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Teth

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Teth
Phoenician
𐤈
Hebrew
ט
Aramaic
𐡈
Syriac
ܛ
Arabic
ط
Phonemic representation
Position in alphabet9
Numerical value9
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
GreekΘ
Latinϴ[a]
CyrillicѲ

Teth, also written as Ṭēth or Tet, is the ninth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Arabic ṭāʾ ط‎, Aramaic ṭēṯ 𐡈, Hebrew ṭēt ט‎, Phoenician ṭēt 𐤈, and Syriac ṭēṯ ܛ. The Phoenician letter also gave rise to the Greek theta (Θ), originally an aspirated voiceless dental stop but now used for the voiceless dental fricative. The Arabic letter (ط) is sometimes transliterated as Tah in English,[1] for example in Arabic script in Unicode.

The sound value of Teth is //, one of the Semitic emphatic consonants.

Origins

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The Phoenician letter name ṭēth may mean "spinning wheel"[2] pictured as (compare Hebrew root ט-ו-י‎ (ṭ-w-y) meaning 'spinning' (a thread) which begins with Teth). According to another hypothesis (Brian Colless[citation needed]), the letter possibly continues a Middle Bronze Age glyph named ṭab 'good', Aramaic טַב‎ 'tav', Hebrew טוב‎ 'tov', Syriac ܛܒܐ 'tava', modern Arabic طَيّب 'ṭayyib', all of identical meaning.

Jewish religious books about the "holy letters" from the 10th century onward discuss the connection or origin of the letter Teth with the word tov "good". This was especially emphasized ever since the late 1600s after the Baal Shem Tov became influential, since the letter Teth was in his Acronym standing for Tov, and goodness was part of his philosophy. The acrostic poems of the Bible use 'Tov' to represent the letter (e.g. Psalm 119:65-72).

Arabic ṭāʾ

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ṭāʾ طاء
ط
Usage
Writing systemArabic script
TypeAbjad
Language of originArabic language
Sound values
Alphabetical position16
History
Development
  • 𐤈
    • 𐡈‎
      • 𐢋‎
        • ط
Other
Writing directionRight-to-left
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

The letter is named ṭāʾ  طَاءْ; Modern Standard Arabic pronunciation: /tˤ/.

It has four forms, and the letter does not change its shape depending on its position in the word:

Position in word Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form:
(Help)
ط ـط ـطـ طـ

Hebrew tet

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Orthographic variants
Serif sans-Serif Monospaced Cursive
Hebrew
Rashi
script
ט ט ט

The Hebrew spelling of name of the letter: טֵית

Hebrew pronunciation

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In Modern Hebrew, Tet represents a voiceless alveolar plosive /t/, and is therefore usually homophonic with the abjad's final letter, Tav ת‎. However, Tet can be pharyngealized to produce [tˤ] in traditional Temani and Sephardi pronunciation. [tˤ] is also probably the pronunciation in Biblical Hebrew.

Significance

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In gematria, Tet represents the number nine. When followed by an apostrophe, it means 9,000. The most common example of this usage is in the numbers of the Hebrew years (e.g., ט'תשנד‎ in numbers would be the date 9754).

As well, in gematria, the number 15 is written with Tet and Vav, (9+6) to avoid the normal construction Yud and Hei (10+5) which spells a name of God. Similarly, 16 is written with Tet and Zayin (9+7) instead of Yud and Vav (10+6) to avoid spelling part of the Tetragrammaton.

Tet is also one of the seven letters which receive special crowns (called tagin) when written in a Sefer Torah. See Shin, Ayin, Gimmel, Nun, Zayin, and Tzadi.

Similar symbols

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A symbol similar to the Phoenician teth is used for the tensor product, as , but this is presumably an independent development, by modification of the multiplication sign ×. The Hebrew ט‎ is also visually similar to the letter Ʋ.

Character encodings

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Character information
Preview ט ط ܛ
Unicode name HEBREW LETTER TET ARABIC LETTER TAH SYRIAC LETTER TETH SAMARITAN LETTER TIT
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 1496 U+05D8 1591 U+0637 1819 U+071B 2056 U+0808
UTF-8 215 152 D7 98 216 183 D8 B7 220 155 DC 9B 224 160 136 E0 A0 88
Numeric character reference ט ט ط ط ܛ ܛ ࠈ ࠈ


Character information
Preview 𐎉 𐡈 𐤈
Unicode name UGARITIC LETTER TET IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER TETH PHOENICIAN LETTER TET
Encodings decimal hex dec hex dec hex
Unicode 66441 U+10389 67656 U+10848 67848 U+10908
UTF-8 240 144 142 137 F0 90 8E 89 240 144 161 136 F0 90 A1 88 240 144 164 136 F0 90 A4 88
UTF-16 55296 57225 D800 DF89 55298 56392 D802 DC48 55298 56584 D802 DD08
Numeric character reference 𐎉 𐎉 𐡈 𐡈 𐤈 𐤈

Notes

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  1. ^ The Latin letter theta was never included in one of the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet. The Latin letter theta is only used in certain languages only.

References

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  1. ^ ""ﻄ" U+FEC4 Arabic Letter Tah Medial Form Unicode Character". comport. Archived from the original on 7 June 2019. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
  2. ^ Albright, William F. (1969). The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and Their Decipherment. Harvard University Press.
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