All Topics  
Dalet

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Dalet
 
 
  Topics Dalet Topic Home

Dalet (also spelled Daleth or Daled) is the fourth letter
Letter (alphabet)

A letter is an element in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Each letter in the written language is usually associated with one phoneme in the spoken form of the language....
 of many Semitic
Semitic languages

File:Amarna Akkadian letter.pngThe Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa....
 alphabets, including Phoenician
Phoenician alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet is a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention taken to originate around 1050 BC. It was used for the writing of Phoenician language, a Northern Semitic languages language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia....
, Aramaic
Aramaic alphabet

The Aramaic alphabet has been called an abjad--that is, a consonantal alphabet -- used for writing Aramaic language. It is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet, and became distinctive from it by the eighth century BCE....
, Hebrew
Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. Five of these letters have a different form when appearing as the last letter in a word....
 , Syriac
Syriac alphabet

The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC. It is one of the Semitic languages abjads directly descending from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic alphabet, and Hebrew alphabet alphabets....
  and Arabic
Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet is the writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic language, Persian language, and Urdu language....
  (in abjadi order; 8th in modern order). Its sound value is a voiced alveolar plosive
Voiced alveolar plosive

The voiced alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental consonant, alveolar consonant, and postalveolar consonant stop consonant is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d....
 .

The letter is based on a glyph of the Middle Bronze Age alphabets
Middle Bronze Age alphabets

The Middle Bronze Age alphabets are two similar undeciphered scripts, dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age , and believed to be ancestral to nearly all modern alphabets:...
, probably called dalt "door" (door in Modern Hebrew is delet), ultimately based on a hieroglyph
Egyptian hieroglyphs

Egyptian hieroglyphs was a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that contained a combination of logographic and alphabetic elements....
 depicting a door, O31

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek delta
Delta (letter)

Delta is the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 4. It was derived from the Phoenician alphabet Dalet , but in the Ancient Greek language, it represented a voiced dental plosive ....
, Latin D
D

D is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled dee , plural dees....
 and the equivalent in the Cyrillic
Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic alphabet is a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by five Slavic languages national languages as well as non-Slavic . It is also used by many other languages of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Siberia and other languages in the past....
 ?
De (Cyrillic)

eading=Cyrillic letter De|Image=...
.

le class=prettytable style="text-align:center;">
Orthographic
Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein ....
 variants
Various Print FontsCursive
Hebrew		Rashi
Script
Rashi script

Rashi script is a semi-Hebrew cursive typeface for the Hebrew alphabet, in which Rashi#Works are printed both in the Talmud and Tanakh . This does not mean that Rashi himself used such a script: the typeface is based on a 15th century Sephardi Jews semi-cursive hand and was called by the Ashkenazic Rishonim - the Hachmei Provence script....
Serif Sans-serif
Sans-serif

In typography, a sans-serif or sans serif typeface is one that does not have the small features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without"....
 		Monospaced
???
The letter is dalet in the modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation (see Tav (letter)
Taw (letter)

Taw or Tav is the twenty-second and last letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language Tav and Arabic alphabet ....
).






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Dalet'
Start a new discussion about 'Dalet'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Dalet (also spelled Daleth or Daled) is the fourth letter
Letter (alphabet)

A letter is an element in an alphabetic system of writing, such as the Greek alphabet and its descendants. Each letter in the written language is usually associated with one phoneme in the spoken form of the language....
 of many Semitic
Semitic languages

File:Amarna Akkadian letter.pngThe Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa....
 alphabets, including Phoenician
Phoenician alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet is a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention taken to originate around 1050 BC. It was used for the writing of Phoenician language, a Northern Semitic languages language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia....
, Aramaic
Aramaic alphabet

The Aramaic alphabet has been called an abjad--that is, a consonantal alphabet -- used for writing Aramaic language. It is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet, and became distinctive from it by the eighth century BCE....
, Hebrew
Hebrew alphabet

The Hebrew alphabet consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. Five of these letters have a different form when appearing as the last letter in a word....
 , Syriac
Syriac alphabet

The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC. It is one of the Semitic languages abjads directly descending from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic alphabet, and Hebrew alphabet alphabets....
  and Arabic
Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet is the writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic language, Persian language, and Urdu language....
  (in abjadi order; 8th in modern order). Its sound value is a voiced alveolar plosive
Voiced alveolar plosive

The voiced alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental consonant, alveolar consonant, and postalveolar consonant stop consonant is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d....
 .

