Alef: Writing Hebrew Letters

[@ellyflounder]

I came here from countable infinite set. Trying to figure out how to handwrite aleph

[@jean-chritophedesjarlais8435]

It's a vowel, an A. But it was used interchangeably as an O, E, U and sometimes even as an I. So with the new dot vowel system we just pronounce it according to the dots accompanying it.

[@mccandrew52]

Thank you for your comments. Aleph is a glottal plosive consonant. Over time it gradually lost its pronunciation, but it remained a consonant. In some cases, Aleph can quiesce and lose its consonantal value, but in that case it essentially disappears -- it does not turn into a vowel. A vowel point indicates the vowel pronunciation and is independent from the consonant. Prior to vowel pointing, Hebrew scribes adapted some consonants as so-called matres lectionis, using them to indicate vowels. These included He, Waw, Yod, and less often Aleph.

[@jean-chritophedesjarlais8435]

@@mccandrew52 ah, thank you for the correction. I was mislead by a French author from the 1700s...

[@bobbrown5726]

Thank you!!

[@vm1552]

Alef is quite confusing at times. I tried to figure out on my own how to write the last name Bach in Hebrew. I came up with the Bet then the letter Chet (חב), with a patach or sh'va under Bet. I Googled Bach into Hebrew and saw it written like this: באך

[@mccandrew52]

If one wants to write English (or German) words using Hebrew letters than your first guess is pretty good. An Aleph is a consonant, not a vowel, although under some circumstances an Aleph can quiesce and lose its consonantal value.

[@TripleH919]

So difficult language 😮