Reflections on the Development of Hebrew Letters

Ross G Caldwell

Ross G Caldwell said:
Come to think of it, that is a good question. What is the earliest list of names of the *letters*? (as opposed to just the letters themselves).

Ross

Here's one answer, from Joumana Medlej -

http://www.cedarseed.com/articles/alphabet.html

"For a long time it was believed that the names of the letters corresponded to the objects that inspired their creation. This mistake lives on in many circles that have only superficial knowledge of their history. The truth is the names assigned to the letters were only a mnemonic device (memory aid) created after they were already fully formed. They looked at the letters and tried to see in them a close-enough image of objects that started with this letter in their language, to make it easier to remember how to write them. The correspondences are therefore naturally constrained, as they only needed to fit enough to be efficient "flash cards". Let us look at the names in detail and correct some further misconceptions about the meanings of some of them.

Alef: "ox". Contrary to myth, there was never an "original" letter with upwards-pointing horns.

Beth: "house", more specifically the double-sloping roof house.

Guimel: probably a dialectal form for gamal, "camel", whose characteristic trait was the hump.

Daleth: a door. In the double-sloping roof houses of Byblos, the doors tended to be triangular in shape.

H�: this is not a word as nothing fitting could be found; it's merely the letter followed by the sound �, much like B is pronounced Bee.

Waw: the plural of this word designates the hooks placed on the ends of wooden posts, and to which the curtains of the Tabernacle were hung.

Zayin: this word is connected to a word still found in Hebrew and Arabic today, that means "to weigh", so it probably means "scale".

Kh�th: Not so much "wall" as its relative "enclosure, barrier".

T�th: connected to a root that means "to spin" or "to roll [into a ball of yarn]"

Y™d: A typically Phoenician word that means both "hand" and "arm" (and still does in Lebanese form eed today).

Kaf: "hand", and it mnemonically it makes sense to find this association coming right after the above.

Lamed: seems to designate the teacher's stick, definitely not a shepherd's goad.

M�m: "water".

Nžn: a large fish, more specifically a cetacean, and the shape of the letter does evoke the curved body of the dolphin which was common in the Mediterranean. This word had disappeared from Hebrew early on but was preserved by the Phoenician names of letters.

Samek: "support", more specifically a vine tutor that is usually made of a small tree of which only the horizontal branches were kept Ð a perfect match for the shape of this letter.

Ayin: "eye".

P�: "mouth".

TsadŽ: could designate a hunting or fishing tool.

Q™f: "ape".

Resh: Aramaised form of r™sh, "head".

Shin: "tooth".

Taw: this is a mark that two parties have agreed upon, cf Ezechiel IX, 4: "you shall mark with a taw".


Ross
 

Huck

Hm. :)

Seems you started to find a way through the djungle.

The writer of the article is not bad, but he suggests, that he knows already, what's behind it. But at least - he did find, that the question is interesting - that's good.


"For a long time it was believed that the names of the letters corresponded to the objects that inspired their creation. This mistake lives on in many circles that have only superficial knowledge of their history. The truth is the names assigned to the letters were only a mnemonic device (memory aid) created after they were already fully formed.

**** His idea is not bad, but inconsequent. With "only a mnemonic device" he throws all good issues already from board with the 3rd sentence.

"Only a mnemonic device" - he should have said: "Oh, I've detected a mnemomic device ... is there a riddle? Is there a system? Is there something, which I don't see?"

But, alright, he detected the idea "mnemonic system", not bad for a scientist. ****




They looked at the letters and tried to see in them a close-enough image of objects that started with this letter in their language, to make it easier to remember how to write them.

****
Wrong logic. He thinks, that first is the letter there and the letter is named by somebody, who "receives" the letter.

How is it with the invention of Tarotcards: First there is a human. Then he has the idea to paint. Then he asks himself, what he wants to paint. Then he paints and then he names the painting, but .... already inside the painting and "having the idea" process the aim of this painting and naming could have been alive and actually it is probably so, that the painter first has a plan and then the action evolves.
Our analysts above overlooks this possibility completely. He ignores the possibility that "somebody invented and knew what he did, at least had a plan, what he wanted to do." ****


The correspondences are therefore naturally constrained, as they only needed to fit enough to be efficient "flash cards". Let us look at the names in detail and correct some further misconceptions about the meanings of some of them.

