Aleph (letter)
is the reconstructed name of the first letter of the
Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended
Semitic alphabets as
Phoenician ,
Syriac ,
Hebrew , , and
Arabic .
Aleph originally expressed the
glottal stop (
IPA ), usually
transliterated as , a symbol based on the Greek
spiritus lenis , for example in the transliteration of the letter name itself,
.
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the
Greek Alpha (Α), being re-interpreted to express not the glottal consonant but the accompanying
vowel, and hence the
Latin A and
Cyrillic А.
Aleph is thought to be derived from the West Semitic for "
ox", and the shape of the letter derives from a
Proto-Sinaitic glyph based on a
hieroglyph depicting an ox's head,
F1In modern Hebrew, "aluf" means a domesticated animal, such as a bull or a sheep. In modern Arabic, "aleef" literally means "domesticated".
In
Modern Israeli Hebrew, the letter is either a glottal stop, or has no pronunciation besides that of the
vowel under it.
In
gematria, aleph represents the number 1, and when used at the beginning of
Hebrew years, it means
1000 (i.e. א'תשנ"" in
numbers would be the
date 1754).
Aleph is the subject of a
midrash which praises its humility in not demanding to start the Bible. (In Hebrew the Bible is begun with the second letter of the alphabet,
Bet.) In this folktale, Aleph is rewarded by being allowed to start the
Ten Commandments. (In Hebrew, the first word is 'Anokhi, which starts with an aleph.)
Aleph also begins the three words that make up God's mystical name in
Exodus,
I Am That I Am, (in Hebrew, 'Ehye 'Asher 'Ehye), and aleph is an important part of mystical
amulets and formulas.
Historically, the Arabic letter was used to render either a long [], or a
glottal stop []. This led to orthographical confusion, and to introduction of the additional letter
hamza .
The is, as it were, a double alif, expressing both a glottal stop and a long vowel:
(final
)
The is actually a dotless ,
(final
) (
ISO 233 ) pronounced .
