Expert: Gaddy Yaari - 4/7/2009

Question
Hi Gaddy,
Would you please explain the spelling of the "th" sound in hebrew ,as in Morath, and give me the correct hebrew spelling? Thanks very much.

Answer
Modern Hebrew has two 'T' characters: tet and tav. Both are pronounced identically and are equivalent to the English T.

However, in Loshen Kodesh, an Eastern European dialect of Hebrew, the tav is pronounced as S. Some linguists think that in Biblical times the tav was pronounced as 'th' - otherwise it is hard to explain the redundant T sounds.

Although there are no rules as to how to convert the 'th' sound to Hebrew, more and more Hebrew writers now use a tav followed by an apostrophe to designate the 'th'. Morath would then be spelled as mem vav resh tav apostrophe, 'מורת

Gaddy