Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet, called the aleph-bet (אלפבית), has 22 letters—all consonants. Hebrew writes right-to-left, and like Arabic, it's an abjad: vowels are usually omitted in writing, though religious texts use niqqud dots to mark vowels. This makes reading Hebrew a skill—readers supply vowels mentally, like Ancient Greeks did with their alphabet.

Five Hebrew letters (כ מ נ ף ץ) have different final forms when they appear at the end of a word. These 'sofiot' letters—כף, מן, נן, ףן, ץן—look completely different from their in-word counterparts. Beginners always confuse these until they notice the positions where each applies.

Hebrew letters are ancient—the oldest alphabetic letters still in active religious use. Each letter has a name with meaning: Aleph means 'ox,' Bet means 'house,' Gimel means 'camel,' Dalet means 'door.' These Pictish-era symbols were pictures before becoming letters—a tradition Greek inherited from Phoenician, who inherited from Canaanite, who inherited from the first alphabet ever invented.

When Jews returned from Babylonian exile (5th century BCE), Aramaic script replaced the old Hebrew script for daily writing. Religious texts preserved the old letters, but Jews read Torah using Torah scroll script—a formal version—so the two Hebrew scripts diverged. Modern Hebrew uses standard 'cursive' letters; Torah uses special 'Rashi script' letters in religious contexts.