The letter is based on a glyph of the Middle Bronze Age alphabets
Middle Bronze Age alphabets

The Middle Bronze Age alphabets are two similar undeciphered scripts, dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age , and believed to be ancestral to nearly all modern alphabets:...
, probably called dalt "door" (door in Modern Hebrew is delet), ultimately based on a hieroglyph
Egyptian hieroglyphs

Egyptian hieroglyphs was a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that contained a combination of logographic and alphabetic elements....
 depicting a door, O31

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek delta
Delta (letter)

Delta is the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 4. It was derived from the Phoenician alphabet Dalet , but in the Ancient Greek language, it represented a voiced dental plosive ....
, Latin D
D

D is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled dee , plural dees....
 and the equivalent in the Cyrillic
Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic alphabet is a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by five Slavic languages national languages as well as non-Slavic . It is also used by many other languages of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Siberia and other languages in the past....
 ?
De (Cyrillic)

eading=Cyrillic letter De|Image=...
.

Hebrew Dalet

Orthographic
Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Orthography is derived from Greek language ????? orth?s and ???fe?? gr?phein ....
 variants
Various Print FontsCursive
Hebrew		Rashi
Script
Rashi script

Rashi script is a semi-Hebrew cursive typeface for the Hebrew alphabet, in which Rashi#Works are printed both in the Talmud and Tanakh . This does not mean that Rashi himself used such a script: the typeface is based on a 15th century Sephardi Jews semi-cursive hand and was called by the Ashkenazic Rishonim - the Hachmei Provence script....
Serif Sans-serif
Sans-serif

In typography, a sans-serif or sans serif typeface is one that does not have the small features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning "without"....
 		Monospaced
???
The letter is dalet in the modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation (see Tav (letter)
Taw (letter)

Taw or Tav is the twenty-second and last letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language Tav and Arabic alphabet ....
). Dales is still used by many Ashkenazi Jews and daleth by some Jew
Jew

A Jew is a member of the Jewish people, an ethnoreligious group that traces its ancestry to the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East....
s of Middle-Eastern
Middle East

File:GreaterMiddleEast1.pngThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, western Asia, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East....
 background, especially in the diaspora. In some academic circles, it is called daleth, following the Tiberian Hebrew pronunciation. It is also called daled. The ? like the English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 D
D

D is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English language is spelled dee , plural dees....
 represents a voiced alveolar plosive
Voiced alveolar plosive

The voiced alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental consonant, alveolar consonant, and postalveolar consonant stop consonant is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d....
. Just as in English, there may be subtle varieties
Voiced alveolar plosive

The voiced alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental consonant, alveolar consonant, and postalveolar consonant stop consonant is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d....
 of the sound that are created when it is spoken. Dalet and Resh
Resh

Resh is the twentieth letter of many Semitic History of the alphabet, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language and Arabic alphabet ....
 have nearly the same appearance, and were/are often mistaken for one another.

Variations

Dalet can receive a dagesh
Dagesh

The dagesh is a diacritic used in the Hebrew alphabet. It was added to the Hebrew language orthography at the same time as the Masoretic system of niqqud ....
, being one of the 6 letters that can receive Dagesh Kal (see Gimel). There are minor variations to this letter's pronunciation, such as
  • ? dhalet ( among Teimanim, Mizrachi
    Mizrachi

    The terms Mizrachi and Mizrahi is used in references to a few things:*Mizrachi , a religious Zionist movement*Mizrachi and Hapoel HaMizrachi, defunct Israeli political parties...
    m and some Sephardim; among some Ashkenazim.) or
  • ?? dalet .
In addition, in modern Hebrew, the letter can also be written with an apostrophe in front of it (known as a chupchik): '? which alters the pronunciation to /ð/.

Significance

In gematria
Gematria

Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning number to an alphabet. The word "gematria" is generally held to derive from Greek geometria, "geometry", which was used a translation of gema?riya....
, dalet symbolizes the number four.

