Prefixes in Hebrew Prefixes in Hebrew There are several prefixes in the Hebrew language which are appended to regular words to introduce a new meaning. In Hebrew, the letters that form those prefixes are called "formative letters" (Hebrew: אוֹתִיּוֹת הַשִּׁמּוּשׁ, "Otiyot HaShimush"). Eleven of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet are considered "Otiyot HaShimush". These letters are Aleph (א), Bet (ב), He (ה), Vav (ו), Yud (י), Kaf (כ), Lamed (ל), Mem (מ), Nun (נ), Shin (ש), and Tav (ת). A mnemonic to remember these letters is איתן משה וכלב ("Eitan, Moshe, v'Kalev"), which translates to "Ethan, Moses, and Caleb." Prefixes in
Biblical Hebrew source for the modern Hebrew alphabet. All of these scripts were lacking letters to represent all of the sounds of Biblical Hebrew, though these sounds are reflected in Greek and Latin transcriptions/translations of the time. These scripts originally only indicated consonants, but certain letters, known by the Latin term "matres lectionis", became increasingly used to mark vowels. In the Middle Ages, various systems of diacritics were developed to mark the vowels in Hebrew manuscripts; of these, only the Tiberian vocalization is still in wide use. Biblical Hebrew possessed a series of "emphatic" consonants whose precise articulation is disputed, likely ejective