Jewish Babylonian Aramaic ( Aramaic : ארמית Ārāmît ) was the form of Middle Aramaic employed by writers in Lower Mesopotamia between the fourth and eleventh centuries. It is most commonly identified with the language of the Babylonian Talmud (which was completed in the seventh century), the Targum Onqelos , and of post-Talmudic ( Gaonic ) literature, which are the most important cultural products of Babylonian Jews . The most important epigraphic sources for the dialect are the hundreds of inscriptions on incantation bowls .
53-626: Amoraim ( Jewish Babylonian Aramaic : אמוראים [ʔamoraˈʔim] , singular Amora אמורא [ʔamoˈra] ; "those who say" or "those who speak over the people", or "spokesmen") refers to Jewish scholars of the period from about 200 to 500 CE , who "said" or "told over" the teachings of the Oral Torah . They were primarily located in Babylonia and the Land of Israel . Their legal discussions and debates were eventually codified in
106-551: A "doubled" letter, making the list BeGeD KePoReT . ( Sefer Yetzirah , 4:1) The following table contains the pronunciation of the Hebrew letters in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the International Phonetic Alphabet . The apostrophe-looking symbol after some letters is not a yud but a geresh . It is used for loanwords with non-native Hebrew sounds. The dot in the middle of some of
159-416: A Hebrew text with these letters would require using the spelling in the language from which the transliteration to Hebrew was originally made). The non-standard " ו׳ " and " וו " are sometimes used to represent / w / , which like / d͡ʒ / , / ʒ / and / t͡ʃ / appears in Hebrew slang and loanwords. The Sound / χ / (as "ch" in loch ) is often transcribed "ch", inconsistently with
212-720: A cantillation mark used for Torah recitation, though its visual appearance and function are different in that context. In much of Israel 's general population, especially where Ashkenazic pronunciation is prevalent, many letters have the same pronunciation. They are as follows: * Varyingly Some of the variations in sound mentioned above are due to a systematic feature of Ancient Hebrew. The six consonants /b ɡ d k p t/ were pronounced differently depending on their position. These letters were also called BeGeD KeFeT letters / ˌ b eɪ ɡ ɛ d ˈ k ɛ f ɛ t / . The full details are very complex; this summary omits some points. They were pronounced as plosives [b ɡ d k p t] at
265-641: A central dot called dagesh ( דגש ), while the soft sounds lack a dagesh . In modern Hebrew, however, the dagesh only changes the pronunciation of ב bet , כ kaf , and פ pe , and does not affect the name of the letter. The differences are as follows: In other dialects (mainly liturgical) there are variations from this pattern. The sounds [ t͡ʃ ] , [ d͡ʒ ] , [ ʒ ] , written ⟨ צ׳ ⟩, ⟨ ג׳ ⟩, ⟨ ז׳ ⟩, and [ w ] , non-standardly sometimes transliterated ⟨ וו ⟩, are often found in slang and loanwords that are part of
318-438: A different final form used at the end of words, the final forms are displayed beneath the regular form. The block (square, or "print" type) and cursive ("handwritten" type) are the only variants in widespread contemporary use. Rashi is also used, for historical reasons, in a handful of standard texts. Following the adoption of Greek Hellenistic alphabetic numeration practice, Hebrew letters started being used to denote numbers in
371-510: A number of reverse letter orders; such as vav - he , chet - zayin , pe - ayin , etc. A reversal to pe-ayin can be clearly seen in the Book of Lamentations , whose first four chapters are ordered as alphabetical acrostics. In the Masoretic text , the first chapter has the now-usual ayin-pe ordering, and the second, third and fourth chapters exhibit pe-ayin . In
424-748: A previous vowel and becomes silent, or by imitation of such cases in the spelling of other forms. Also, a system of vowel points to indicate vowels (diacritics), called niqqud , was developed. In modern forms of the alphabet, as in the case of Yiddish and to some extent Modern Hebrew , vowels may be indicated. Today, the trend is toward full spelling with the weak letters acting as true vowels. When used to write Yiddish , vowels are indicated, using certain letters, either with niqqud diacritics (e.g. אָ or יִ ) or without (e.g. ע or י ), except for Hebrew words, which in Yiddish are written in their Hebrew spelling. To preserve
477-455: A vernacular mother tongue, and continued in use for these purposes long after Judeo-Arabic had become the languages of daily life. It has developed a battery of technical logical terms, such as tiyuvta (conclusive refutation) and tiqu (undecidable moot point), which are still used in Jewish legal writings, including those in other languages, and have influenced modern Hebrew . Like
