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The Phoenician alphabet proper uses 22 consonant letters—as an abjad used to write a Semitic language, the vowel sounds were left implicit—though late varieties sometimes used matres lectionis to denote some vowels.
[5] [6] The Semitic alphabet became the ancestor of multiple writing systems across the Middle East, Europe, northern Africa, and South Asia, mainly through Phoenician and the closely related Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, and later Aramaic (derived from the Phoenician alphabet) and the Nabatean—derived from the Aramaic alphabet and developed into ...
Yodh (also spelled jodh, yod, or jod) is the tenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician yōd 𐤉, Hebrew yud י , Aramaic yod 𐡉, Syriac yōḏ ܝ, and Arabic yāʾ ي . Its sound value is / j / in all languages for which it is used; in many languages, it also serves as a long vowel , representing / iː / .
In the process of developing from Proto-Semitic, Proto-Semitic /p/ became Arabic /f/, and this is reflected in the use of the letter representing /p/ in other Semitic languages for /f/ in Arabic. Examples on usage in Modern Standard Arabic: Fāʾ-fatḥah (فَـ /fa/) is a multi-function prefix most commonly equivalent to "so" or "so that."
The sixth letter, wa, is used for close back vowels (u and o), and the tenth letter, ya is used for close front vowels (i and e). These last two can also serve as the consonants w/v and y. The eighth letter corresponds to the Semitic heth, and is called eh; it is pronounced as a long i-vowel but is used only as a suffix for the third person ...
Shin (also spelled Šin (šīn) or Sheen) is the twenty-first and penultimate letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician šīn 𐤔, Hebrew šīn ש , Aramaic šīn 𐡔, Syriac šīn ܫ, and Arabic sīn س .
Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ʾālep 𐤀, Hebrew ʾālef א , Aramaic ʾālap 𐡀, Syriac ʾālap̄ ܐ, Arabic ʾalif ا , and North Arabian 𐪑.
The name abjad is based on the Arabic alphabet's first (in its original order) four letters — corresponding to a, b, j, and d — to replace the more common terms "consonantary" and "consonantal alphabet" in describing the family of scripts classified as "West Semitic".