 | Taw letter: Encyclopedia II - Taw letter - Taw in Hebrew
Taw letter - Taw in Hebrew
Taw letter - Hebrew Pronunciation:
The letter Taw is usually pronounced in modern Hebrew as the English letter T (IPA /t/). T is an alveolar plosive, although Tau may sometimes be pronounced as a dental plosive.
Taw letter - Variations on Written form/pronunciation:
The letter Taw is one of the six letters which can receive a Dagesh Kal. The six are Bet, Gimmel, Daled, Kaph, Pe, and Taw (see Hebrew Alphabet for more about these letters). Three of them (Bet, Kaph, and Pe) have their sound changed in modern Hebrew from the fricative to the plosive by adding a dagesh. The other three have the same pronunciation in modern Hebrew, but have had alternate pronunciations at other times and places. Taw was pronounced in tranditional Ashkenazi pronunciation (a form which still is common today, especially among Diaspora Jews) as an alveolar fricative, like the English S, without the dagesh, and had the plosive form when it had the dagesh. In some Sephardi areas, such as Yemen, Taw without a dagesh was pronounced as /θ/ without a dagesh and the plosive form ([t]) with the dagesh. See Bet, Daled, Kaph, Pe, and Gimmel.
Taw letter - Significance of Taw:
In gematria Taw represents the number 400, the largest number that can be made without using the Sophit forms (see Kaph, Mem, Nun, Pe, and Tzade).
A chupchik can also be placed in front of it ('ת), giving it the IPA sound /θ/ or /ð/.
Taw is the last letter of the Hebrew word emet, which means truth. The midrash explains that emet is made up of the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet (Aleph, Mem, and Taw). Sheqer (falsehood), on the other hand, is made up of the 19th, 20th, and 21st (and penultimate) letters. Thus, truth is all-encompassing, while falsehood is narrow and deceiving. In Jewish mythology it was the word emet that was carved into the head of the golem which ultimately gave it life.
From Aleph to Taw describes something from beginning to end; the Hebrew equivalent of the English From A to Z.
Other related archiveshamza ء, Aleph, Arabic alphabet, Arabic letters, Aramaic, Ashkenazi, Bet, Cyrillic alphabet, Dagesh, Daled, Diacritics, Diaspora, Gimmel, Greek, Hebrew, Hebrew Alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, History, IPA, Jewish mythology, Kaph, Latin, Mem, Numerals, Numeration, Nun, Pe, Phoenician, Phoenician alphabet, S, Semitic abjads, Sephardi, T, Tau, Tav (number), Transliteration, Tzade, Yemen, alveolar fricative, dagesh, gematria, t, truth, voiceless alveolar plosive, ð, θ
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Taw in Hebrew", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