530-424: A vowel instead of a consonant (which would be, respectively, /ʔ/, /ʕ/, /v/ and /j/ ). When they do, ו and י are considered to constitute part of the vowel designation in combination with a niqqud symbol – a vowel diacritic (whether or not the diacritic is marked), whereas א and ע are considered to be mute, their role being purely indicative of the non-marked vowel. Niqqud
583-443: Is Active Frequentative . The verbal pattern itpa'al is Passive Frequentative . The verbal pattern aphel is Active Causative . The verbal pattern itaphal is Passive Causative . The language has received considerable scholarly attention, as shown in the bibliography below. However, the majority of those who are familiar with it, namely Orthodox Jewish students of Talmud, are given no systematic instruction in
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#1732765609631636-400: Is an abjad consisting only of consonants , written from right to left . It has 22 letters, five of which use different forms at the end of a word. In the traditional form, vowels are indicated by the weak consonants Aleph ( א ), He ( ה ), Waw/Vav ( ו ), or Yodh ( י ) serving as vowel letters, or matres lectionis : the letter is combined with
689-475: Is an abbreviated listing of the most prominent of the (hundreds of) Amoraim mentioned in the Talmud. More complete listings may be provided by some of the external links below. See also List of rabbis . Stammaim is a term used by some modern scholars, such as David Weiss Halivni , for the rabbis who composed the anonymous ( stam ) statements and arguments in the Talmud, some of whom may have worked during
742-476: Is called a gershayim and is a punctuation mark used in the Hebrew language to denote acronyms. It is written before the last letter in the acronym, e.g. ר״ת . Gershayim is also the name of a cantillation mark in the reading of the Torah , printed above the accented letter, e.g. א֞ . The following table displays typographic and chirographic variants of each letter. For the five letters that have
795-519: Is simply pronounced /t/. Likewise, historical /ð/ is simply pronounced /d/. Shin and sin are represented by the same letter, ש , but are two separate phonemes . When vowel diacritics are used, the two phonemes are differentiated with a shin -dot or sin -dot; the shin -dot is above the upper-right side of the letter, and the sin -dot is above the upper-left side of the letter. Historically, left-dot-sin corresponds to Proto-Semitic * ś , which in biblical-Judaic-Hebrew corresponded to
848-487: Is the system of dots that help determine vowels and consonants. In Hebrew, all forms of niqqud are often omitted in writing, except for children's books, prayer books, poetry, foreign words, and words which would be ambiguous to pronounce. Israeli Hebrew has five vowel phonemes, /i e a o u/ , but many more written symbols for them: Note 1: The circle represents whatever Hebrew letter is used. Note 2: The pronunciation of tsere and sometimes segol – with or without
901-638: Is when certain consonants are used to indicate vowels. There is a trend in Modern Hebrew towards the use of matres lectionis to indicate vowels that have traditionally gone unwritten, a practice known as " full spelling ". The Yiddish alphabet , a modified version of the Hebrew alphabet used to write Yiddish, is a true alphabet, with all vowels rendered in the spelling, except in the case of inherited Hebrew words, which typically retain their Hebrew consonant-only spellings. The Arabic and Hebrew alphabets have similarities because they are both derived from
954-536: The Dead Sea Scrolls version (4QLam/4Q111), reversed ordering also appears in the first chapter (i.e. in all the first four chapters). The fact that these chapters follows the pre-exilic pe-ayin order is evidence for them being written shortly after the events described, rather than being later, post-exilic compositions. The descriptions that follow are based on the pronunciation of modern standard Israeli Hebrew. pronunciation By analogy with
1007-566: The Gemara . The Amoraim followed the Tannaim in the sequence of ancient Jewish scholars. The Tannaim were direct transmitters of uncodified oral tradition; the Amoraim expounded upon and clarified the oral law after its initial codification. The first Babylonian Amoraim were Abba Arikha , respectfully referred to as Rav , and his contemporary and frequent debate partner, Shmuel . Among
1060-609: The Iraqi , Syrian and Egyptian Jews . The value of the Yemenite reading tradition has been challenged by Matthew Morgenstern . (The vocalized Aramaic texts with which Jews are familiar, from the Bible and the prayer book , are of limited usefulness for this purpose, as they are in different dialects.) Talmudic Aramaic bears all the marks of being a specialist language of study and legal argumentation, like Law French , rather than
