A friend of mine just asked me for a good link for learning to read Hebrew. Well, here's a good link. But if it were up to me, I'd provide some context which would both help learn to read, and teach you something about the language. So, maybe I'll do it.
I think I've already covered vowel points about as well as I can, so go look at that post for vowels and I'll skip to consonants.
There are 22 consonants in Hebrew five of them have final forms, and three of them (in Modern Hebrew) have a stop and fricative pronunciation. All 22 Hebrew consonants have graphic cognates in Arabic. (Phonetic cognates can be found here.) All Hebrew and Arabic letters have numerical values - which are the same for both! In tabular form:
| Name | Letter | Final form | Transcription | Arabic cognate | Numerical value | Comments |
| Alef | א | ' | ا | 1 | glottal stop | |
| Bet | ב | b, v | ب | 2 | "v" after a vowel except when doubled, otherwise "b" | |
| Gimel | ג | g | ج | 3 | used to have a fricative form "gh" | |
| Dalet | ד | d | د | 4 | used to have a fricative form "dh" | |
| He | ה | h | ﻫ | 5 | ||
| Vav | ו | v | و | 6 | used to be "w" | |
| Zayin | ז | z | ز | 7 | ||
| Het | ח | h | ح | 8 | voiceless pharyngeal | |
| Tet | ט | t | ط | 9 | emphatic "t" | |
| Yud | י | y | ي | 10 | ||
| Kaf | כ | ך | k, kh | ك | 20 | "kh" after a vowel except when doubled, otherwise "k" |
| Lamed | ל | l | ل | 30 | ||
| Mem | מ | ם | m | م | 40 | |
| Nun | נ | ן | n | ن | 50 | |
| Samekh | ס | s | س | 60 | ||
| `Ayin | ע | ` | ع | 70 | voiced pharyngeal | |
| Pe | פ | פ | p, f | ف | 80 | "f" after a vowel except when doubled, otherwise "p" |
| Sadi | צ | ץ | s | ص | 90 | used to be emphatic "s", now "ts" |
| Quf | ק | q | ق | 100 | uvular stop | |
| Resh | ר | r | ر | 200 | ||
| Shin, Sin | ש | sh, s | ش | 300 | "s" used to be a voiceless lateral fricative, in pointed script "sh" is distinguished by a point above the upper-right corner, "s" by a point above the upper-left | |
| Tav | ת | t | ت | 400 | used to have a fricative form "th" |
that kind of made my head hurt...but thanks for the lesson, anyway. i'm learning arabic, and people have told me, "oh, after you learn the arabic alphabet, hebrew is so easy, yaddayaddayadda..." NOT.
Posted by: bagelunderthecouch at February 7, 2007 08:30 AM PermalinkGood stuff! thank you, I'll pass on to others.
Posted by: Alexander Seinfeld at March 9, 2007 04:53 PM Permalink