Talk:Hebrew alphabet

Done – Dan ☺ 00:51, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Rashi script is listed as an ancestral script, alongside phoenecian, aramaic etc. I thought it was developed more recently, in Europe, which hardly qualifies it as an ancestral script. In fact, I think it is based on the block script we have now, so really it is a descendant of the block script.128.100.71.45 (talk) 15:31, 4 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, moreover it's still used today for printing

biblical commentary, as opposed to the Phoenician etc. Dan ☺ 13:53, 5 August 2010 (UTC)[reply

]

In the table of Hebrew letters, the author neglected to list the soft ghimel and dhaleth. The fact that most modern Israelis do not recognize them does not mean they do not exist in Hebrew. The author should correct this; I do not have the tools to do so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhayat (talk • contribs) 02:10, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The markup of this article, I am afraid, is a total mess, especially in the tables. According to the Wikipedia Manual of Style, markup should be kept as simple as possible:

Increased and decreased font size should primarily be produced through automated facilities such as headings or through carefully designed templates.

The hieratic markup severely handicaps the editability. I have now removed a few of the worst markup excesses, such as font-families (which in many occasions caused problems, see above Talk:Hebrew alphabet#Messed up dots in letters) or absolute size definitions. Much work remains to be done. -- machᵗᵃˡᵏ👍 08:52, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks mach for all that work. The only thing I think looked better before is the appearance of the tables at the top of the article, which were aligned – they look messy now and the second box is much too wide. Dan ☺ 20:42, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The versions of kamatz and reduced kamatz shown in the first two tables in Hebrew alphabet#Vowel points are not the same as the ones that appear in the Comparison table that follows. The former versions, showing a kamatz as a horizontal line with a dot below instead of a T-like shape, are wholly incorrect. I suppose there might be a historic precedent for that form, but the T shape has been standard for many centuries. Check any of the article's references or the Hebrew Wikipedia article on kamatz. Enoent (talk) 18:40, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

אָ | אֳ

In the traditional typeface for Hebrew serif fonts, the kamats's "foot" is thicker at the bottom, like a drop shape (clearly to see e.g. here). Maybe the uploaders forgot to put on their glasses and assumed it was only their blurred vision that made the bulb seem connected to the bar – Dan ☺ 15:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Unicode fonts are terrible: indistinguishable and nearly illegible. Please replace all reference characters with actual images of letters, in the modern serif typeface.

The most confusion comes about from the similarities between Vav, Yod,Final Nun (ן,י,ו); Dalet,Zayin (ז,ד); and Final Kaf and Resh (ר,ך). The table of different styles (e.g., Rashi) is somewhat useful, however, the fact remains that for most people, the default font of Hebrew -- with which they are most familiar -- is the modern serif typeface, such as the one in the image in the infobox at the upper right hand corner of the page:

Saywhat2012 (talk) 21:20, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have been attempting to write in a similar alphabet but find that the ballpoint pen is just not up for the task, with what sort of writing utensils is this generally written with? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hawjam (talk • contribs) 22:53, 5 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Is the vowel in "bus" really a good English analogue for the vowel sound represented by the niqqud Patach? I'd think it was closer to the "a" in "far" or "fall", as the article on Patach itself seems to indicate. Kevin Nelson (talk) 06:36, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Final PE and TSADI seem to be mistaken for normal PE and TSADI. Can someone who knows Hebrew confirm that and correct it as I am only 99.9% sure about this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.76.29.48 (talk) 07:02, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Despite the fact that

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I've updated the page to reflect that Paleo-Hebrew has no 'final forms' like the modern Ashuri script does. The original phrasing seemed to suggest that both scripts used finals. I trust no-one will have any objection. 50.107.129.248 (talk) 16:56, 20 October 2017 (UTC) B.A.[reply]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Hebrew alphabet. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