1113-836: The Phoenician alphabet . Historically, a different abjad script was used to write Hebrew: the original, old Hebrew script, now known as the paleo-Hebrew alphabet , has been largely preserved in a variant form as the Samaritan alphabet , and is still used by the Samaritans . The present "Jewish script" or "square script", on the contrary, is a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet and was technically known by Jewish sages as Ashurit (lit. "Assyrian script"), since its origins were known to be from Assyria ( Mesopotamia ). Various "styles" (in current terms, " fonts ") of representation of
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#17327656096311166-412: The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative /ɬ/ (or /ś/). Historically, the consonants ב bet , ג gimmel , ד daleth , כ kaf , פ pe and ת tav each had two sounds: one hard ( plosive ), and one soft ( fricative ), depending on the position of the letter and other factors. When vowel diacritics are used, the hard sounds are indicated by
1219-571: The 2006 precise transliteration system of the Academy of the Hebrew Language; for " צ " SBL uses "ṣ" (≠ AHL "ẓ"), and for בג״ד כפ״ת with no dagesh, SBL uses the same symbols as for with dagesh (i.e. "b", "g", "d", "k", "f", "t"). In transliterations of modern Israeli Hebrew, initial and final ע (in regular transliteration), silent or initial א , and silent ה are not transliterated. To
1272-681: The 3rd century BCE, Jews began to use a stylized, "square" form of the Aramaic alphabet that was used by the Persian Empire (and which in turn had been adopted from the Assyrians ), while the Samaritans continued to use a form of the paleo-Hebrew script called the Samaritan alphabet . After the fall of the Persian Empire in 330 BCE, Jews used both scripts before settling on the square Assyrian form. The square Hebrew alphabet
1325-554: The Aramaic alphabet, which in turn derives either from paleo-Hebrew or the Phoenician alphabet , both being slight regional variations of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet used in ancient times to write the various Canaanite languages (including Hebrew, Moabite, Phoenician, Punic, et cetera). The Canaanite dialects were largely indistinguishable before around 1000 BCE. An example of related early Semitic inscriptions from
1378-410: The Hebrew alphabet, and not loanwords . Geresh is also used to denote an abbreviation consisting of a single Hebrew letter, while gershayim (a doubled geresh ) are used to denote acronyms pronounced as a string of letters; geresh and gershayim are also used to denote Hebrew numerals consisting of a single Hebrew letter or of multiple Hebrew letters, respectively. Geresh is also the name of
1431-553: The Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds. 367 of them were active in the land of Israel from around 200–350 CE, while the other 394 lived in Babylonia during 200–500 CE. In the Talmud itself, the singular amora generally refers to a lecturer's assistant; the lecturer would state his thoughts briefly, and the amora would then repeat them aloud for the public's benefit, adding translation and clarification where needed. The following
1484-409: The Jewish script letters described in this article also exist, including a variety of cursive Hebrew styles. In the remainder of this article, the term "Hebrew alphabet" refers to the square script unless otherwise indicated. The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters. It does not have case . Five letters have different forms when used at the end of a word. Hebrew is written from right to left . Originally,
1537-471: The alphabet was an abjad consisting only of consonants , but is now considered an " impure abjad ". As with other abjads, such as the Arabic alphabet , during its centuries-long use scribes devised means of indicating vowel sounds by separate vowel points, known in Hebrew as niqqud . In both biblical and rabbinic Hebrew, the letters י ו ה א can also function as matres lectionis , which
1590-488: The area include the tenth-century Gezer calendar over which scholars are divided as to whether its language is Hebrew or Phoenician and whether the script is Proto-Canaanite or paleo-Hebrew . A Hebrew variant of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet , called the paleo-Hebrew alphabet by scholars, began to emerge around 800 BCE. An example is the Siloam inscription ( c. 700 BCE ). The paleo-Hebrew alphabet
1643-455: The beginning of a syllable, or when doubled. They were pronounced as fricatives [v ɣ ð x f θ] when preceded by a vowel (commonly indicated with a macron, ḇ ḡ ḏ ḵ p̄ ṯ). The plosive and double pronunciations were indicated by the dagesh . In Modern Hebrew the sounds ḏ and ḡ have reverted to [d] and [ɡ] , respectively, and ṯ has become [t] , so only the remaining three consonants /b k p/ show variation. ר resh may have also been
