Hebrew Pronunciation & Spelling, Part 2
In Part One we covered the often confused issue of vowels in the Hebrew language. Now let's look at some similarly confusing letters that have multiple sounds, along with resolving some confusions over doubled up letters in the English transliteration. We'll save prepositions for a future post. Division of Letters Hebrew has 22 letters, but these are split into three different groups: Mothers, Doubles, and Simples (or Singles), which we learn in the Third Knowledge Lecture. The Mother Letters are Aleph, Mem, and Shin, relating to the three primary elemental forces. The term 'mother' for these is appropriate since all other forces are born from these elements. The Double Letters are Beth, Gimel, Daleth, Kaph, Peh, Resh, Tav. These relate to the seven planets. The Simple or Single Letters are the remaining twelve letters: Heh, Vav, Zayin, Cheth, Teth, Yod, Lamed, Nun, Samekh, Ayin, Tzaddi, Qoph. The terms 'Mother' and 'Simple' are fairly common sen...