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I tryed every pre-installed font on Windows(TM) to render the glyphs of the Phoenician alphabet, to no avail. Could someone substitute images for the characters? FlavianusEP (talk) 18:07, 7 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The order in which letters of the Hebrew alphabet are listed is the same everywhere and taken as read. Shouldn't the History section say something about when the ordering was first established, even if that means saying that it is no-longer known? --DStanB (talk) 10:51, 11 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Dan Pelleg: I just revised an old contribution you made regarding vowels in Yiddish. Please have a look and let me know whether I've garbled the original intent of your contribution. Ibadibam (talk) 01:58, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

it’s still good ☺ Dan ☺ 18:55, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Ibadibam (talk) 22:25, 3 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone please find any one of thousands of better representations of the primitive Semitic alphabet? The modern, "gothic" bold/black square letters shown are both misleading and inaccurate to any inscriptions or ancient texts found. ~pablo david — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:3023:802:1A00:A94D:3B2F:BBE8:EF5C (talk) 12:18, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To which specific element are you referring? Is it the image File:Paleo-hebrew_alphabet.jpg? Ibadibam (talk) 17:52, 28 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not aware of any word in Hebrew Audio Bible where ח would be pronounced not as velar but as uvular fricative. So at least in ancient Hebrew it's always [x]. Perhaps I only know Askenasim and no Sephardim. Can [χ] get removed?--Vollbracht (talk) 13:12, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

done according to Hebrew Audio Bible, Mechon Mamre --Vollbracht (talk) 13:38, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@

No such user (talk) 15:53, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply

]

Thank you! In fact, now I judge my edit as a mistake. I'll undo it.--Vollbracht (talk) 21:37, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Someone in 2019 made a disambiguation page out of Cantillation with a rationale, but obviously didn't think to fix the previous usages. The previous page was moved to Hebrew cantillation.

Within this page there are at least two links to Cantillation that ought to be Hebrew cantillation, I think. Could someone knowledgeable check and update these? Shenme (talk) 06:34, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done. There were several of these. In most cases the phrase "cantillation marks" was there, and I just extended the link to comprise both words, because there's a redirect at that term. Largoplazo (talk) 11:38, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It might be more helpful if the pronunciation examples given for the sofit forms contained that consonant at the end of the word, rather than at the beginning, as they now do. For example, for the letter /mɛm/, use "m as in Tom", rather than "m as in mother". Thomprod (talk) 19:02, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I pronounce as in login, not joke. 2.96.206.170 (talk) 00:37, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

According to a comment in the EL section, Previous contributors to this article have expressed a preference for refraining from adding additional links; see also Wikipedia:External links and Wikipedia:Spam. If you would like to propose additional links, please first discuss on the article’s talk page and achieve consensus as a courtesy to previous/fellow contributors, so I'm heeding this and humbly proposing to add a link to this quiz tool, which can be used to aid the memorization of Hebrew letters. 82.43.190.243 (talk) 20:39, 19 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

the line break in question is separating the two words of matres lectionis, I would fix it but i do not know what is causing the line break and i did attempt to guess what was breaking it unsuccessfully, this could just be the device im reading it on but as of writing i lack the resources to verify that thesis. If someone could either reprehend my issue or reprimand the article's formatting that would be phenomenal.`

Caucasianhamburger (talk) 13:55, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a line break between the two words in my browser (Chrome on Windows 10). Largoplazo (talk) 20:20, 27 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Caucasianhamburger: I changed the template on the Hebrew letters in the paragraph. Does it look right now? 82.43.190.243 (talk) 00:20, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

thank you, it looks better now, and i am on a chromebook running google chrome

Caucasianhamburger (talk) 13:19, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

‎I don't speak Hebrw, but it doesn't make sense to suggest "t as in tool" for [θ]. This is the case in a table for תָו /sɔv/, /sɔf/ /θav/ t as in tool Espensj (talk) 08:11, 21 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In the alphabet table of the Pronunciation section, I see "[o]~[ō]" as the sound value given for ע‎ (ayin). Isn't that a typo? Compare e.g. with the pronunciation key page indicating [ʔ] as ayin's modern Israeli phonetic value.

