Language
The Hebrew alphabet
Twenty-two letters, all consonants, read right to left, each one also a number. Every shape started as a picture of something: alef was an ox, bet a house, mem a wave of water. Tap through them below.
Letters
22
all consonants, alef to tav
Final forms
5
kaf, mem, nun, pe, tsadi
Shapes to learn
27
the 22 letters plus the 5 final forms
Reading direction
Right to left
numbers inside the text still run left to right
The chart
All 22 letters, in order
Hebrew reads right to left. Tap any letter for its sound, its number and where its shape came from.
Alef
אָלֶף= 1- Sound
- silent; carries whatever vowel is written under it
- Where the shape comes from
- Ox. The earliest form was an ox head turned on its side.
- A word that starts with it
- אַבָּא (abba) · dad
Where the shapes came from
An ox, a house, a wave of water
The letter names are the fossil record. Alef is ox, bet is house, mem is water, ayin is eye, pe is mouth. In the older script those names describe, the shapes were still recognisable drawings of the things they were named for.
The block letters on this page are not that script. They are the square Aramaic hand that Jewish scribes adopted after the Babylonian exile, and it has been standard for more than two thousand years. Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls are written in it, a few in the older one.
The same alphabet travelled west too. Phoenician traders carried it to Greece, alef and bet became alpha and beta, and the A and B you are reading now are their descendants.
Sofit forms
The five letters that change shape
Kaf, Mem, Nun, Pe, Tsadi are written differently when they land at the end of a word. Same letter, same sound, longer tail. This is the single most common thing that trips up a new reader, because a word can look unfamiliar purely because of where it sits.
And three letters change sound with a dot
A dot inside the letter, called a dagesh, hardens it. Printed Hebrew usually leaves the dot out and expects the reader to know which sound is meant.
b, or v without the dot inside
k, or ch from the throat without the dot
p, or f without the dot
Numbers
Letters as numbers
Alef through tet count 1 to 9, yod through tsadi count in tens, and qof through tav count in hundreds. Add the letters of a word and you get its gematria. It is not mysticism by default, it is just how Hebrew wrote numbers before Arabic numerals arrived, and it is still how Hebrew years and Torah chapters are numbered.
Ones, 1 to 9
Tens, 10 to 90
Hundreds, 100 to 400
In use
What a page of Hebrew actually looks like
There are no capital letters, and no separate numerals in daily use: Israeli signs, receipts and spreadsheets run on 1, 2, 3 like everywhere else. Letters as numbers survive in Hebrew dates, in chapter and verse numbers, and on the occasional cornerstone.
The dots and dashes that carry the vowels, nikud, appear in children's books, poetry, dictionaries and prayer books. A newspaper, a bus stop and a website carry none of them, and readers supply the vowels from context.
Handwriting is a separate problem. Israelis write a cursive script that shares almost nothing with these shapes, which is why a form at the bank can look like another language entirely. Reading the block letters first is the normal order.
Next
Where to go next
Four pages that start where this one stops.
Frequently asked questions
How many letters are in the Hebrew alphabet?+
22. Five of them (kaf, mem, nun, pe and tsadi) have a second shape used at the end of a word, called a final or sofit form, which brings the total number of shapes to 27. They are the same letters with the same sounds.
Does Hebrew have vowels?+
The 22 letters are all consonants, with alef, he, vav and yod doing double duty as vowel carriers. Vowels are written as dots and dashes above and below the letters, a system called nikud. Israeli newspapers, street signs and websites leave nikud out entirely: readers supply the vowels from context.
Which way does Hebrew read?+
Right to left. Numbers inside Hebrew text still read left to right, which is why a bilingual page can look like it is fighting itself.
Why does each letter have a number?+
Hebrew had no separate numerals, so letters served as numbers: alef is 1, yod is 10, qof is 100. The practice of reading a word's total, gematria, comes straight out of that. It is why the year 5786 is written תשפ"ו.
What is the difference between print and cursive Hebrew?+
The letters on this page are the print (block) forms used in books, signs and screens. Israelis handwrite a completely different cursive script, which is what you will meet on a form at the bank. Learning to read block first is the normal order.
How long does it take to learn to read Hebrew?+
Reading the letters is a weekend of work: there are 22 of them and the sound-to-shape mapping is regular. Reading unvowelled Hebrew at speed is the long part, and it is mostly vocabulary rather than alphabet.