Eteacher Biblical Hebrew Alef Bet

Question 1

תּ

Answer 1

Name: tav
Transliteration: t
Pronunciation: t
English Example: tea

Question 2

ס

Answer 2

Name: sámekh
Transliteration: s
Pronunciation: s
English Example: say

Question 3

ז

Answer 3

Name: záyin
Transliteration: z
Pronunciation: z
English Example: zebra

Question 4

מוֹ

Answer 4

Name: ḥólem malé
Transliteration: ô
Pronunciation: o as in open
Length: Long Vowel: Mater Lectionis

Question 5

כ/ך

Answer 5

Name: khaf
Transliteration: k̠
Pronunciation: kh
English Example: Bach

Question 6

ל

Answer 6

Name: lámed
Transliteration: l
Pronunciation: l
English Example: Light

Question 7

שׁ

Answer 7

Name: shin
Transliteration: s̆
Pronunciation: sh
English Example: ship

Question 8

צ/ץ

Answer 8

Name: tsádeh
Transliteration: ṣ
Pronunciation: ts
English Example: cats

Question 9

ט

Answer 9

Name: tet
Transliteration: ṭ
Pronunciation: t
English Example: tea

Question 10

פ/ף

Answer 10

Name: feh
Transliteration: p̠
Pronunciation: f
English Example: if

Question 11

Letters that in ancient hebrew would have become fricative without the dagesh but are modernly pronounced as plosives.

Answer 11

ג ד ת

Question 12

ע

Answer 12

Name: áyin
Transliteration: ‘
Pronunciation: ‘
English Example: honor/uh*oh

Question 13

ה

Answer 13

Name: heh
Transliteration: h
Pronunciation: h
English Example: horse

Question 14

י

Answer 14

Name: yod
Transliteration: y
Pronunciation: y
English Example: you

Question 15

Difference Between The Ancient Pronunciation of א and ע

Answer 15

The original pronunciation of ע was a more emphatic sound (almost like gulping) at the back of the throat.

Question 16

מָ

Answer 16

Name: qamáts
Transliteration: ā
Pronunciation: A as in Father
Length: Long Vowel: Plain

Question 17

Two letters modernly pronounced the same but were historically different.

Answer 17

ט ת

Question 18

ג

Answer 18

Name: gímel
Transliteration: g̠
Pronunciation: g
English Example: good

Question 19

מֶה

Answer 19

Name: segól malé
Transliteration: eh
Pronunciation: ε as in let or eɪ as in day
Length: Long Vowel: Mater Lectionis 
Only at the end of words

Question 20

Reduced Vowels

Answer 20

The guttural letters אהחע behave differently from the other consonants because they are pronounced in the throat. One way in which these letters behave differently is that they don’t usually take a regular shewa. Instead, they use “reduced vowels,” which add a very short vowel sound to the letter, making it easier to pronounce. Each of the three reduced vowels is formed by combining the shewa sign with the corresponding short vowel. Likewise, the pronunciation is identical to the short vowel. A reduced vowel always opens a syllable like a moving shewa does. A reduced vowel is likely to appear under a guttural in the same place where a shewa would appear under a regular letter. The change from shewa to reduced vowel does not change the basic pattern (e.g. אַהֲבָה is the same pattern as קַדְמָה , even though it has a ḥatáf patáḥ instead of a shewa).

Question 21

Letters that in ancient hebrew as well as modern hebrew are plosives with a dagesh but fricative without.

Answer 21

ב כ פ

Question 22

מֶי

Answer 22

Name: segól malé
Transliteration: ê
Pronunciation: ε as in let or eɪ as in day
Length: Long Vowel: Mater Lectionis

Question 23

First ָ in אָכְלָה

Answer 23

Name: qamáts-qatán
Transliteration: o
Pronunciation: O as in Open
Length: Short Vowel: OHebrew has a short [o] vowel, the qamats-qatan (“small qamats”), which looks identical to the long [ā] vowel qamats. The qamats-qatan is pronounced [o] as in “open.” The qamats-qatan only appears in closed, unaccented syllables. In every other case, the [ ָ ] vowel is the long qamats [ā]. For example, in the word אָכְלָה [’ok-lāh], the first vowel is [o] because it stands ina closed, unaccented syllable; but the last vowel is [ā] because it is accented.

