Hebrew alphabet
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- noun
- /ˈhiːbruː ˈælfəˌbɛt/
- There are 27 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, including 5 final forms.
- letters of the Hebrew alphabet
Examples
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Yiddish, though primarily of Germanic derivation, uses a modified Hebrew alphabet and is read, like Hebrew, from right to left.
Academic text (2000) -
There are 27 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, 22 letters, and 5 final forms.
Blog text (15) -
The ancient Hebrew alphabet contained no vowels so God's name was rendered only in consonants.
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Josh is learning to write the Hebrew alphabet to improve his language skills.
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Each letter in the Hebrew alphabet has its unique sound and shape.
Synonyms
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An alphabet of letters used to write Hebrew and other Jewish languages, for example Yiddish and Ladino
A set of letters used to write Hebrew and related languages like Yiddish and Ladino
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a straightforward compositional noun phrase: 'Hebrew' specifies the language/cultural domain and 'alphabet' denotes a set of letters, so a learner who knows both words can infer it means the set of letters used for Hebrew. The structure is descriptive and mirrors common cross-linguistic patterns, so the meaning is immediately derivable rather than idiomatic.
Etymology
Hebrew alphabet began long ago when the signs for sounds were simple pictures, such as an ox or a house that stood for a sound. One popular story says these picture-signs slowly became the 22 written 'letters', so Hebrew alphabet is the name for that particular set of letters used to write Hebrew today.