**** That's always good.

Alef: "ox". Contrary to myth, there was never an "original" letter with upwards-pointing horns.

**** From his few documents our anyalist gives the impression, that he already knows enough documents. We know, that he is stupid in this assertion. If we at trionfi.com would similar careless do our conclusions ... ****
**** He completely overlooks the possibility, that the original script was written from top to bottom , so that the bull actually "was standing upright".****

The rest doesn't offer two much interesting arguments. He's just an idealess meaning-collector with meaningless flash-cards.
 

Ross G Caldwell

"The truth is the names assigned to the letters were only a mnemonic device (memory aid) created after they were already fully formed.

**** His idea is not bad, but inconsequent. With "only a mnemonic device" he throws all good issues already from board with the 3rd sentence."

Well, he offers no evidence, and you offer no evidence. But, I agree with him (I think it's a him) already, on general principles. The principle is, I know of no text in the archaic alphabet that names the letters. He doesn't either. If you do, please tell.

"They looked at the letters and tried to see in them a close-enough image of objects that started with this letter in their language, to make it easier to remember how to write them.

****
Wrong logic. He thinks, that first is the letter there and the letter is named by somebody, who "receives" the letter."

Why is this wrong? It's just a reality. The letters were already fully formed before their names are recorded anywhere. It thus seems reasonable to think that the Hebrew names - which are Hebrew words - were given to the letters *after* they were formed, as a mnemonic device, not at the time they were made.

Are you suggesting that Hebrew was the first alphabetic language? Do you have evidence for this?

"*****Our analysts above overlooks this possibility completely. He ignores the possibility that "somebody invented and knew what he did, at least had a plan, what he wanted to do." ****

I don't know if he overlooks it - if he had evidence it was so, he would offer it. He doesn't have any (and I don't know any), so he doesn't offer it. Obviously, you could be right - but you should offer some proof. Otherwise, you are just making a baseless claim.

**** From his few documents our anyalist gives the impression, that he already knows enough documents. We know, that he is stupid in this assertion. If we at trionfi.com would similar careless do our conclusions ... ****

:) Well, I think we are better. This is why I insist on you telling me what evidence you have that the earliest Phoenician letters had the Hebrew names. If they do not, then we had better be as careful as we are with trionfi evidence.

**** He completely overlooks the possibility, that the original script was written from top to bottom , so that the bull actually "was standing upright".****

I think you are right here. I overlooked that too. This is an intriguing possibility - which texts do you think should be read from top to bottom?

(I know this very often occurs with logographic and ideographic scripts, Chinese and Egyptian for example, but it is very rare in alphabetic scripts, from what I know)

So -

We know that at some point the letter was called "shin".

But, was the letter W called "shin"? (of course I mean the shape we are referring to, not the English letter W).

How do you know? (i.e. give me a text in archaic Hebrew or in Phoenician that names the letter corresponding to this shape, W, shin).

Ross
 

Huck

"The truth is the names assigned to the letters were only a mnemonic device (memory aid) created after they were already fully formed.

**** His idea is not bad, but inconsequent. With "only a mnemonic device" he throws all good issues already from board with the 3rd sentence."

Well, he offers no evidence, and you offer no evidence. But, I agree with him (I think it's a him) already, on general principles. The principle is, I know of no text in the archaic alphabet that names the letters. He doesn't either. If you do, please tell.

"They looked at the letters and tried to see in them a close-enough image of objects that started with this letter in their language, to make it easier to remember how to write them.

****
Wrong logic. He thinks, that first is the letter there and the letter is named by somebody, who "receives" the letter."

Why is this wrong? It's just a reality. The letters were already fully formed before their names are recorded anywhere. It thus seems reasonable to think that the Hebrew names - which are Hebrew words - were given to the letters *after* they were formed, as a mnemonic device, not at the time they were made.

Are you suggesting that Hebrew was the first alphabetic language? Do you have evidence for this?

"*****Our analysts above overlooks this possibility completely. He ignores the possibility that "somebody invented and knew what he did, at least had a plan, what he wanted to do." ****

I don't know if he overlooks it - if he had evidence it was so, he would offer it. He doesn't have any (and I don't know any), so he doesn't offer it. Obviously, you could be right - but you should offer some proof. Otherwise, you are just making a baseless claim.

