Taw, Tav or Taf is the twenty-second and last letter in many Semitic abjads An abjad is a type of writing system in which each symbol always or usually stands for a consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate vowel. It is a term suggested by Peter T. Daniels to replace the common terms consonantary or consonantal alphabet or syllabary to refer to the family of scripts called West Semitic. In popular usage, abjads, including Phoenician Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called "Canaan" in Phoenician, Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic, "Phoenicia" in Greek and Latin, and "Pūt" in Ancient Egyptian. Phoenician is a Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup; its closest living relative is Hebrew. The area where Phoenician, Aramaic Aramaic is a Semitic language belonging to the Afroasiatic language family. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic subfamily, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic group of languages, which also includes Canaanite languages such as Hebrew and Phoenician. Aramaic script was widely adopted for other languages and is, Hebrew Extinct as a regularly spoken language by the 4th century CE, but survived as a liturgical and literary language; revived in the 1880s Tav ת and Arabic alphabet The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic and Urdu. After the Latin alphabet, it is the second-most widely used alphabet around the world Tāʾ ﺕ. Its original sound value is a voiceless alveolar plosive The voiceless alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosives is t, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t. The dental version can be distinguished with the underbridge diacritic , and the, IPA: [t],
The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It is the first and oldest alphabet in the narrow sense that it notes each vowel and consonant with a separate symbol. It is as such in continuous use to this day. The letters were also used to represent Tau Tau is the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 300. The name in English is pronounced /ˈtaʊ/, but in Modern Greek it is /ˈtaf/. This is because the pronunciation of the combination of Greek letters αυ has changed from ancient to modern times from one of [au] to either [av] or [af], depending on (Τ), Latin The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was borrowed and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome, whose alphabet was then adapted and further modified by the ancient T Taw was the last letter of the Western Semitic and Hebrew alphabets, and probably represented a cross. The sound value of Semitic Taw, Greek alphabet Tαυ , Old Italic and Latin T has remained fairly constant, representing [t] in each of these; and it has also kept its original basic shape in all of these alphabets, and Cyrillic Cyrillic script is an alphabet developed in the 9th century in Bulgaria, and used in the Slavic national languages of Belarusian, Bulgarian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, Macedonian, Montenegrin and Ukrainian, and in the non-Slavic languages of Moldovan, Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Tuvan, and Mongolian. It also was used in past languages of Eastern Te Te is the letter in the Cyrillic alphabet corresponding to T in the Latin alphabet. It represents /t/, a voiceless dental plosive, except when followed by ь or any of the palatalizing vowels, when it represents /tʲ/. Small cursive Cyrillic т (T) looks like Latin m (M) (Т).
Origins of Taf
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| Semitic alphabets The history of the alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the history of writing. The first alphabet emerged around 2000 BCE to represent the language of Semitic workers in Egypt , and was derived from the alphabetic principles of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Nearly all alphabets in the world today either descend directly from |
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| Phoenician The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia. It has been classified as an abjad because it records only
(c. Circa means "approximately", usually referring to a date1050 – 200 BCE Common Era, abbreviated as CE, is one of the designations for the world's most commonly used year-numbering system. The numbering of years using Common Era notation is identical to the numbering used with Anno Domini notation, 2010 being the current year in both notations and neither using a year zero. Common Era is also known as Christian Era and) |
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𐤀 ʾĀlep is the reconstructed name of the first letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician Aleph , Syriac 'Ālaph ܐ, Hebrew Aleph א, and Arabic ʾAlif ا 𐤁 Bet, Beth, or Vet is the second letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ב Syriac ܒ and Arabic alphabet bāʔ ﺏ. Its value is a voiced bilabial plosive, IPA /b/ 𐤂 Gimel is the third letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ג, Syriac ܓ and Arabic ǧīm ﺟ . Its sound value in the original Phoenician and in all derived alphabets save Arabic is a voiced velar plosive [ɡ]; in Arabic, it represents a voiced postalveolar affricate [dʒ] in the standard language, though this 𐤃 Dalet is the fourth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ד, Syriac ܕ and Arabic dāl ﺩ (in abjadi order; 8th in modern order). Its sound value is a voiced alveolar plosive ([d]) 𐤄 He is the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician , Aramaic, Hebrew ה, Syriac ܗ and Arabic hāʾ ه. Its sound value is a voiceless glottal fricative
