Hebrew spelling Hebrew spelling Hebrew spelling ( , "Hebrew spelling") refers to the way words are spelled in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters, all of which are primarily consonants. This is because the Hebrew script is an abjad, that is, its letters indicate consonants, not vowels or syllables. An early system to overcome this, still used today, is "matres lectionis", where four of these letters, alef, he, waw and yodh also serve as vowel letters. Later, a system of vowel points to indicate vowels (diacritics), called niqqud, was developed. Throughout history, there have been two main systems of
History of the alphabet accepted in the mid-seventeenth century. The order of the letters of the alphabet is attested from the fourteenth century BCE in the town of Ugarit on Syria's northern coast. Tablets found there bear over one thousand cuneiform signs, but these signs are not Babylonian and there are only thirty distinct characters. About twelve of the tablets have the signs set out in alphabetic order. There are two orders found, one of which is nearly identical to the order used for Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and a second order very similar to that used for Ethiopian. It is not known how