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Like other ancient writing systems, the Hebrew alphabet originally was written using a pictographic script. Later, the pictograms evolved into a Hebrew script (sometimes called Paleo-Hebrew) that strongly resembled the ancient Phoenician alphabet.
- Pre-Babylonian Hebrew
Scholars are uncertain how far back ketav Ivri goes in...
- Hebrew Word Pictures
In ancient Hebrew, like Chinese and ancient Egyptian, every...
- Other "levels"
Shivim Panim la'Torah (שִׁבְעִים פָּנִים לַתוֹרָה) - "The...
- Unit One
Ancient Hebrew Alphabet Chart. This is the ultimate Alphabet...
- Brief History of Hebrew
Printer-Friendly Version. A Brief History of Hebrew....
- Copyright © John J. Parsons
THE CONTENTS OF THIS SITE ARE COPYRIGHTED, intended for your...
- Pre-Babylonian Hebrew
The ancient twenty-two Hebrew letters were originally pictures of animals, tools or parts of the body. The objective of this page is to teach the name, sound and meaning of each letter by associating it with common English words and sounds that are related to the original Hebrew.
The Hebrew word picture letters for the word be-ten are: “bet” with a sound of “B” and a word picture of a house or inside; followed by a ”tet” with a sound of the letter “T” and a word picture of surrounding; followed by a noon with a sound of “N” and a word picture of life, something moving.
The picture to the right 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 "alef-bet," because of its first two letters.
The Hebrew alphabet (Hebrew: אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, [a] Alefbet ivri), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is traditionally an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian.
The Hebrew alphabet has gone through an evolution over the past 4,000 years. Remarkable new evidence discovered by Dr. Douglas Petrovich may change how the world understands the origins of the alphabet. Detailed images of the evolution of the Hebrew alphabet from ancient to modern times.
A detailed chart showing the different stages of the Hebrew alphabet from ancient to modern times.
