")edit |
Final LetterseditIn Hebrew, five letters appear differently when they occur at the end of a word. They are:
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Punctuation
editModern Israeli Hebrew uses the same punctuation as English, though Biblical Hebrew has only a colon to represent the end of a sentence.
Numerals
editIsraeli Hebrew, which is the subject of this book, uses the regular 0-9 characters to represent numbers. Very rarely it uses the old representation, the use of letters as numerals, called Gematria.
Cursive
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In modern Hebrew, much of written work is written in cursive, or script. The script alphabet, while using the same letters, has a largely different style of handwriting, and is used for speed. Script does not come up as much as typing.