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Alphabetical Order
101
§
5. Three typical
similarities of letters
have been
known for a long time.10) The phonetic
and
graphic similarity of M and N, which
I shall
call the Mem-Nun
type of similarity, is
obvious
to every child.
A comparable similarity is
the
He-Chet type, and the
Tet-Taw type. In all
three
cases phonetic similarities
correspond to graphic
similarities,
and phonetic differences to
graphic
differences.11)
But while Mem and
Nun form the
seventh consecutive
pair of letters in the
ancient
Hebrew alphabet,
He and Chet
are separated
by two
intervening letters, as Tet
and Taw are
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10) Cf. Joseph Halévy, Mélanges d'épigraphie et
d'archéologie sémitiques, (1874)
pp. 168 and 179,
who observed already
that
Mem appears to be
just a modification of
Nun, as Chet of
He,
and Tet of
Taw.
11) The phonetic similarity of the
nasal sounds M and N
is
parallelled by the graphic similarity
of the ancient Hebrew
letters
Mem and
Nun, that changed
little in the Roman
alphabet. The
phonetic difference
of the bilabial M, pronounced
with closed lips,
from the dental
N, pronounced with the teeth showing,
corresponds
to their graphic
difference, since the more
nasal M has one more
stroke.
Similarly, the letter
He looks like a
mirror-imaged E, and
Chet,
which stands for a
more closed "h"-sound, is obtained
by
closing it. The ancient
Hebrew letter Taw is x-shaped, whereas
the
letter Tet,
which represents an
emphatic or velarized
"t"-sound
with a more closed
mouth position, is derived
from Taw by en-
closing
it with a circle, see
below p. 30, and
TORAH OF THE
ALPHABET
(N. 1) pp. 65, 77,
and 85, cf. also pp. 59, 61,
and 71.
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