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1696-590: The earliest Amoraim in Israel were Johanan bar Nappaha and Shimon ben Lakish . Traditionally, the Amoraic period is reckoned as seven or eight generations (depending on where one begins and ends). The last Amoraim are generally considered to be Ravina I and Rav Ashi , and Ravina II , nephew of Ravina I, who codified the Babylonian Talmud around 500 CE. In total, 761 amoraim are mentioned by name in
1749-425: The everyday Hebrew colloquial vocabulary. The symbol resembling an apostrophe after the Hebrew letter modifies the pronunciation of the letter and is called a geresh . The pronunciation of the following letters can also be modified with the geresh diacritic. The represented sounds are however foreign to Hebrew phonology , i.e., these symbols mainly represent sounds in foreign words or names when transliterated with
1802-459: The eye of readers orientating themselves on Latin (or similar) alphabets, these letters might seem to be transliterated as vowel letters; however, these are in fact transliterations of the vowel diacritics – niqqud (or are representations of the spoken vowels). E.g., in אִם ("if", [ʔim] ), אֵם ("mother", [ʔe̞m] ) and אֹם (" nut ", [ʔo̞m] ), the letter א always represents the same consonant: [ ʔ ] ( glottal stop ), whereas
1855-498: The form Pa'el (פַּעֵל) “like to do”, are all in the active voice. But the form Itpe'el (אִתְפְּעֵל), the form Itaph'al (אִתַפְעַל) and the form Itpa'al (אִתְפַּעַל) are essentially reflexive and usually function in a passive sense. The Aramaic verb has two participles : an active participle with suffix and a passive participle with suffix : |} The verbal pattern (binyan) pa‘el are frequentative verbs showing repeated or intense action. The verbal pattern pa'el
1908-566: The juxtapositions ת״ק , ת״ר , ת״ש , ת״ת , and תת״ק respectively. Adding a geresh (" ׳ ") to a letter multiplies its value by one thousand, for example, the year 5778 is portrayed as ה׳תשע״ח , where ה׳ represents 5000, and תשע״ח represents 778. The following table lists transliterations and transcriptions of Hebrew letters used in Modern Hebrew . Clarifications: Note: SBL's transliteration system, recommended in its Handbook of Style , differs slightly from
1961-468: The language to children. The Tiberian system also includes a set of cantillation marks , called trope or te'amim , used to indicate how scriptural passages should be chanted in synagogue recitations of scripture (although these marks do not appear in the scrolls). In everyday writing of modern Hebrew, niqqud are absent; however, patterns of how words are derived from Hebrew roots (called shorashim or "triliterals") allow Hebrew speakers to determine
2014-482: The language, and are expected to "sink or swim" in the course of their Talmudic studies, with the help of some informal pointers showing similarities and differences with Hebrew. Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet ( Hebrew : אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי , Alefbet ivri ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri , Jewish script , square script and block script , is an abjad script used in
2067-596: The late 2nd century BC, and performed this arithmetic function for about a thousand years. Nowadays alphanumeric notation is used only in specific contexts, e.g. denoting dates in the Hebrew calendar , denoting grades of school in Israel, other listings (e.g. שלב א׳ , שלב ב׳ – "phase a, phase b"), commonly in Kabbalah ( Jewish mysticism ) in a practice known as gematria , and often in religious contexts. The numbers 500, 600, 700, 800 and 900 are commonly represented by
2120-489: The letter yod – is sometimes ei in Modern Hebrew. This is not correct in the normative pronunciation and not consistent in the spoken language. Note 3: The dagesh , mappiq , and shuruk have different functions, even though they look the same. Note 4: The letter ו ( waw/vav ) is used since it can only be represented by that letter. By adding a vertical line (called Meteg ) underneath
2173-517: The letter and to the left of the vowel point, the vowel is made long. The meteg is only used in Biblical Hebrew , not Modern Hebrew . By adding two vertical dots (called Sh'va ) underneath the letter, the vowel is made very short. When sh'va is placed on the first letter of the word, mostly it is "è" (but in some instances, it makes the first letter silent without a vowel (vowel-less): e.g. וְ wè to "w") The symbol ״
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2226-628: The letters, called a " dagesh kal", also modifies the sounds of the letters ב , כ and פ in modern Hebrew (in some forms of Hebrew it modifies also the sounds of the letters ג , ד and/or ת ; the "dagesh chazak" – orthographically indistinguishable from the "dagesh kal" – designates gemination , which today is realized only rarely – e.g. in biblical recitations or when using Arabic loanwords ). س א alef , ע ayin , ו waw/vav and י yod are letters that can sometimes indicate