𐤅 Vav is the sixth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic (in abjadi order; it is 27th in modern Arabic order). In most Semitic languages it represents the voiced labial-velar approximant IPA: [w], and in some (such as Hebrew and Arabic) also the long close back rounded vowel /uː/ depending on 𐤆 Zayin is the seventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician 𐤆, Aramaic , Hebrew ז, Syriac ܙ and Perso-Arabic alphabet ﺯ [zāī]. It represents a voiced alveolar fricative, IPA: [z] 𐤇 Ḥet or H̱et is the reconstructed name of the eighth letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician ḥēth , Syriac ḥēth ܚ, Hebrew ḥēth (also khet or chet) ח, Arabic ḥāʾ ح (in abjadi order), and Berber 𐤈 Ṭēth is the ninth letter of many Semitic abjads (alphabets), including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Tet ט, Syriac ܛ and Arabic Ṭāʾ ط; it is 9th in abjadi order and 16th in modern Arabic order 𐤉 Yodh is the tenth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Yud י, Syriac ܝ and Arabic Yāʾ ﻱ (in abjadi order, 28th in modern order). Its sound value is IPA: [j] in all languages for which it is used; in many languages, it also serves as a long vowel, representing IPA: [iː]
𐤊 Kaph is the eleventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Kaf כ, Arabic alphabet Kāf ﻙ, Persian alphabet ک. Its value is IPA: [k] (the voiceless velar plosive) 𐤋 Lamed or Lamedh is the twelfth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Lamed ל and Arabic alphabet Lām ل. Its sound value is IPA: [l] 𐤌 Mem is the thirteenth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew מ and Arabic mīm م. Its value is IPA: [m] 𐤍 Nun is the fourteenth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew נ and Arabic alphabet nūn ن . It is the third letter in Thaana (ނ), pronounced as "noonu". Its sound value is IPA: [n] 𐤎 Samekh or Simketh is the fifteenth letter in many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic, representing /s/. The Arabic alphabet, however, uses a letter based on Phoenician šin to represent /s/ ; however, that glyph takes Samekh's place in the traditional Abjadi order of the Arabic alphabet
𐤏 Ayin or ʿayin is the sixteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ע and Arabic ʿayn ع . It is the twenty-first letter in the new Persian alphabet. It represents a sound approximately like a voiced pharyngeal fricative (IPA: [ʕ]), which has no equivalent in English 𐤐 Pe is the seventeenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Pei פ, Persian alphabet Pe پ and Arabic alphabet fāʼ ف 𐤑 Tsade is the eighteenth letter in many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Tsadi צ and Arabic Ṣād ﺹ. Its oldest sound value is probably IPA: [sˤ], although there is a variety of pronunciation in different modern Semitic languages and their dialects. It represents the coalescence of three Proto-Semitic "emphatic 𐤒 Qoph or Qop is the nineteenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Syriac, Hebrew ק and Arabic alphabet qāf ق (in abjadi order). Its sound value is an emphatic (pharyngealized) velar stop, IPA: [kˁ], or uvular stop /q/. The OHED (Oxford Hebrew English Dictionary) gives the letter Qoph a transliteration value of Q or a 𐤓 Resh is the twentieth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ר and Arabic alphabet rāʾ ﺭ. Its sound value is one of a number of rhotic consonants: usually IPA: [r] or /ɾ/ but also /ʁ/ or /ʀ/ in Hebrew
𐤔 Shin (also spelled Šin or Sheen) is the twenty-first letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician 𐤔, Aramaic/Hebrew ש, and Arabic ﺵ (in abjadi order, 13th in modern order). Its sound value is a voiceless sibilant, IPA: [ʃ] or /s/ 𐤕
Semitic abjads The history of the alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the history of writing. The first alphabet emerged around 2000 BCE to represent the language of Semitic workers in Egypt , and was derived from the alphabetic principles of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Nearly all alphabets in the world today either descend directly from · Genealogy Nearly all the worldwide segmental scripts -- which can loosely be described as "alphabets" -- appear to have derived from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet. Also called the Middle Bronze Age alphabets due to their era of origin , Proto-Sinaitic first appeared in Canaan, Sinai and Egypt during the Middle Bronze Age, and were adapted from
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| Hebrew The Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, and because of its place of origin, the Assyrian script (not to be confused with the Syriac alphabet). The alphabet is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic
(400 BCE – present) |
