Talk:History of the Hebrew alphabet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Judaism Portal History of the Hebrew alphabet is part of WikiProject Judaism, a project to improve all articles related to Judaism. If you would like to help improve this and other articles related to the subject, consider joining the project. All interested editors are welcome. This template adds articles to Category:WikiProject Judaism articles.
Project Judaism To-do: edit purge watch Here are some tasks you can do: Requests: Jewish and Biblical Units of Measurement or some such name, to include material of Ancient Hebrew units of measurement but also Talmudic units and use in Halacha (a la the Hebrew Wikipedia article he:מידות ומשקלות תורניים) Collaboration of the week { Cleanup: Jewish mythology - needs to be rewritten to be inline with our other mythology articles. Expand: Yom Ha'atzmaut - quite short for an article of such importance Wikiversity: School of Jewish Studies. Part of the new open content university, Wikiversity. Stubs: Category:Judaism stubs, Category:Tanakh stubs, Category:Synagogue stubs Update: Portal:Judaism is WikiProject Judaism's frequently updated portal. You can help make this the best portal on Wikipedia. Look at the talk page to see how you can help. Template loop detected: Template:WikiProject Judaism
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

	Israel Portal History of the Hebrew alphabet is part of WikiProject Israel, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to Israel on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, visit the project page where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. This template adds articles to Category:WikiProject Israel articles.
Project Israel To Do (Drop-Down Menu): edit purge watch Here are some tasks you can do: Requests: Anglophone pronunciation of foreign languages#Hebrew, Road signs in Israel, Chiloni, Vehicle registration plates of Israel, Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, Area A, Area B, Area C Copyedit: Palestinian views of the peace process Merge: Rechov Sumsum & Rechov Sumsum Shara'a Simsim Cleanup: Media Coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, Agricultural Research In Israel, Cyprus internment camps, Carmel Winery Expand: Category:Companies of Israel, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Category:Israeli songs, Port of Haifa, Allon Plan, Israel Antiquities Authority, Goldstar, Cellcom, Bezeq, Diamond industry in Israel, Geneva Accord, Zman Tel-Aviv, Haifa Airport Stubs: Israel stubs Update: National Religious Party NPOV: Israeli military action in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, Six-Day War, Ashkelon Other: Assess: Translate from Hebrew: He:אותיות השימוש, He:כתיב חסר ניקוד, He:האקדמיה ללשון העברית Translate to Hebrew: Gemara, Chief Rabbi, Palestinophilia, David Gans, Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, David Bar Hayim, Jacob of Lissa, Nosson Zvi Finkel, Bezalel Ashkenazi, Solomon Schechter, Av Beit Din, Howard Fast, Guardian of Zion Award, Martin Gilbert, Hasbara, Israeli wine, Pierre van Paassen, Uri Davis, Aaron Valero
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

[edit] Literal meaning of letters

Aharon, could you please state your source for the information under Literal meaning of letters? Regarding the meanings of the letters' names, I believe there is some confusion between their original meanings and etymology on the one hand and the meanings that these names (or words similar to them) acquired later on the other hand. I believe e.g. that the name "Aleph" originated from the old Hebrew word "aluph", meaning ox, and not from "elef", meaning "one thousand". The letter's old form depicted the head of an ox, as you can see in the table. Please be careful to avoid pseudoscientific language comparison between ancient and modern Hebrew. Dan Pelleg (talk) 13:51, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

The table was becoming much too wide, I split the table, and the history section into a new article called, History of the Hebrew alphabet Epson291 (talk) 21:59, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Good idea - only you've just copied the information from here into the new article, information which is unsourced and at least partly wrong. Dan Pelleg (talk) 22:31, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I copied this here, and I moved the letters to the talk page until something can be reached. Epson291 (talk) 06:23, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Letter	Literal Meaning
alef	n. thousand, myriad (elef)
bet, vet	n. house (bayit)
gimel	n. camel (gamal)
dalet	n. door (delet)
he	prefix the definite article (he-)
vav	n. hook, peg (vov); prefix and (v-)
zayin	n. stabbing weapon (zayin)
khet	n. incisor (khat); n. transgression (kheyt)
tet	n. clay, mud (teet)
yud	n. hand (yad)
kaf, khaf	n. palm of hand, spoon (khof), prefix with (k-)
lamed	v. learn (lamad); prefix to (l-)
mem	n. water (mayim); prefix from (m-)
ayin	n. eye (ayin)
pei, fei	n. mouth (peh)
tsadi(k)	n. righteous (tsaddik)
reish	n. head (rōsh)
shin, sin	n. tooth (shin); prefix that (sh-)

I'd suggest to replace "Literal Meaning" with "Etymology of the letter's name". Some of the meanings listed here are chance convergences and are thus potentially misleading and only trivially interesting, and some of the meanings are not of the letters, but of the corresponding one-letter words (such as "ל=to" or "מ=from"), which is something completely different, and the information about which doesn't belong in a listing of the alphabet. Dan Pelleg (talk) 00:41, 20 April 2008 (UTC)