Aleph
| Alef Bet → | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenician | Hebrew | Aramaic | Syriac | Arabic |
 | א |  | ܐ | ﺍ |
| Alphabetic derivatives | Greek | Latin | Cyrillic | |
| Α | A | А | ||
| Phonemic representation: | ʔ | |||
| Position in alphabet: | 1 | |||
| Numerical (Gematria/Abjad) value: | 1 | |||
, Syriac 'Ālaph ܐ, Hebrew Aleph א, and Arabic ʾAlif ا.Aleph (English pronunciation: /ˈɑːlɨf/) originally represented the glottal stop ([ʔ]), usually transliterated as ʾ (U+02BE) "modifier letter right half ring", a character of the Unicode Spacing Modifier Letters range, based on the Greek spiritus lenis ʼ. For example in the transliteration of the letter name itself, ʾāleph.
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.
| Semitic alphabets |
|---|
| Phoenician (c.1050 – 200 BCE) |
| Semitic abjads · Genealogy |
| Hebrew (400 BCE – present) |
| History · Transliteration Niqqud · Dagesh · Gematria Cantillation · Numeration |
| Syriac (200 BCE – present) |
| Arabic (400 CE – present) |
| History · Transliteration Diacritics · Hamza ء Numerals · Numeration |
Contents[hide] |
[edit] Origin
Aleph is thought to be derived from the West Semitic word for "ox", and the shape of the letter derives from a Proto-Sinaitic glyph based on a hieroglyph depicting an ox's head,
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In modern Hebrew, "me'ulaf", derived from the Hebrew root ʔ-l-f (alef-lamed-pe) is the passive participle of the verb "le'alef", and means trained (when referring to pets) or tamed (when referring to wild animals); the IDF rank of Aluf, taken from an Edomite title of nobility, is also cognate. In modern Arabic, "alif" literally means "tamed animal", but the word itself doesn't have a real connection to the letter other than it contains.
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[edit] In Modern Languages
Aleph is a common character in a number of modern languages.[edit] Arabic
Alif (ألف) (Arabic: ا, pronounced ʾalif) is the first letter of the Perso-Arabic alphabet.Together with Hebrew Aleph, Greek Alpha and Latin A, it is descended from Phoenician ʾāleph, from a reconstructed Proto-Canaanite ʾalp "ox".
Historically, the Perso-Arabic letter was used to render either a long /aː/, or a glottal stop /ʔ/. This led to orthographical confusion, and to introduction of the additional letter hamzatu l-qat` ﺀ. Hamza is not considered a full harf in Arabic orthography: in most cases it appears on a carrier, either a waw, a dotless yā', or an alif. The choice of carrier depends on complicated orthographic rules. Alif إ أ is generally the carrier where the only adjacent vowel is fatha. It is the only possible carrier where hamza is the first phoneme of a word. Where alif acts as a carrier for hamza, hamza is added above the alif, or, for initial alif kasra, below it, indicating that the letter so modified does indeed signify a glottal stop, and not a long vowel.
A second type of hamza, hamzatu l-waṣl (همزة الوصل), occurs only as the initial phoneme of the definite article and in some related cases. It differs from hamzatu l-qat` in that it is elided after a preceding vowel. Again, alif is always the carrier.
The ʾalif madda is, as it were, a double alif, expressing both a glottal stop and a long vowel: ﺁ (final ﺂ) ʼā [ʔæː], for example in القرآن al-qurʼān
The ʾalif maqṣūra (الآلف المقصورة), or "broken alif," looks like a dotless yāʼ, ﻯ (final ﻰ). It may only appear at the end of a word. Although it looks different from a regular Alif, it represents the same sound (long /aː/). Alif maqsura is transliterated as ā in DIN 31635 and ỳ in ISO 233. ʾAlif maqṣūra can be confused with a yāʼ ي because many writers (especially in Egypt) use a dotless "yaa" at the end of a word, when this letter should actually be written with two dots underneath. This makes it more difficult for Arabic learners to distinguish between these two letters, although native speakers can usually tell which letter is intended. The dotless "yaa" is not called alif maqsura in these cases but it only looks like one.
Alif is written in one of the following ways depending on its position in the word:
| Position in word: | Isolated | Initial | Medial | Final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Form of letter: | ا | (None) | (None) | ـا |
[edit] Hebrew
Hebrew spelling: אָלֶףIn Modern Israeli Hebrew, the letter represents either a glottal stop, or has no pronunciation besides that of the vowel attached to it. The pronunciation varies among Jewish ethnic groups.
In gematria, aleph represents the number 1, and when used at the beginning of Hebrew years, it means 1000 (i.e. א'תשנ"ד in numbers would be the date 1754).
Aleph, along with Ayin, Resh, He, and Heth, cannot receive a dagesh. (However, there are few very rare examples where the Masoretes added a dagesh to an Aleph or Resh.)
In Modern Hebrew the frequency of the usage of alef, out of all the letters, is 4.94%.
Aleph is sometimes used as a mater lectionis to denote a vowel, usually /a/. Such use is more common in words of Aramaic and Arabic origin, in foreign names and some other borrowed words.
| Orthographic variants | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Various Print Fonts | Cursive Hebrew | Rashi Script | ||
| Serif | Sans-serif | Monospaced | ||
| א | א | א |  |  |