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א ʾĀlep is the reconstructed name of the first letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician Aleph , Syriac 'Ālaph ܐ, Hebrew Aleph א, and Arabic ʾAlif ا ב Bet, Beth, or Vet is the second letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ב Syriac ܒ and Arabic alphabet bāʔ ﺏ. Its value is a voiced bilabial plosive, IPA /b/ ג Gimel is the third letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ג, Syriac ܓ and Arabic ǧīm ﺟ . Its sound value in the original Phoenician and in all derived alphabets save Arabic is a voiced velar plosive [ɡ]; in Arabic, it represents a voiced postalveolar affricate [dʒ] in the standard language, though this ד Dalet is the fourth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ד, Syriac ܕ and Arabic dāl ﺩ (in abjadi order; 8th in modern order). Its sound value is a voiced alveolar plosive ([d]) ה He is the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician , Aramaic, Hebrew ה, Syriac ܗ and Arabic hāʾ ه. Its sound value is a voiceless glottal fricative ו Vav is the sixth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic (in abjadi order; it is 27th in modern Arabic order). In most Semitic languages it represents the voiced labial-velar approximant IPA: [w], and in some (such as Hebrew and Arabic) also the long close back rounded vowel /uː/ depending on
ז Zayin is the seventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician 𐤆, Aramaic , Hebrew ז, Syriac ܙ and Perso-Arabic alphabet ﺯ [zāī]. It represents a voiced alveolar fricative, IPA: [z] ח Ḥet or H̱et is the reconstructed name of the eighth letter of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, continued in descended Semitic alphabets as Phoenician ḥēth , Syriac ḥēth ܚ, Hebrew ḥēth (also khet or chet) ח, Arabic ḥāʾ ح (in abjadi order), and Berber ט Ṭēth is the ninth letter of many Semitic abjads (alphabets), including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Tet ט, Syriac ܛ and Arabic Ṭāʾ ط; it is 9th in abjadi order and 16th in modern Arabic order י Yodh is the tenth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Yud י, Syriac ܝ and Arabic Yāʾ ﻱ (in abjadi order, 28th in modern order). Its sound value is IPA: [j] in all languages for which it is used; in many languages, it also serves as a long vowel, representing IPA: [iː] כך
ל מם נן ס ע פף
צץ ק ר ש ת
History · Transliteration
Niqqud · Dagesh · Gematria
Cantillation · Numeration
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| Syriac
(200 BCE – present) |
ܐ ܒ ܓ ܕ ܗ ܘ
ܙ ܚ ܛ ܝ ܟܟ ܠ
ܡܡ ܢܢ ܣ ܥ ܦ
ܨ ܩ ܪ ܫ ܬ
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| Arabic
(400 CE – present) |
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ا ب ت ث ج ح
خ د ذ ر ز س
ش ص ض ط ظ
ع غ ف ق ك
ل م ن ه و ي
History · Transliteration
Diacritics · Hamza ء
Numerals · Numeration
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Taf is believed to have come from a simple mark; a cross or asterisk-like marking, perhaps indicating a signature.
Hebrew Tav
Hebrew spelling: תָו
Hebrew Pronunciation
The letter Tav in modern Hebrew usually represents a voiceless alveolar plosive /t/).
Variations on Written form/pronunciation
The letter Tav is one of the six letters which can receive a Dagesh Kal. The six are Bet, Gimmel, Daled, Kaph, Pe, and Tav (see Hebrew Alphabet for more about these letters). Three of them (Bet, Kaph, and Pe) have their sound values 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. In traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation, Tav represented an /s/ (a form which is still heard today, especially among Diaspora Jews) without the dagesh, and had the plosive form when it had the dagesh. In some Sephardi areas, as well as Yemen, Tav without a dagesh represented a voiceless dental fricative /θ/ without a dagesh and the plosive form with the dagesh. See Bet, Daled, Kaph, Pe, and Gimmel.
Significance of Tav
In gematria Tav represents the number 400, the largest single number that can be represented without using the Sophit forms (see Kaph, Mem, Nun, Pe, and Tzade).
In representing names from foreign languages, a geresh or "chupchik" can also be placed after the tav ('ת), making it represent /θ/ /ð/.
In Judaism
Tav 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 Tav: אמת). 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. But when the letter "aleph" was erased from the Golem's forehead, what was left was "met"—death. And so the Golem died.
Ezekiel 9:4 depicts a vision in which the Tav plays a Passover role similar to the blood on the lintel and doorposts of a Hebrew home in Egypt.[1] In Ezekiel’s Old Testament vision, the Lord has his angels separate the demographic wheat from the chaff by going through Jerusalem, the capital city of ancient Israel, and inscribing a mark, a Tav, “upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.”
In Ezekiel's vision, then, the Lord is counting Tav Israelites as worthwhile to spare, but counts the people worthy of annihilation who lack the Tav and the critical attitude it signifies. In other words, looking askance at a culture marked by dire moral decline is a kind of shibboleth for loyalty and zeal for God.[2]
Sayings with Taf
"From Aleph to Taf" describes something from beginning to end; the Hebrew equivalent of the English "From A to Z".
Syriac Taw
In the Syriac alphabet, as in the Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets, taw (ܬ) is the last letter in the alphabet. It represents either a hard /t/ (voiceless alveolar plosive) or a soft /θ/ (voiceless dental fricative).
| Esṭrangelā
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Madnḥāyā
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