Hebrew
Alphabet
information from www.jewfaq.org
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
If you are familiar with Greek, you will no doubt notice substantial
similarities in letter names and in the order of the alphabet.
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,
Pe and Tzade 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.
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.
Vowel points are shown in blue. The letter Alef, shown in red, is
used to illustrate the position of the points relative to the consonents.
The letters shown in purple are technically consonents and would
appear in unpointed texts, but they function as vowels in this context.
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