Hebrew Alphabet


Letter   Figure   Name   Remark
א 1 Aleph A silent letter
בּ 2 Beth Sounds like "b"
ב Beth Beth with no dot: Sounds like "w"
ג 3 Gimmel Sounds like "g" in get
גּ Gimmel Only in ancient Hebrew, in Ivrit never with dot
ד 4 Daleth Sounds like "d" in dog
דּ Daleth Only in ancient Hebrew, in Ivrit never with dot
ה 5 He Sounds like "h" in hit
ו 6 Vav Sounds like "v" in wet
ז 7 Zayin Sounds like "z" in Zebra
ח 8 Cheth Sounds like "ch" in Loch
וּ Vav With a dot in the middle: Sounds like "ou" in you
וׁ Vav With a dot on top: Sounds like "o" in Oh!
ט 9 Thet Sounds like "t" in tip
י 10 Jod/Yod Sounds like "y" in yet
כּ 20 Kaph/Kaf Sounds like "k" in keep
ך Kaph/Kaf Only at the end of words
כ Kaph/Kaf Sounds like "ch" in Loch
ל 30 Lamed Sounds like "l" in leg
מ 40 Mem Sounds like "m"
ם Mem Only at the end of words
נ 50 Nun Sounds like "n"
ן Nun Only at the end of words
ס 60 Samek/Ssamech Sounds like "s" in set
ע 70 Ajin/Ayin Guttural
פּ 80 Pe/Feh Sounds like "p" in pet
פ Pe/Feh Sounds like "ph" in phone
ף Pe Only at the end of words
צ 90 Tsade/Sadeh Sounds like "ts" in meets
ץ Tsade/Sadeh Only at the end of words
ק 100 Qoph/Kof Sounds like "q" in query
ר 200 Resch Sounds like "r" in rent
שׂ 300 Sin/Schin Sounds like "s" in sound
שׁ Schin/Sin Sounds like "sh" in show
ת 400 Taw Sounds like "t"
תּ Taw Only in ancient Hebrew, in Ivrit never with dot

Remarks

Hebrew is written from right to left as other ancient writing. This comes from writing with hammer and chisel on stone plates. For somebody, who is right handed, it is not convenient otherwise.
As in Greek, numbers were represented by normal letters, that means Aleph=1, Beth=2, etc. So, every word represents as well a number as the word. The word דודּ = David is for example the number 14.

At the beginning of Matthew’s gospel, the genealogy of Jesus (ancestors of Joseph, the husband of Mary) are listed.
Matthew 1,17: Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.
With this statement, Matthew says, that Jesus is the foretold redeemer, who will take over the throne of David. Jesus is even three times David!
Today in Israel, also our normal ciphers are used for writing numbers of course.

Beside a few exceptions, the alphabet does not include any vowels. The pronunciation of ancient Hebrew was passed on orally. Only Jewish rabbies in Tiberias during the ninth and tenth century, the so called “Massoret” (= deliverer), did invent a notation for vowels using dots. In this way, they did conserve the traditional pronunciation.

In Ivrit, the modern Hebrew, you normally will not find any dots to indicate the pronunciation of vowels.

Luzius Schneider September 24, 2002