Would someone competent check it out? Thank you. Javítgató (talk) 09:37, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pbly a character mischoice / encoding glitch. Contradicts even the approximation in the far right cell of the same row: "When ʔ, as in button [ˈbʌʔn̩] or clipboard [ˌklɪʔ⁠ˈbɔɹd]. When ʕ, no English equivalent."

So please revise it, thanks in advance. Javítgató (talk) 11:44, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The previous description of the pronunciation of alef (a as in father) was useless, but the new version "When ʔ, as in button [ˈbʌʔn̩] or clipboard [ˌklɪʔ⁠ˈbɔɹd]" is not better. Although some English speakers pronounce button as /ˈbʌʔn̩/ (which is called "t-glottalisation"), the t is pronounced and there is no glottal stop in both standard British and standard US pronunciations: /ˈbʌtn/, /ˈbətn/, or similar. Check a dictionary. The second example, clipboard is a possibility but the given IPA omits the p for some reason despite it being always pronounced. About the closest English gets to a glottal stop is the cut between the p and the b, so /ˈklɪpʔbɔrd/, /ˈklɪpʔboʊrd/ are imperfect but perhaps close enough to give someone the idea if they aren't familiar with glottal stops. But really all this is saying is that alef used as a glottal stop is pronounced as a glottal stop (using IPA to explain IPA is a flawed idea). This omits that on a great many occasions it is pronounced as a vowel, as in the table here, and that in the absence of

I (the person responsible for that change) agree with you 80%. I was just trying to make quick work of it by copying the unhelpful guidance already given for ayin. However their pronunciation as a glottal stop is reflected in the right-hand column should match.

The sound actually matches the glottal stop that English words that "start" with a vowel actually start with when spoken in isolation or at the beginning of an utterance (given that the column header says "European", I can note, for example, that this is true as well in, for example, German), but that's pointless to explain to the average English speaker because it isn't phonemic and the non-linguistically informed among us aren't aware of it. For English speakers who are aware that "Baal" has two syllables, it would be useful to explain that it's what comes between the two consonants. I'm just tossing out ideas here. Another option would be "no equivalent English phoneme, basically silent".

I disagree with "This omits that on a great many occasions it is pronounced as a vowel". As I noted in one of my edit summaries, that's no more true than it would be to say "On a great many occasions bet is pronounced as [b] + vowel." The convention is that the letters represent consonants, that vowels aren't written (except when pointing is used), and that some of the consonants may stand as

matres lectionis. Largoplazo (talk) 10:33, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply

]

Since we aren't trying to write an academic treatise, but rather an article accessible to a reader who knows little or nothing about Hebrew pronunciation, "consonants may stand as matres lectionis" is true but suboptimal. If we click on mater lectionis, we read "consonants that are used to indicate a vowel", so the simplest thing is to shortcut the technical language and acknowledge that sometimes alef in a word indicates a vowel. It isn't about nikkud, which was a late invention to document pronunciation that already existed. Zero^talk 02:12, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

... so the simplest thing is to shortcut the technical language and acknowledge that sometimes alef in a word indicates a vowel is simple but pointlessly inaccurate for the same reason as, as I've already pointed out, we don't say that "sometimes bet is pronounced like [b] plus a vowel, that gimel is sometimes pronounced like [g] plus a vowel" etc. The comparable thing to do, if keeping it simple is the goal, is to say it's silent. There's no more reason to account for vowels explicitly when they follow aleph than there is when they follow a consonant familiar to English speakers, and it's confusing to do so. Just saying that aleph is silent will give the impression to a reader who doesn't understand that the vowels are unwritten that אמרתם is pronounced [mʁtm], which, of course, isn't true, but giving the impression that it's pronounced [amʁtm] is less helpful than that, as the explicit mention of the vowel only for the aleph implies that it is the only vowel in the word. Largoplazo (talk) 04:39, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]