Topics Ancient Hebrew Alphabet

Early Hebrew Middle Hebrew Late Hebrew Modern Hebrew

The three Ancient pictograph possibilities for this letter are , and . The word tsad means "side," but is also related to the idea of a stronghold, which is often built on the side of a mountain. The pictograph is a picture of a trail as leading up to a destination or stronghold. Most ancient Semitic alphabets used pictographs which closely resemble , indicating that this was most likely the original form of the letter.

The modern name for this letter is tsade, also meaning side, and is a child root from the word tsad . The phonetic sound of this letter is a "ts" in both ancient and modern Hebrew.

The early pictograph evolved into in the Middle Semitic script and continued to evolve into in the Late Semitic Script. From the middle Semitic script came the Modern Hebrew צ and ץ. Modern Greek and Latin have no letter derived from this Semitic letter.

The Ancient Pictographic Alphabet (Article) The original Hebrew alphabet was written with pictures that reveal insights into Hebrew words.

The Paleo-Hebrew Alphabet (Article) The relationship between the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet and the Samaritan alphabet.

Sabbath in Ancient Hebrew (Video) Each letter in the Hebrew alphabet was originally a picture with meaning. In this video we will examine the letters in the Hebrew word shabbat.