Letters - General

jmd

Qabalah - Letters - General

There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, which is one of the reasons why correlations has been made with the Major Arcana of the Tarot. Some claim, however, that the Tarot may itself have arisen from Kabbalistic thought.

The twenty-two letters are all consonants, though some have vowel-like qualities. For example, Aleph (A), Heh (E) (Eve, in Hebrew, is spelled HVH), Vau (U), Yod (I), Ayin (O). In standard Hebrew, however, the vowel pronunciation which links the 'bones' of the consonant-words is given through 'dots' positioned below the letters.

In Hebrew, also, the numbers are also those same letters. To write 3, for example, one would use the Hebrew letter Gimel (G). Unlike our usual way of thinking, it isn't that the letters have a value, rather they are each letter and numerical value.

The letters are:
  • Alef = 1
  • Bet = 2
  • Gimel = 3
  • Dalet = 4
  • Heh = 5
  • Vav = 6
  • Zain = 7
  • Heth = 8
  • Teth = 9
Following these ten letters, the next ten letters are values of tens:
  • Yod = 10
  • Kaph = 20
  • Lamed = 30
  • Mem = 40
  • Nun = 50
  • Samekh = 60
  • Ayin = 70
  • Peh = 80
  • Tzaddhi = 90
Again, the following have values in their hundreds
  • Qoph = 100
  • Resh = 200
  • Shin = 300
  • Tau = 400
In ancient times, any number would have had to be composed of these various letters to be written. For example, to write '373', either 'GOSh', 'QLAMBR' or another sequence of numeral-letter could be used. This of course gave rise to being able to see meaning into numbers!

In the list above, those in bold are called 'Mother' letters, and correspond to an element, whilst those in Italics are double letters (because they have a plosive and fricative sound - eg, B and V are both expressions of Bet) and correspond to one of the seven traditional celestial bodies (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn).

I'll add some comments relating these to ancient Greek and our own Roman alphabet later... but I'll leave this pot for now - and hope for numerous comments :)!
 

jmd

Early Greek letters also stood for numerals. Around the 3rd century BCE, however, it seems that a number of letters were added. It is my opinion that this was in part due to Egyptian-Alexandrian influence.

Hebrew also added the five letters which had a final form (ie, which were written in a different way if the letter stood at the end of a word), and added thereby the values of 500 through to 900 thus:
  • Kaph (final) = 500
  • Mem (final) = 600
  • Nun (final) = 700
  • Peh (final) = 800
  • Tzaddi (final) = 900
By adding a number of letters to the original 24 Greek letters, a near parallel to the 27 forms of the 22 Hebrew letters resulted:
  • Units
  • A = 1
  • B = 2
  • G = 3
  • D = 4
  • E = 5
  • F = 6
  • Z = 7
  • H = 8
  • Th = 9
  • Tens
  • I = 10
  • K = 20
  • L = 30
  • M = 40
  • N = 50
  • = 60
  • O = 70
  • P = 80
  • Q = 90
  • Hundreds
  • R = 100
  • S = 200
  • T = 300
  • Y = 400
  • Ph = 500
  • X = 600
  • Ps = 700
  • Omiga = 800
  • Shin or tsade (from the Phoenician) = 900
Making these comparisons, and then looking at our own alphabet (which derives from the Roman form of the Greek) certainly leads to a deeper understanding of that aspect of relations between numerals and letters.
 

MeeWah

JMD: Just saw this. Thank you very much for the concise comparisons! Am printing it out for study & reference.
There are similarities in the spellings of the Hebrew letters with the Latin &/or Greek:
alpha, beta, gamma...
Which would you say came first--that is, was it derived from Latin?
 

jmd

Reading your post, MeeWah, made me realise that I omitted to list the Greek letter for 60 in my previous post (it is Ksi).

Again, I am no philologist. It is my understanding that Latin arose later than either Greek or Hebrew, and there is some evidence that the Latin alphabet arose from the Greek. Of Greek and Hebrew, it seems pretty clear that Hebrew arose quite earlier, and some early Hebrew inscriptions appear to have similarities to earlier Babylonian and Egyptian ones.

With regards to your question, it is, in my opinion, more than coincidental that if you drop the 'a' of many of the names of the Greek letters, the Hebrew equivalents result. I also do think that some of the ordering and additions are a consequence of Alexandrian aeclectic influences.

Latin, of course, was the common language which cut across various local regions during the middle ages. The Bible, thus translated into Latin by St Jerome, was (and is) referred to as the Vulgate.

An earlier translation of the old Testament had been made into Greek by, tradition says, 70 (or 72) Rabbis, and due to this number, is commonly referred to as the Septuagint.

So what does this have to do with the previous discussion above? Simply that these three alphabets were regarded as quite important at the time of Tarot's emergence. Each of these alphabets were also considered to reflect a different function: the Hebrew as a reflection of the Divine, the Greek as a reflection of human thought and learning, and Latin as human power. As each began with A, but ended with a different letter, a word was also developed which reflected these three - a word which became significant especially to the Alchemists: AZOTh (the beginning and end of all Work).

Some have also associated these four letters with the elements, and thereby also made links to the suits of the Tarot.
 

Jewel

Simply fascinating! thanks JMD!