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Comments on What sound did the letter ℵ encode in ancient Hebrew, and why did it morph into the greek vowel Α?

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What sound did the letter ℵ encode in ancient Hebrew, and why did it morph into the greek vowel Α?

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Here are two claims I've often heard or read:

  1. The Hebrew language originally did not write down vowels.

  2. The Greek (and subsequently the Latin) alphabet developed from the Hebrew alphabet. In particular, the letter ℵ (aleph) developed into the Greek Α (alpha) and finally the Latin A.

Now I noticed some apparent contradiction in this: The Greek Α as well as the Latin A both encode a vowel. So if it evolved from the Hebrew ℵ, it seems that this should also encode the same vowel. But that cannot be if there were no vowels in ancient Hebrew.

Therefore I guess that not only the letter, but also the sound associated with that letter changed. Therefore my question:

What sound did the letter ℵ encode in ancient Hebrew, and why did it morph into the greek vowel Α?

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General comments (3 comments)
General comments
manassehkatz‭ wrote over 3 years ago

Just a comment, because I am no linguistics expert. But I know some Hebrew. Aleph is a letter with no real sound of it's own - effectively it is only a vowel, the catch is that which vowel it becomes is not written down. Or rather, not written down in the Torah or other sacred texts on parchment. It is often written down when those same texts are written for study, prayer, etc.

manassehkatz‭ wrote over 3 years ago

And in fact, it really does match the letter "A" - cat vs. cape, etc. - the sound changes depending on other letters in the word. Hebrew does it differently, but the point is that Aleph or A - each has multiple vowel sounds and no real sound of its own.

tommi‭ wrote over 3 years ago

"A" has different vowel sounds in English, not in all languages that use the letter.