**** From his few documents our anyalist gives the impression, that he already knows enough documents. We know, that he is stupid in this assertion. If we at trionfi.com would similar careless do our conclusions ... ****

:) Well, I think we are better. This is why I insist on you telling me what evidence you have that the earliest Phoenician letters had the Hebrew names. If they do not, then we had better be as careful as we are with trionfi evidence.

**** He completely overlooks the possibility, that the original script was written from top to bottom , so that the bull actually "was standing upright".****

I think you are right here. I overlooked that too. This is an intriguing possibility - which texts do you think should be read from top to bottom?

(I know this very often occurs with logographic and ideographic scripts, Chinese and Egyptian for example, but it is very rare in alphabetic scripts, from what I know)

So -

We know that at some point the letter was called "shin".

But, was the letter W called "shin"? (of course I mean the shape we are referring to, not the English letter W).

How do you know? (i.e. give me a text in archaic Hebrew or in Phoenician that names the letter corresponding to this shape, W, shin).

#### I just take the last ball.

#### I don't have this text. Others tell, that the list is old. Surely there is somewhere the answer how old the word shin with the meaning tooth "with security" is. But that's not my problem. The alphabetic questions leads in time-regions, where one with the desire for documentary evidence simply has bad cards. The only help is logic and the imagination of the natural conditions, as far they are mentally reconstructable.

You doesn't solve riddles of the Bardes with evidence.

A mnemonic word used in an alphabet has good chances to be really old, as the Alphabet is repeated from generation to generation by people who "learn" it in young age ... language has in this context with security a greater stability than in other contexts, "Aleph beth gimel ... " that surely has a rhythm from beginning on, just for mnemonic reasons ... . It could even jump to the Greek, still recognizable in "Alpha, beta, gamma ...", which means the Alphabet has proven, that it could cross cultures and different languages.
A very stable object ... The "w" is a way to paint tooth. The "w"-form is old, we discussed that. We've an "eye" in the alphabet, we've a "mouth" and we've a "head".

A lucky w=shin=tooth inside a word-family, why do you just think, that the innocent shin=tooth is a forgery of history?

No, shin is likely the true start of alphabet. Hardly you get a better idea offered.

The question is ... :)
where is hidden the nose, where is the ear?

If there is "historical forgery" of the original, then in this questions, not in my shin=tooth. But even in that cases, hidden nose and hidden ear, I would say: forgery or great changes of the mnemonic word list are not likely. The missing has the condition ... that the alphabet-inventer had a problem ... a natural practical problem.
 

Ross G Caldwell

Hi Huck,

"#### I just take the last ball.

#### I don't have this text. "

*****okay - me neither. Thanks for admitting it. But every site I visit with the keywords ="phoenician names" and +letters +alphabet in google tells me they are Phoenician names. How do they know? This is frustrating. What texts are there in Phoenician that name the alphabet?

*****I'll have to ask the experts on the ANE list, and look like an idiot again, like I always do.

"Others tell, that the list is old. Surely there is somewhere the answer how old the word shin with the meaning tooth "with security" is. But that's not my problem. The alphabetic questions leads in time-regions, where one with the desire for documentary evidence simply has bad cards. The only help is logic and the imagination of the natural conditions, as far they are mentally reconstructable."

*****Well okay again - you are speculating. Yes, others do tell that the list is old. But I wish they would tell how they know it is Phoenician, and not Hebrew, etc. If it turns out the list is written when shin had three prongs (not a W), then the iconographical argument about its shape is irrelevant. The point is that both shapes could be teeth, and that by the time of the Sefer Yetzirah, the form Jews wrote was the Square Shin, the three-pronged one. I have shown this amply.

"You doesn't solve riddles of the Bardes with evidence."

*****Okay you're begging a question - why not say "What if the person who invented the alphabet was a Bard who made a riddle?"

*****Instead, you state it as if it were fact, that you know that the person who invented the alphabet - if it was one person at all - made a riddle of it, and was a bard. You don't. If you are the reincarnation of the Master of Alphabet, you'd be better off writing a fiction than trying to convince historians anyway. Your ideas won't be shouted down because of lack of evidence.

