Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

71%
+3 −0
Q&A Why do certain Hebrew letters have alternate final forms?

Five Hebrew letters -- כ‎, מ‎, נ‎, צ‎, and פ‎ -- have different forms when at the end of a word. I have heard that this is true for certain letters in Arabic too, though I don't know if they're th...

1 answer  ·  posted 4y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by Moshi‭

Question orthography
#2: Post edited by user avatar Moshi‭ · 2020-11-11T00:39:31Z (about 4 years ago)
Five Hebrew letters -- כ‎, מ‎, נ‎, צ‎, and פ‎ -- have different forms when at the end of a word.  I have heard that this is true for certain letters in Arabic too, though I don't know if they're the "matching" letters.  My question is about Hebrew, though Arabic might be related.

Why do any letters have final forms, and, given that some do, why these five in particular?  Is there a linguistic reason, or is it a quirk of history, or something else?  None of the "regular" forms seem like they would be any harder to read at the end of a word than elsewhere in a word, at least in the scripts I'm familiar with.
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Monica Cellio‭ · 2020-11-10T23:39:47Z (about 4 years ago)
Why do certain Hebrew letters have alternate final forms?
Five Hebrew letters -- כ‎, מ‎, נ‎, צ‎, and פ‎ -- have different forms when at the end of a word.  I have heard that this is true for certain letters in Arabic too, though I don't know if they're the "matching" letters.  My question is about Hebrew, though Arabic might be related.

Why do any letters have final forms, and, given that some do, why these five in particular?  Is there a linguistic reason, or is it a quirk of history, or something else?  None of the "regular" forms seem like they would be any harder to read at the end of a word than elsewhere in a word, at least in the scripts I'm familiar with.