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Lesson 1

The Hebrew Alphabet Then and Now

Lesson Description:

Welcome! – After introducing ourselves, we will start to learn about the history of the Hebrew

alphabet. We will discuss its relationship with the Latin alphabet and learn our first 8 Hebrew

letters.

15 New Words in this Lesson

15 Total New Words

→ א

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Vocabulary

Category Hebrew Transliteration Pronunciation English

Nouns

āh ‟ah brother (m.s.)’ אח

ēm ‟em mother (f.s.)’ אם

har har הרmountain,

hill (m.s.)

lehem lehem bread, food (m.s.) לחם

nāhār nahar stream, river (m.s.) נהר

na‘ar na‟ar נערyoung man,

lad (m.s.)

nēr ner lamp (m.s.) נר

am ‟am‘ עםpeople,

nation (m.s.)

Proper Noun ארם ’ărām ‟aram Aram (Syria)

Prepositions

el ‟el to, towards’ אל

min min from מן

al ‟al upon‘ על

Negative

Particle lō’ lo no, not לא

Verbs āmar ‟amar he said’ אמר

rā’āh ra‟a he saw ראה

m. = masculine f. = feminine s. = singular

Note: All Hebrew words are accented on the final syllable unless otherwise marked.

See this website for more practice with the Hebrew alphabet:

http://hebrewverb.hul.huji.ac.il/newtest/pre_abc.html

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Slides from the Lesson

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Grammatical Remarks

In this lesson, we meet the Hebrew alphabet for the first time. The Hebrew alphabet has a very

long history. In fact, the Western (Latin) alphabet and the Hebrew alphabet have the same origin.

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.

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. 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°.

In Lessons 1-2, we will learn the 23 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, all consonants. We will not

learn these in alphabetical order; rather, we will group the letters according to their common

features.

In the charts below, there are five columns for each letter:

1. The Hebrew letter

2. The Hebrew name of the letter

3. The transliteration of the letter (i.e. how we represent the letter in Latin script)*

4. The Modern Hebrew pronunciation of the letter

5. An example of this sound in an English word

* We learn the transliteration because unlike the pronunciation, the transliteration system

distinguishes between every letter. Also, this is how Hebrew words will be transliterated in

printed material, both in this course and in other Hebrew tools (e.g. commentaries) that you

may use.

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The Letters ר-נ-מ-ל

Hebrew Letter Name Transliteration Pronunciation English Example

lamed l l light ל

ם/ מ mem m m map

ן/ נ nun n n new

resh r r air ר

The “final letters” ם and ן are the forms that the letters מ and נ take at the end of a word.

The ר is not pronounced like an English [r], but is more alveolar (pronounced with the

tongue close to the upper middle part of the mouth).

The Letters ע-ח-ה-א

Hebrew Letter Name Transliteration Pronunciation English Example

alef ‟ ‟ honor/uh*oh א

heh h h horse ה

het h h Bach ח

ayin „ ‟ honor/uh*oh ע

These four are known as the guttural letters, since they are pronounced in the throat.

The א is the glottal stop (brief cutting-off of the air flow) that is usually heard at the

beginning of English words with a “silent [h]” (honor, honest), before most words that start

with a vowel (apple, enter, in, open, up), and in the middle of the expression “uh-oh.”

The ח sounds like the “ch” in the name of the German composer Bach, the Scottish word

loch (“lake”), and expressions such as “lachaim!” or “chutzpah.” (The sign [h]

technically represents a pharyngeal fricative in the International Phonetic Alphabet,

though we pronounce the ח today more as the uvular fricative “ch” described above.)

Even though in Modern Hebrew the ע is usually pronounced the same way as the א, the

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

the throat. We‟ll see in later lessons how this makes the ע behave differently from the א.

The ה ,א, and ע can be silent in modern pronunciation when they appear at the end of a

word (e.g. in words like בנה ,קרא, and שמע).

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Homework

1. Practice writing the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Read the letters aloud (using

their names and/or their pronunciations with any vowel) as you write them.

* The lower part of the starred letter should continue below the line.

*

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2. Read aloud the Hebrew words on the left. Match them to their transliterations in

the middle and to their definitions on the right.

3. Read aloud the following words from the vocabulary list and write the

consonants of the appropriate word under each picture below.

נר אם נהר לחם הר עם נערראה

a) אם b) c) d)

e) f) g) h)

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4. Read the following Hebrew words aloud and transliterate their consonants into

Latin script.

”n a h a l “nahal נחל

__ā__a__ הלם

__ā__ נא

__ā__ā__ חרה

__a__a__ אחר

__ā__ מה

__ā__a__ אמן

__ā__ā__ ענה

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Homework Answers

1. Practice writing the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Read the letters aloud (using

their names and/or their pronunciations with any vowel) as you write them.

__א א א א א א א א א א א א א א א א א א א א א א א א א

’ālep --- ‟a, ‟e, ‟i, ‟o, ‟u

__ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה ה

hē --- ha, he, hi, ho, hu

__ח ח חח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח ח

h ēt --- ha, he, hi, ho, hu

__ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל ל

lāmed --- la, le, li, lo, lu

__מ ממ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ מ

__ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם ם

mēm --- ma, me, mi, mo, mu

__ נ ננ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ נ

__ ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן ן

nûn --- na, ne, ni, no, nu

__ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע ע

‘ayin --- ‟a, ‟e, ‟i, ‟o, ‟u

__ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר ר

rēš --- ra, re, ri, ro, ru

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2. Read aloud the Hebrew words on the left. Match them to their transliterations in

the middle and to their definitions on the right.

āh brother’ אח

ărām Aram’ ארם

el to, towards’ אל

min from מן

al upon‘ על

lō’ no, not לא

āmar he said’ אמר

3. Read aloud the following words from the vocabulary list and write the

consonants of the appropriate word under each picture below.

a) אם b) הר c) נר d) ראה

e) עם f) לחם g) נהר h) נער

4. Read the following Hebrew words aloud and transliterate their consonants into

Latin script.

”nahal “nahal נחל

”hālam “halam הלם

”nā’ “na נא

”hārāh “hara חרה

”ahar “‟ahar’ אחר

”māh “ma מה

”āman “‟aman’ אמן

”ānāh “‟ana‘ ענה

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Recommended Bibliography

1. Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, As Edited and Enlarged by the Late E. Kautzsch, Second

English Ed. Revised in accordance with the Twenty-eighth German Ed. by A. E. Cowley,

Oxford, 1910. (§5-6 = pp. 24-35)

2. Joüon, P., Muraoka, T., A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, Rome, 1996. (§5 = pp. 18-33)

3. Lambdin, T.O., Introduction to Biblical Hebrew, Norwich, 1976. (XIII-XVI)