1-1 Chapter 1 – The Hebrew Alphabet (Alef-Bet) Names of the Letters  Difficulties Recognizing Letters  – Final Forms – Different Fonts – Similar Letters Writing and Transliterating the Letters  Begad Kephat Letters  Pronouncing the Letters  HebrewSyntax.org ©JCBeckman 3/29/2012 Copy freely CC BY-NC-SA 1-2 The Alphabet is Just the Consonants In English,  both consonants and vowels are letters of the alphabet. – E.g., the vowel ‘A’ and the consonant ‘B’ are both letters of the alphabet. In Hebrew, only consonants are considered to be letters  – The consonant Alef is a letter of the alphabet. א – The vowel Seghol is not a letter of the alphabet. ֶ The OT was originally written without vowels  – Vowels and accents were added in AD 500-1000 –  ךלמ ךְֶ֔לֶ ֶ֔מֶ HebrewSyntax.org ©JCBeckman 3/29/2012 Copy freely CC BY-NC-SA 1-3 Variations on Letter Names Different people spell letter names differently  – E.g., Alef, Aleph, ’ā́ lep, ףֶ֔לֶ ֶ֔א Different people pronounce letter names differently  – E.g., Waw vs. Vav. Yod vs. Yud. In Modern Hebrew, three letters are called different  names depending on whether or not they have a Dagesh – Vet vs. Bet ב בּ – Chaf vs. Kaf כ כּ – Fay vs. Pay פ פּ All reasonable variations are acceptable in my class  HebrewSyntax.org ©JCBeckman 3/29/2012 Copy freely CC BY-NC-SA 1-4 Alef HebrewSyntax.org ©JCBeckman 3/29/2012 Copy freely CC BY-NC-SA 1-5 Bet HebrewSyntax.org ©JCBeckman 3/29/2012 Copy freely CC BY-NC-SA 1-6 Gimel HebrewSyntax.org ©JCBeckman 3/29/2012 Copy freely CC BY-NC-SA 1-7 Dalet HebrewSyntax.org ©JCBeckman 3/29/2012 Copy freely CC BY-NC-SA 1-8 Hay HebrewSyntax.org ©JCBeckman 3/29/2012 Copy freely CC BY-NC-SA 1-9 Vav HebrewSyntax.org ©JCBeckman 3/29/2012 Copy freely CC BY-NC-SA 1-10 Zayin HebrewSyntax.org ©JCBeckman 3/29/2012 Copy freely CC BY-NC-SA