"A mnemonic word used in an alphabet has good chances to be really old, as the Alphabet is repeated from generation to generation by people who "learn" it in young age ... language has in this context with security a greater stability than in other contexts, "Aleph beth gimel ... " that surely has a rhythm from beginning on, just for mnemonic reasons ... . It could even jump to the Greek, still recognizable in "Alpha, beta, gamma ...", which means the Alphabet has proven, that it could cross cultures and different languages.
A very stable object ... The "w" is a way to paint tooth. The "w"-form is old, we discussed that. We've an "eye" in the alphabet, we've a "mouth" and we've a "head".

A lucky w=shin=tooth inside a word-family, why do you just think, that the innocent shin=tooth is a forgery of history?

No, shin is likely the true start of alphabet. Hardly you get a better idea offered.

The question is ... :)
where is hidden the nose, where is the ear?

If there is "historical forgery" of the original, then in this questions, not in my shin=tooth. But even in that cases, hidden nose and hidden ear, I would say: forgery or great changes of the mnemonic word list are not likely. The missing has the condition ... that the alphabet-inventer had a problem ... a natural practical problem."

***** Okay, if I take your idea *for the sake of argument* we can have a much better conversation. When you claim it is just so, and that's all there is to it, it is much harder to talk.

So let's see -

ABGDEF - ox, house, camel, door, ? (window?), nail-hook> all around the homestead
(our commentator is weak here, saying HE "isn't a word, since nothing fitting could be found" - well, just because HE doesn't understand it, doesn't give him the right to make it up)

ZChTYKL - scale, enclosure, spun ball, arm, hand, stick > technologies, spinning wool, work, play, discipline - so generally, we're coming inside, getting to the person and ways of living.

MN - Water and fish.

S - a frame or prop for vines to grow on.

GhP - Eye, Mouth (on the head)

Tz - fishhook

Q - ape (?) (back of head?)

RSh - Head, tooth (head again)

Th - sign, mark, seal (an appropriate end).

Okay, what's your answer to the riddle - why is there a fishhook (or hunting implement) and an ape separating a perfectly good arrangement of head features?

Ross
 

firemaiden

The best site I found when researching my post "from vulture to ox" (in which I was also pondering all these questions -- of linkage, how far back do the letters shapes and names go... what were the links to Egyptian hieroglyphics, etc.) is Development of the alphabet

The following is quoted from that site:
  • "(Steve Bett) I believe that the early alphabets and proto-alphabets had a reference in addition to a name, a sound, and a shape. For some reason, no one has bothered to catalog the references or possible references of the letter shapes. If we are dealing with acrophonic phoneticized pictograms, these will be language specific. You can't move a picture name across a linguistic boundary any better than you can a number name. If we can identify what the phonogram shape is a picture of, then we might be able to make some sense out of the sound assignments in Linear B, the Byblos Syllabary, hieroglyphics, and the Semitic letter shapes that don't seem to have a reference."
The question for me, is , was the movement from Phoenician to Hebrew a "move across a linguistic boundary?"
 

Huck

Okay, what's your answer to the riddle - why is there a fishhook (or hunting implement) and an ape separating a perfectly good arrangement of head features?

Ross

The "master of the alphabet", which perhaps was a single man, perhaps a group of teachers, perhaps a cooperating group of teachers belonging to different generations or whatever, had a natural aim: Make reading and writing and a little math as easy as possible. And it is a success story: mankind learned reading and writing. The master of the Alphabet was educated by his mission, by experience. He learnt by experience, what was good for his people. When it was too complicated, they didn't understood. So his methode - his Alphabet - became very simple.

But he had a problem: He had a living language, and he had the idea to have not very much letters, so he must have looked which verbal sounds he had to concentrate in one letter.
As there were with security the Aegyptian 24 syllable signs already around, he had already a model how to do it with only few signs. But he was not free. Okay, he wanted the feature of a face inside the alphabet, but what if "nose" in his language started with the same sound as "eye"? Then he had a problem. He could either take eye or nose.

We don't know, if just this was his problem - but we can imagine, that his task was not easy and that this is a natural problem, not surprizing, which MUST have been there.
.
So, where is the nose? It's the fish-hook.

Paint a fish-hook, paint a nose roughly from the side, it's the same.

"Here's my fishhook", said the teacher and said "tzaddi" to the pupils and pressed the thumb on his nose and all pupils laughed and it is good, when pupils laugh, cause then they learn good.