2279-429: The normal form in the following table (letter names are Unicode standard ). Although Hebrew is read and written from right to left, the following table shows the letters in order from left to right: As far back as the 13th century BCE, ancient Hebrew abecedaries indicate a slightly different ordering of the alphabet. The Zayit Stone , Izbet Sartah ostracon , and one inscription from Kuntillet Ajrud each contain
2332-499: The other Judeo-Aramaic languages , it was written in the Hebrew alphabet . May his great name shall be blessed (Kaddish Shalem, 8th century) ַ ני נַטְרַנִי he supervised me נֵיעָרְבִינְהוּ וְנִכְתְּבִינְהוּ There are six major verb stems or verbal patterns (binyanim) in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. The form pe‘al (פְּעַל) “to do”, the form Aph'el (אַפְעֵל) “let do”, and
2385-484: The other dotted/dotless pairs, dotless tav, ת , would be expected to be pronounced /θ/ ( voiceless dental fricative ), and dotless dalet ד as /ð/ ( voiced dental fricative ), but these were lost among most Jews due to these sounds not existing in the countries where they lived (such as in nearly all of Eastern Europe). Yiddish modified /θ/ to /s/ (cf. seseo in Spanish), but in modern Israeli Hebrew, it
2438-504: The period of the Amoraim , but who mostly made their contributions after the amoraic period. See also Savoraim . Jewish Babylonian Aramaic language The language was closely related to other Eastern Aramaic dialects such as Mandaic . Its original pronunciation is uncertain, and has to be reconstructed with the help of these kindred dialects and of the reading tradition of the Yemenite Jews , and where available those of
2491-540: The proper vowel sounds, scholars developed several different sets of vocalization and diacritical symbols called nequdot ( נקודות , literally "points"). One of these, the Tiberian system , eventually prevailed. Aaron ben Moses ben Asher , and his family for several generations, are credited for refining and maintaining the system. These points are normally used only for special purposes, such as Biblical books intended for study, in poetry or when teaching
2544-426: The text being transliterated), resulting in "im", "em" and "om", respectively. The diacritic geresh – " ׳ " – is used with some other letters as well ( ד׳ , ח׳ , ט׳ , ע׳ , ר׳ , ת׳ ), but only to transliterate from other languages to Hebrew – never to spell Hebrew words; therefore they were not included in this table (correctly translating
2597-549: The vowel-structure of a given word from its consonants based on the word's context and part of speech. Unlike the Paleo-Hebrew writing script, the modern Hebrew script has five letters that have special final forms , called sofit ( Hebrew : סופית , meaning in this context "final" or "ending") form, used only at the end of a word, somewhat as in the Greek or in the Arabic and Mandaic alphabets . These are shown below
2650-444: The vowels /i/, /e/ and /o/ respectively represent the spoken vowel, whether it is orthographically denoted by diacritics or not. Since the Academy of the Hebrew Language ascertains that א in initial position is not transliterated, the symbol for the glottal stop ʾ is omitted from the transliteration, and only the subsequent vowels are transliterated (whether or not their corresponding vowel diacritics appeared in
2703-551: The writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages , most notably Yiddish , Ladino , Judeo-Arabic , and Judeo-Persian . In modern Hebrew, vowels are increasingly introduced. It is also used informally in Israel to write Levantine Arabic , especially among Druze . It is an offshoot of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet , which flourished during the Achaemenid Empire and which itself derives from
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#17327656096312756-582: Was later adapted and used for writing languages of the Jewish diaspora – such as Karaim , the Judeo-Arabic languages , Judaeo-Spanish, and Yiddish. The Hebrew alphabet continued in use for scholarly writing in Hebrew and came again into everyday use with the rebirth of the Hebrew language as a spoken language in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in Israel . In the traditional form, the Hebrew alphabet
2809-566: Was used in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah . Following the Babylonian exile of the Kingdom of Judah in the 6th century BCE, Jews began using a form of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet , another offshoot of the same family of scripts, which flourished during the Achaemenid Empire . The Samaritans , who remained in the Land of Israel, continued to use the paleo-Hebrew alphabet. During
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