Gimel
- Gimmel redirects here, for the musical group, see Gimmel (music group).
| ← Bet Gimel Dalet → | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenician | Hebrew | Aramaic | Syriac | Arabic |
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ג |  |
ܓ | ﺟ,ﺝ |
| Alphabetic derivatives |
Greek | Latin | Cyrillic | |
| Γ | C G | Г | ||
| Phonemic representation: | ɡ, ɣ, dʒ, ʒ, ɟ | |||
| Position in alphabet: | 3 | |||
| Numerical (Gematria/Abjad) value: | 3 | |||
Gimel is the third letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ג, Syriac ܓ and Arabic ǧīm ﺟ (in alphabetical order; 5th in higa'i order). Its sound value in the original Phoenician and in all derived alphabets save Arabic is a voiced velar plosive [ɡ]; in Arabic, it represents a voiced postalveolar affricate [dʒ] in the standard language, though this varies from dialect to dialect (with [ɡ] and [ʒ] being the most common alternative pronunciations).
In its unattested Proto-Canaanite form, the letter may have been named after a weapon which was perhaps either a staff sling or a throwing stick, ultimately deriving from a Proto-Sinaitic glyph based on the hieroglyph below:
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek gamma (Γ) and the Latin C and G and the Cyrillic Г.
Contents |
Hebrew Gimel
| Semitic alphabets |
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| Phoenician (c.1050 – 200 BCE) |
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Semitic abjads · Genealogy |
| Hebrew (400 BCE – present) |
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History · Transliteration |
| Syriac (200 BCE – present) |
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| Arabic (400 CE – present) |
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History · Transliteration |
Variations
| Orthographic variants | ||||
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| Various Print Fonts | Cursive Hebrew |
Rashi Script |
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| Serif | Sans-serif | Monospaced | ||
| ג | ג | ג |  |
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Hebrew spelling: גִּימֵל
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 value changed in modern Hebrew from the fricative to the plosive by adding a dagesh. The other three represent the same pronunciation in modern Hebrew, but have had alternate pronunciations at other times and places. In the Temani pronunciation, Gimel represents /ɡ/, /ʒ/, or /d͡ʒ/ when with a dagesh, and /ɣ/ without a dagesh. In modern Hebrew, the combination ג׳ (gimel followed by a geresh) is used in loanwords and foreign names to denote [d͡ʒ].
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, as in the Hebrew alphabet gimel directly precedes dalet, which signifies a poor or 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 tsadi.
Syriac Gamal/Gomal
| Gamal/Gomal |
 Madnḫaya Gamal |
 Serṭo Gomal |
 Esṭrangela Gamal |
In the Syriac alphabet, the third letter is ܓ — Gamal in eastern pronunciation, Gomal in western pronunciation (ܓܵܡܵܠ). It is one of six letters that represents two associated sounds (the others are Bet, Dalet, Kaph, Pe and Taw). When Gamal/Gomal has a hard pronunciation (qûššāyâ) it is a [ɡ], example "goat". When Gamal/Gomal has a soft pronunciation (rûkkāḵâ) it is traditionally pronounced as a [ɣ] (ܓ݂ܵܡܵܠ), or Ghamal/Ghomal. The letter, renamed Jamal/Jomal, is written with a tilde/tie either below or within it to represent the borrowed phoneme [dʒ] (ܓ̰ܵܡܵܠ), which is used in Garshuni and some Neo-Aramaic languages to write loan and foreign words from Arabic or Persian.
Arabic ǧīm
The associated Arabic letter ﺝ is named جيم ǧīm or jīm, and is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:
| Position in word: | Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Form of letter: | ج | ـج | ـجـ | جـ |
The letter ǧīm is matched only by qaf among Arabic consonants in its number of pronunciations in different dialects. As noted above, Modern Standard Arabic has the voiced postalveolar affricate IPA: [dʒ] as its standard pronunciation of the letter, but in Egyptian Arabic and some Yemeni dialects, the letter is pronounced as the voiced velar plosive /ɡ/ (as in Hebrew and the other Semitic languages), in Levantine Arabic as the voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/, in Kuwaiti Arabic a palatal approximant /j/, and still others (particularly among Bedouins) as a palatalized voiced velar plosive, /ɡʲ/, the most common reconstruction from Classical Arabic.
Egyptians often use the letter ﺝ to represent /ɡ/ in foreign words, which may be confusing. This transliteration has spread for many words, e.g. جولف (golf) (also spelled غولف in other Arab countries).
Many Arabs pronounce ﺝ as [ʒ] when speaking in MSA, considering this to be standard, rather than [dʒ]. This pronunciation is very common for many East Arabic (Mashriqi) dialects. In addition, Egyptians are wont to pronounce ﺝ as [ɡ] in all situations, even when speaking MSA, and this carries over even into official communications such as news broadcasts and government bulletins.
In Perso-Arabic script, it is called jim.
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