Gimel (letter)
Gimel is the third
letter of many
Semitic abjads, including
Phoenician,
Aramaic,
Hebrew ,
Syriac and
Arabic (in
abjadi order; 5th in higa'i order). Its value is a
voiced velar plosive IPA .
The word derives from the Phoenician for "
camel".
In its
Proto-Canaanite form, the letter was likely named after a "throwing stick, boomerang," ultimately deriving from a
Proto-Sinaitic glyph based on the
hieroglyph below:
T14The
Phoenician letter gave rise to the
Greek gamma (Î") and the
Latin C and
G and
Cyrillic Ð".
Variations
The letter gimel is one of the six letters which can receive a
Dagesh Kal. The six are
Bet, Gimel,
Daled,
Kaph,
Pe, and
Taf. Three of them (
Bet,
Kaph, and
Pe) have their sound changed in modern Hebrew from the fricative to the plosive by adding a dagesh. The other three have the same pronunciation in modern Hebrew, but have had alternate pronunciations at other times and places. Gimel was pronounced in some
Sephardi areas as or
with a dagesh, and as
without a dagesh.
See
Bet,
Daled,
Kaph,
Pe, and
Taf.
Significance
In
gematria, Gimel represents the number three.
It is written like a
vav with a
yud as a 'foot', and it resembles a person in motion; symbolically, a rich man running after a poor man to give him charity:
Gimmel directly precedes
dalet in the
Hebrew alphabet, and this which signifies a poor/lowly man, from the Hebrew word
dal.
The word
gimel is related to
gemul, which means justified repayment, or the giving of reward and punishment.
Gimmel is also one of the seven letters which receive a special crown (called a
tagin) when written in a
Sefer Torah. See
Shin,
Ayin,
Teth,
Nun,
Zayin, and
Tzadi.
*
The Mystical Significance of the Hebrew Letters: Gimel
