Aleph

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Alef
Bet →
← Alef Bet →
Phoenician
Hebrew	א
Aramaic
Syriac	ܐ
Arabic	ا
Phonemic representation	ʔ
Position in alphabet	1
Numerical value	1
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
Greek	Α
Latin	A
Cyrillic	А

ʾĀlep is the reconstructed name of the first letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician Aleph , Syriac 'Ālaph ܐ, Hebrew Aleph א, and Arabic ʾAlif ا.

Aleph (/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.

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,

.

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 Standard Arabic, أليف /aliːf/ literally means "tamed" or "coy", and is derived from the root |ʔ-l-f| from which the past tense verb آلَفَ /aːlafa/ means to "to coy". Since the names of Arabic letters are phonetic abstractions with no meanings except in their Semitic ancestors, the word itself doesn't have a real connection to the letter other than it contains.

Arabic

Written as ا, spelled as ألف and transcribed as ʾalif is the first letter in Arabic and 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".

Alif is written in one of the following ways depending on its position in the word:

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ا‎	ـا‎	ـا‎	ا‎

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 hamzat 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, hamzat waṣl (همزة وصل, in Egypt pronounced [ˈhæmzet ˈwɑsˤl]), occurs only as the initial phoneme of the definite article and in some related cases. It differs from hamzat 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 ـآ) ʾā /ʔaː/, for example in القرآن al-qurʾān.

The ʾalif maqṣūrah (ألف مقصورة), or "broken alif;" commonly known in Egypt as ألف لينة [ˈʔælef læjˈjenæ]. It looks like a dotless yāʾ, ى (final ـى). 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] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized transliteration standard: iso 233 (help) in ISO 233. DIN can be confused with a yāʼ because they are both normally written finally as ى (without dots) in Egypt, Sudan and sometimes other places, but anyway its occurrence in Modern Standard Arabic is rare. In the case when ى represents final /-a/, it is commonly known as, especially in Egypt, ألف لينة [ˈʔælef læjˈjenæ] and when it represents final /-a/, it is called [je]. In Egypt, it is always short [-æ, -ɑ] if used in Egyptian Arabic and most commonly short in Modern Standard Arabic, as well.

Hebrew

Written as א, spelled as אָלֶף and transcribed as Aleph.

In 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	Cursive Hebrew	Rashi Script
א	א	א

Rabbinic Judaism

'Aleph is the subject of a midrash which praises its humility in not demanding to start the Bible. (In Hebrew the Bible begins 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 אָנֹכִי, which starts with an aleph.)

In the Sefer Yetzirah, the letter 'Aleph is King over Breath, Formed Air in the universe, Temperate in the Year, and the Chest in the soul.

'Aleph is also the first letter of the Hebrew word emet, which means truth. In Jewish mythology it was the letter aleph that was carved into the head of the golem which ultimately gave it life.

Aleph also begins the three words that make up God's mystical name in Exodus, I Am who Am (in Hebrew, 'Ehyeh 'Asher 'Ehyeh אהיה אׁשר אהיה), and 'aleph is an important part of mystical amulets and formulas.

Aleph in Jewish mysticism represents the oneness of God. The letter can been seen as being composed of an upper yud, a lower yud, and a vav leaning on a diagonal. The upper yud represents the hidden and ineffible aspects of God while the lower yud represents God's revelation and presence in the world. The vav ("hook") connects the two realms.

Jewish mysticism relates Aleph to the element of air, The Fool (Key 0, value 1) of the major arcana of the tarot deck,^[1] and the Scintillating Intelligence (#11) of the path between Kether and Chokmah in the Tree of the Sephiroth.

Hebrew sayings with aleph

From Aleph to Tav describes something from beginning to end; the Hebrew equivalent of the English From A to Z.

One who doesn't know how to make an Aleph is someone who is illiterate.

No...with a big Aleph! (lo b'aleph rabati - לא באלף רבתי) means Absolutely not!.

Syriac Alaph/Olaf

Alaph
Madnḫaya Alaph
Serṭo Alaph
Esṭrangela Alaph

In the Syriac alphabet, the first letter is ܐ — Syriac: ܐܵܠܲܦ — Alaph (in eastern dialects) or Olaf (in western dialects). It is used in word-initial position to mark a word beginning with a vowel — although some words beginning with i or u do not need its help, and sometimes an initial Alaph/Olaf is elided. For example, when the Syriac first-person singular pronoun ܐܵܢܵܐ is in enclitic positions, it is pronounced no/na (again west/east) rather than the full form eno/ana. The letter occurs very regularly at the end of words, where it represents the long final vowels o/a or e. In the middle of the word, the letter represents either a glottal stop between vowels (but West Syriac pronunciation often makes this a palatal approximant), a long i/e (less commonly o/a) or is silent.

Numeral

As a numeral it Alaph/Olaf stands for the number one. With a dot below, it is the number 1,000, with a line above it, Alaph/Olaf will represent 1,000,000. with a line below it is 10,000 and with two dots below it is 10,000,000.

Ancient Egyptian

"aleph"
in hieroglyphs

The Egyptian "vulture" hieroglyph (Gardiner G1), by convention pronounced [a]) is also referred to as alef, on grounds that it has traditionally been taken to represent a glottal stop, although some recent suggestions^[2] tend towards an [ɹ] sound instead.

The phoneme is commonly transliterated by a symbol composed of two half-rings, in Unicode (as of version 5.1, in the Latin Extended D range) encoded at U+A722 Ꜣ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF and U+A723 ꜣ LATIN SMALL LETTER EGYPTOLOGICAL ALEF. A fallback representation is the numeral 3, or the Middle English character ȝ Yogh; neither are to be preferred to the genuine Egyptological characters.

Other uses

Mathematics

In set theory, the Hebrew aleph glyph is used as the symbol to denote the aleph numbers, which represent the cardinality of infinite sets. This notation was introduced by mathematician Georg Cantor.

External links

Arabic reading / writing for beginners

References

^ Tarot Journey with Leisa ReFalo - The Magician
^ Schneider, Thomas. 2003. "Etymologische Methode, die Historizität der Phoneme und das ägyptologische Transkriptionsalphabet." Lingua aegyptia: Journal of Egyptian Language Studies 11:187–199.

[1] Tarot Journey with Leisa ReFalo - The Magician

[2] Schneider, Thomas. 2003. "Etymologische Methode, die Historizität der Phoneme und das ägyptologische Transkriptionsalphabet." Lingua aegyptia: Journal of Egyptian Language Studies 11:187–199.

[1]

[2]