April 30, 2024

The Sofit letters | Etz Hayim—”Tree of Life”

Source https://www.etz-hayim.com/hebrew/pages/aleph-bet3.php
Source

The Letters of the Hebrew Alphabet

Lesson 3.

Hebrew letters with different written forms …The Sofit letters

The Sofit Letters

While the Hebrew aleph-bet aleph-betconsists of 22 letters, all of which are consonants, some of these letters are written differently when they occur at the end of a word. These different forms for the letters are known as sofit letters. There are FIVE Hebrew letters which have are sofit form. They are kaf/kaf, mem/mem, nun/nun, pey/pey and tsade/tsade.

The word sofit/sofitmeans “final” or “end.”

Sofit letters

Although the written form of these consonants changes when they appear at the end of a word the pronunciation is the same. As a general rule the kaf sofit/kaf sofit is pronounced as a khaf and pey sofit/pey sofit as fey when they appear as a final letter in a word.

The softer fricative pronunciation takes precedence because the final consonant usually follows a vowel.

The chart shows the five consonants that are written differently when they occur at the end of a word and take the sofit form.

Lesson 4. Sound alike letters. HERE…
Some consonants sound similar…