It's the fish-hook. The form of Tzaddi is very modificated through the early centuries, a difficult letter, which changed often. When it is true, that the first alphabet already was there in 17th,18th century, but our representations are mostly from 400 - 500 years later, we have to calculate the greater modifications in the first time. Either a letter-picture survived the testing phase or not. It's as in playing cards and tarots, the first phase should have been the most creative.

quof = back-head is possible, cause you see the ears, then and resh=head is the next sign.


16th: eye
17th: mouth
18th: fish-hook (nose)
19th: <----- logic demands the ear here, it's quof, the back-head
20th: head
21th: tooth ----> means: show teeth, means: "smile :)"

22th: and here's the mark --- I did it, I sign with a cross, I know the alphabet know.

And now with music:
I am the ABC-man, ho, ho ...
I am the ABC-man, ho, ho ...
I am the ABC-man, ho, ho ...

:) ... old tradition, pupils love jokes and music :)

Well, you've a face and a head ....
..... but where is your body?

What feels good like a fish in the water?

.... what's the story of Osiris and what's the 14th part of his body, for which Isis had to take special care for?
 

kwaw

Huck said:

Hm. What is your theme? The "letter shin" or the visions from lurianic cabbalists of 16th and 17th century about "their" letter shin?

The theme of my posts on the letters was the symbolism of the letters within the judeo-christian kabbalistic traditions circa 13th-17th century, with a reference here and there to the hermetic tradition. That is, my posts were about hebrew letter correlations, the original title of the thread. The subject of the development of the hebrew letters, however it might impact some of the symbolism, is a different subject. Hence why I suppose JMD split it into two differenct threads.

As the symbolism which I presented includes and/or developes upon some earlier attributions, such as those of the SY and theology of the name, which historically speaking are technically pre-kabbalistic, then perhaps to it is easier to avoid the polemics of 'kabbalah' as Ross has suggested by speaking in terms of the 'mystical' rather than the specifically 'kabbalistic' tradition?

The association of the Shin with the three pillars of the ToL does not neccesarily have to postdate luria. While the diagram of the ToL familiar to us derives via Kircher from the Lurianic/Safed school, the concept is much older. The letter shin is described as being the 'root' of the ToL and as having 'three branches' in older kabbalistic sources, the Sefer HaBahir and the Sefer Raziel for example (circa 12/13th cent. c.e.).

The connection between ShN (tooth), ShINIIM (teeth) and fire is explicitely stated in the SY. Also, both tooth/teeth and fire are used as analagous to 'consume, devour' in biblical hebrew and are used as synonyms in the conceptual context of wrath and judgement. The flames of fire, like teeth, 'devour'. AKL ['devour' in hebrew] is used in context both 'to eat' and 'to burn up'.

Re: The Kircher/Lurianic trees. I have assumed Kircher based his Tree on an early example of one of Luria's. But I am not sure of this. Anyone know of a Kircher/Lurianic connection? When could Kircher have come into contact with Lurianic teachings? Anyone know?

Kwaw
 

Huck

Kircher lived 1601 - 1680, so he had no problem to learn something about Luria's teachings. Shabbetai Zevi was 1665/66, that was the height of Jewish Kabbala enthusiasm probably. So Kircher had many ways. Luria died 1572, his pupils started to write in the 80ies or 90ies.

Your theme is different than mine. I'm interested in the understanding of the early alphabet, "how it was meant" and in the Sepher Yetzirah, also "how it was meant", not in the later fiction about it.

We've nowadays better material than the kabbalists in these questions, so we've better chances than them to get the true meaning than the kabbalists had.
 

kwaw

Huck said:
Your theme is different than mine. I'm interested in the understanding of the early alphabet, "how it was meant" and in the Sepher Yetzirah, also "how it was meant", not in the later fiction about it.

History is not just about 'how it was meant', but also 'what it means', and all the stages of development in between. Those stages may include errors and misundertandings, that does not make them fiction, they remain part of the historical facts that led to their present understanding and meaning.

The mystical tradition surrounding the letters is not a fiction, it is a historical fact. Don't want to get into any arguments or anything, but I find your easy dismissal of the mystical traditions of a people as a 'fiction' offensive. The symbolic associations of the hebrew letters cannot be dismissed as ahistorical, because they do not arise from historical considerations of ancient origins, but out of a form of mystical exegesis, which is itself a part of the historical development.

Kwaw