The letter dalet, along with the He
He (letter)

He is the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician alphabet , Aramaic alphabet, Hebrew alphabet , Syriac alphabet and Arabic alphabet ....
 (and very rarely Gimel
Gimel (letter)

Gimel is the third Letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language , Syriac alphabet and Arabic alphabet ....
) is used to represent the Names of God in Judaism. The letter He is used commonly, and the dalet is rarer. A good example is the keter (crown) of a tallit
Tallit

The taleth or talet tallit , also tallis is a Jewish prayer shawl worn while reciting morning prayers as well as in the synagogue on Sabbath and holidays....
, which has the blessing for donning the tallit
Tallit

The taleth or talet tallit , also tallis is a Jewish prayer shawl worn while reciting morning prayers as well as in the synagogue on Sabbath and holidays....
, and has the name of God usually represented by a dalet. A reason for this is that the He is used as an abbreviation for HaShem "The Name" and the dalet is used as a non-sacred way of referring to God.

Dalet as a prefix in Aramaic (the language of the Talmud
Talmud

The Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Halakha, Jewish ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
) is a preposition meaning "that", or "which", or also "from" or "of"; since many Talmud
Talmud

The Talmud is a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Halakha, Jewish ethics, customs, and history. It is a central text of mainstream Judaism....
ic terms have found their way into Hebrew, one can hear dalet as a prefix in many phrases (as in Mitzvah
Mitzvah

This article is about commandments in Judaism. For the Jewish rite of passage, see Bar Mitzvah and Bat MitzvahMitzvah is a word used in Judaism to refer to the 613 Mitzvot given in the Torah and the Mitzvah#Rabbinical_mitzvot instituted later for a total of 620....
 Doraitah; a mitzvah from the Torah
Torah

The term "Torah" , or Five Books of Moses or Pentateuch, refers to the entirety of Judaism's founding Halakha and ethical religious texts....
.)

Syriac Dolath/Dalat

In the Syriac alphabet
Syriac alphabet

The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC. It is one of the Semitic languages abjads directly descending from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic alphabet, and Hebrew alphabet alphabets....
, the fourth letter is — Dolath in western pronunciation, Dalat in eastern pronunciation . It is one of six letters that represents two associated sounds (the others are Bet
Bet (letter)

Bet, Beth, or Vet is the second Letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language Syriac alphabet and Arabic alphabet ....
, Gimel
Gimel (letter)

Gimel is the third Letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language , Syriac alphabet and Arabic alphabet ....
, Kaph
Kaph

Kaph is the eleventh letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language Kaf , Arabic alphabet , Persian alphabet ....
, Pe
Pe (letter)

Pe is the seventeenth letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language Pei , Persian alphabet Pe and Arabic alphabet ....
 and Taw
Taw (letter)

Taw or Tav is the twenty-second and last letter in many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language Tav and Arabic alphabet ....
). When Dolath/Dalat has a hard pronunciation (qûššayâ) it is a [d
Voiced alveolar plosive

The voiced alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental consonant, alveolar consonant, and postalveolar consonant stop consonant is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d....
]. When Dolath/Dalat has a soft pronunciation () it is traditionally pronounced as a [
Voiced velar fricative

The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in various Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , not to be confused with , the IPA symbol for a close-mid back unrounded vowel), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is G....
]. The letter is very common in Syriac as it is often attached to the beginning of words as the relative pronoun
Relative pronoun

A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause within a larger Sentence . It is called a relative pronoun because it relates to the word that it modifies....
.

Dolath/Dalat is always written with a point below it to distinguish it from the letter Resh
Resh

Resh is the twentieth letter of many Semitic History of the alphabet, including Phoenician language, Aramaic language, Hebrew language and Arabic alphabet ....
 , which is identical apart from having a point above. As a numeral, Dolath/Dalat stands for the number four. With various systems of dots and dashes, it can also stand for 4,000 and 40,000.

Arabic dal

The letter is named dal, and is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

See also

  • Star of David
    Star of David

    The Star of David or Shield of David is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism.It is named after King David of History of ancient Israel and Judah; and its earliest known communal usage began in the Middle Ages, alongside the more ancient symbol of the Menorah ....
     (two Hebrew Dalet letters)