Question 24

מֻ

Answer 24

Name: qibbúts
Transliteration: u
Pronunciation: u as in boot
Length: Short Vowel

Question 25

אֲ

Answer 25

Name: ḥatáf patáḥ
Transliteration: ă
Pronunciation: A as in Father
Length: Reduced Vowel: A

Question 26

מִי

Answer 26

Name: ḥíriq malé
Transliteration: î
Pronunciation: i as in meet
Length: Long Vowel: Mater Lectionis

Question 27

מֵי

Answer 27

Name: tsére malé
Transliteration: ê
Pronunciation: ε as in let or eɪ as in day
Length: Long Vowel: Mater Lectionis

Question 28

מִ

Answer 28

Name: ḥíriq
Transliteration: i
Pronunciation: i as in meet
Length: Short Vowel

Question 29

מ/ם

Answer 29

Name: mem
Transliteration: m
Pronunciation: m
English Example: map

Question 30

מָה

Answer 30

Name: qamáts malé
Transliteration: āh
Pronunciation: A as in Father
Length: Long Vowel: Mater Lectionis

Question 31

מֹ

Answer 31

Name: ḥólem
Transliteration: ō
Pronunciation: o as in open
Length: Long Vowel: Plain

Question 32

מֶ

Answer 32

Name: segól
Transliteration: e
Pronunciation: ε as in let
Length: Short Vowel

Question 33

גּ

Answer 33

Name: gímel
Transliteration: g
Pronunciation: g
English Example: good

Question 34

ק

Answer 34

Name: qof
Transliteration: q
Pronunciation: k
English Example: keep

Question 35

Two Main Historical Letter Changes

Answer 35

The two main historical changes we see are that the letters became more abstract (e.g. developing from a fish into a simple triangle) and/or turned 90° or 180°.

Question 36

מַ

Answer 36

Name: patáh
̣Transliteration: a
Pronunciation: A as in Father
Length: Short Vowel

Question 37

Earliest Form of the Script

Answer 37

The earliest form of this script that we have is from the Sinai desert and represents a Canaanite dialect of the 16th century B.C.E. The Proto-Canaanites developed their letters by drawing a picture of something that began with the sound they wanted to represent – e.g. water, which they pronounced “maym,” for the sound [m]; a fish, which they pronounced “digg,” for [d], etc. (Hebrew Pictographs)

Question 38

ר

Answer 38

Name: resh
Transliteration: r
Pronunciation: r
English Example: air

Question 39

א

Answer 39

Name: álef
Transliteration: ‘
Pronunciation: ‘
English Example: honor/uh*oh

Question 40

ד

Answer 40

Name: dálet
Transliteration: d̠
Pronunciation: d
English Example: dog

Question 41

ח

Answer 41

Name: ḥet
Transliteration: ḥ
Pronunciation: ḥ
English Example: Bach

Question 42

נ/ן

Answer 42

Name: nun
Transliteration: n
Pronunciation: n
English Example: new

Question 43

דּ

Answer 43

Name: dálet
Transliteration: d
Pronunciation: d
English Example: dog

Question 44

Development of Writing

Answer 44

This script developed from Proto-Canaanite (ca. 1500 B.C.E.) to Ancient Hebrew (ca. 950 B.C.E.) to Classical Greek to the Latin that we use for English today.

Question 45

ת

Answer 45

Name: tav
Transliteration: t̠
Pronunciation: t
English Example: tea

Question 46

אֳ

Answer 46

Name: ḥatáf qamáts
Transliteration: ŏ
Pronunciation: O as in Open
Length: Reduced Vowel: O

Question 47

שׂ

Answer 47

Name: sin
Transliteration: ś
Pronunciation: s
English Example: say

Question 48

ב

Answer 48

Name: vet
Transliteration: b̠
Pronunciation: v
English Example: cave

Question 49

אֱ

Answer 49

Name: ḥatáf segól
Transliteration: ĕ
Pronunciation: E as in Let
Length: Reduced Vowel: E

