Hebrew/Aleph-Bet/4

 Aleph-Bet Lesson 4 —

Welcome to the fourth lesson of the Hebrew alphabet! In this lesson you will learn the two new Hebrew letters - and, and two new niqqud symbols - ħolam and shuruq.

Letters
This lesson we will learn two letters, each has only one form:

Lamed
The twelfth letter in the Hebrew alphabet is Lamed. It makes the "l" sound (IPA: /l/, "l" as in "lamb"). It is the only letter in the print Hebrew alphabet that rises above the line.

Vav
The sixth letter in the Hebrew alphabet is Vav. It makes three sounds: Also
 * 1) The "v" sound (IPA: /v/, "v" as in "violin").
 * 2) The "o" sound (IPA: /o/, "o" as in "gore").
 * 3) The "u" sound (IPA: /u/, "u" as in "flu").
 * When doubled it makes the "w" semivowel (IPA: /w/, "w" as in "well"), but only in foreign words.

You might remember that we learned that the letter Aleph has three purposes: 1) It makes the glottal stop 2) When at the beginning of a word it means the word starts with a vowel and 3) When preceded by any "a" vowel, when at the end of a word (there are exceptions) and in foreign words (because in most texts there are no marked vowels) it makes the "a" sound (IPA: /a/, "a" as in "spa").

Vav plays the same roles as Aleph (except for 2., that's reserved for Aleph): it makes the "v" sound and when charged with an "o" or "u" vowel or in foreign words (because in most texts there are no marked vowels) it makes the "o" or "u" sound. More about that in the next section.

Vowels
How do we know if Vav makes the "v", "o" or "u" sound? Two niqqud signs are there to help us:

Ħolam
The ħolam is the dot above the Vav.

It produces the "o" sound (IPA: /o/, "o" as in "gore"). It can appear as a dot in the top of the space between two letters (xx) and then it's called Ħolam Ħaser ("empty ħolam") or on a Vav, and then it is called Ħolam Malei ("full ħolam"). In modern Israeli Hebrew there is no distinction between the two save spelling.

Shuruq
The shuruq is the dot to the left of the Vav.

It produces the "u" sound (IPA: /u/, "u" as in "flu"). When charged by any other vowel Vav is pronounced as a "v".

Connection Vav - Vav Haħibur
You remember the Definite He? We learned then that while in English the definite article exists as a separate word ("the"), in Hebrew it exists as an affix, namely the letter He. So if bat means "a daughter", habat means "the daughter".

The same is true for the conjunction "and". While, in English, "and" is a separate word, in Hebrew it appears as an affix, a letter that you add to the beginning of any word and functions as a separate word. For example:

av father em mother av va’em father and mother

Words
shalom peace (masculine, singular), hello, goodbye bul postal stamp (masculine, singular), bull's-eye, spot on! shen tooth (feminine, singular) matanah gift, present (feminine, singular) malon hotel (masculine, singular) milah word, circumcision (feminine, singular) ot letter (alphabet), sign (feminine, singular)

Summary
In this lesson, you have learned: Practice what you've learned in the exercises.
 * The letters Lamed and Vav.
 * The niqqud symbols Ħolam (ֹ) and Shuruq (ּ).
 * The words and.
 * The conjunction "and" in Hebrew - Vav Haħibur.

Next lesson: Aleph-Bet 5 >>>