Teth
| Teth | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phoenician | Hebrew | Aramaic | Syriac | Arabic |
| ט | ܛ | ط | ||
| Alphabetic derivatives |
Greek | Latin | Cyrillic | |
| Θ | - | Ѳ | ||
| Phonemic representation: | tˤ | |||
| Position in alphabet: | 9 | |||
| Numerical (Gematria/Abjad) value: | 9 | |||
Ṭēth (also Teth, Tet) is the ninth letter of many Semitic abjads (alphabets), including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Tet ט, Syriac ܛ and Arabic Ṭāʾ ط; it is 9th in abjadi order and 16th in modern Arabic order.
Its sound value is /tˤ/, one of the Semitic emphatic consonants.
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek Theta (Θ).
Contents |
Origins
| Semitic alphabets |
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| Phoenician (c.1050 – 200 BCE) |
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| 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 |
The Phoenician letter name ṭēth means "wheel", but the letter possibly (according to Brian Colless) continues a Middle Bronze Age glyph named ṭab "good", Tav in Arameic and Tov טוב in Hebrew, ṭayyib طيب in modern Arabic, based on the nfr "good" hieroglyph, . Jewish scripture books about the "holy letters" from the 10th century and on discuss the connection or origin of the letter Teth with the word Tov,[1] and the Bible uses the word 'Tov' in alphabetic chapters to depict the letter.[2]
Hebrew Tet
| Orthographic variants | ||||
| Serif | sans-Serif | Monospaced | Cursive Hebrew |
Rashi Script |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ט | ט | ט | ||
Hebrew spelling: טֵית
Hebrew pronunciation
In Modern Hebrew, Tet represents a voiceless alveolar plosive /t/, although this can be pharyngealized to produce [tˤ] in traditional Temani and Sephardi pronunciation.
Significance
In gematria, Tet represents the number nine. When followed by an apostrophe, it means 9,000. The most common example of this usage is in the numbers of the Hebrew years (e.g., ט'תשנד in numbers would be the date 9754).
As well, in gematria, the number 15 is written with Tet and Vav, (9+6) to avoid the normal construction Yud and Hei (10+5) which spells a name of God. Similarly, 16 is written with Tet and Zayin (9+7) instead of Yud and Vav (10+6) to avoid spelling part of the Tetragrammaton.
Tet is also one of the seven letters which receive special crowns (called tagin) when written in a Sefer Torah. See Shin, Ayin, Gimmel, Nun, Zayin, and Tzadi.
Arabic Ṭāʼ
The letter is named ṭāʼ; Modern Standard Arabic pronunciation: /tˤ/. The letter is commonly known in Egypt as [tˤɑ]. It is written in several ways depending in its position in the word:
| Position in word: | Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Form of letter: | ط | ـط | ـطـ | طـ |
Similar symbols
A symbol similar to the Phoenician teth is used for the tensor product, as 
, but this is presumably an independent development, by modification of the multiplication sign ×. The Hebrew ט is also visually similar to the letter Ʋ.
Reference
- ^ This was especially emphasized ever since the late 1600's after the Baal Shem Tov became influential, since the letter Teth was in his Acronym standing for Tov, and goodness was part of his philosophy.
- ^ i.e. Psalms 119: 65-72. and many more.
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