Question 50

בּ

Answer 50

Name: bet
Transliteration: b
Pronunciation: b
English Example: bat

Question 51

כּ/ךּ

Answer 51

Name: kaf
Transliteration: k
Pronunciation: k
English Example: keep

Question 52

Development of Hebrew Vowels

Answer 52

In this unit, we begin to learn about the Hebrew vowels. When Hebrew was first written down (10th c. B.C.E.), the writers only wrote the consonants. Because they didn’t write vowels, it would be difficult for anyone who wasn’t familiar with the text to know what words were written. Their solution to this difficulty was to add vowel letters, a process which happened in several stages:In the first stage (9th-6th c. B.C.E.), they only added vowels at the end of words. The new “vowels” were simply the consonants ו ,י, and ה, which could now act at the end of words as the vowels î (י), û (ו), and āh/ēh/ōh (ה). We call each of these vowels a “mater lectionis,” which is Latin for “reading mother” (the plural is “matres lectionis”). Just as a mother helps her child to read, so these letters help us know which vowels to read.In the next stage of Hebrew writing (after the exile of 586 B.C.E.), the matres lectionis י and ו began to be used inside words in addition to at the end of words. In this stage, י and ו can each represent more than one vowel (י = î or ê; ו = ô or û). ה continued to represent the vowels āh, ēh, and ōh only at the end of the word. It is important to remember that the mater lectionis system of vowel writing is not applied consistently throughout the entire Hebrew Bible, which is made up of many texts written at different times and in different situations. Therefore, we might see the same word written in one place with the mater (e.g. שׁוֹמֵר) and in another place without it (e.g. שֹׁמֵר).The scribes who copied the biblical text became concerned that their oral tradition of how to vocalize the text would be forgotten over time. In the final stage of Hebrew vowel writing (7th-9th c. C.E.), they developed a system of diacritic points to represent each of the vowels. This way, their oral tradition could be permanently recorded in more detail than the system of mater lectionis allowed. (There are several different traditions of how to vocalize the biblical text. The one most widely used is the Tiberian tradition, which was developed by the school of scribes in the city of Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee.) Note that the addition of the diacritic system did not erase the previous system of mater lectionis. Part of what makes biblical Hebrew transliteration so complicated is that all of these systems now exist simultaneously, one on top of the other, and we want to be able to represent in Latin script exactly what we see in the Hebrew.

Question 53

פּ/ףּ

Answer 53

Name: peh
Transliteration: p
Pronunciation: p
English Example: pen

Question 54

Shewa

Answer 54

In this unit we meet the Hebrew shewa: [ ְ ]. The special characteristic of the shewa is that it can sometimes be silent, in which case it is not transliterated or pronounced at all. In other places, it can be a “moving shewa” (also known as a “vocal shewa” or a “shewa mobile”), in which case it is transliterated by the sign [ə] and pronounced as a very short [ĕ] vowel. The basic rule for determining whether a shewa is silent or moving is this: A moving shewa opens a syllable, and a silent shewa closes a syllable. For example, in the word יִשְׁמְרוּ [yiš-mərû], the first shewa is silent and the second shewa is moving. (The moving shewa is considered to be part of the syllable it opens; it is not a separate vowel that counts as its own syllable.) Remember after a strong dagesh it is moving.

Question 55

מֵ

Answer 55

Name: tsére
Transliteration: ē
Pronunciation: ε as in let
Length: Long Vowel: Plain

Question 56

Guttural Letters

Answer 56

א ע ה ח

Question 57

מֹה

Answer 57

Name: ḥólem malé
Transliteration: ōh
Pronunciation: o as in open
Length: Long Vowel: Mater Lectionis
Always at end of words and very rare usually in proper nouns

Question 58

מֵה

Answer 58

Name: tsére malé
Transliteration: ēh
Pronunciation: ε as in let or eɪ as in day
Length: Long Vowel: Mater LectionisOnly at the end of words

Question 59

ו

Answer 59

Name: vav
Transliteration: w
Pronunciation: v
English Example: vine

Question 60

Silent Letters At The End Of A Word In Modern Pronunciation

Answer 60

א ע ה

Question 61

מוּ

Answer 61

Name: shúreq
Transliteration: û
Pronunciation: u as in boot
Length: Long Vowel: Mater Lectionis