Teth

Teth, also written as Template:Transliteration or Tet, is the ninth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ṭēt 𐤈, Hebrew ṭēṯ Template:Script, Aramaic ṭēṯ 𐡈, Syriac ṭēṯ ܛ, and Arabic ṭāʾ Template:Script. It is also related to the Ancient North Arabian 𐪗‎‎‎, South Arabian Template:Lang, and Geʽez Template:Lang.

The Phoenician letter also gave rise to the Greek theta (Template:Lang), originally an aspirated voiceless dental stop but now used for the voiceless dental fricative. The Arabic letter (ط) is sometimes transliterated as Tah in English, for example in Arabic script in Unicode.

The sound value of Teth is Template:IPAslink, one of the Semitic emphatic consonants.

Origins

The Phoenician letter name Template:Transliteration may mean "spinning wheel" pictured as (compare Hebrew root Template:Script (ṭ-w-y) meaning 'spinning' (a thread) which begins with Teth). According to another hypothesis (Brian CollessTemplate:Citation needed), the letter possibly continues a Middle Bronze Age glyph named Template:Transliteration 'good', Aramaic Template:Script 'ṭav', Hebrew Template:Script/Hebrew 'ṭov', Syriac ܛܒܐ 'ṭava', modern Arabic Template:Lang 'ṭayyib', all of identical meaning.

Jewish religious books about the "holy letters" from the 10th century onward discuss the connection or origin of the letter Teth with the word ṭov "good". This is alluded to in a cryptic aggadata in the Talmud Baba Kamma 54b. Additionally the first time the letter "tes" appears in the Torah is in the word "ṭov" meaning "good." This was especially emphasized ever since the late 1600s after the Baal Shem Tov became influential, since the letter ṭēṯ was in his Acronym standing for ṭov, and goodness was part of his philosophy. The acrostic poems of the Bible use 'ṭov' to represent the letter (e.g. Psalm 119:65-72).

Arabic ṭāʾ

Template:Infobox graphemeThe letter is named Template:Transliteration Template:Lang; Modern Standard Arabic pronunciation: Template:IPA.

It has four forms, and the letter does not change its shape depending on its position in the word: Template:Arabic alphabet shapes

Hebrew ṭēṯ

Orthographic variants
Serif	sans-Serif	Monospaced	Cursive Hebrew	Solitreo	Rashi script
ט	ט	ט

The Hebrew spelling of name of the letter: Template:Script/Hebrew

Hebrew pronunciation

In Modern Hebrew, Tet represents a voiceless alveolar plosive Template:IPA, and is therefore usually homophonic with the abjad's final letter, Tav Template:Script. However, Tet can be pharyngealized to produce Template:IPA in traditional Temani and Sephardi pronunciation. [tˤ] is also probably the pronunciation in Biblical Hebrew.

Significance

In gematria, Tet represents the number nine. When followed by an apostrophe, it means 9,000. The most common example of this usage is in the numbers of the Hebrew years (e.g., Template:Script/Hebrew in numbers would be the date 9754).

As well, in gematria, the number 15 is written with Tet and Vav, (9+6) to avoid the normal construction Yud and Hei (10+5) which spells a name of God. Similarly, 16 is written with Tet and Zayin (9+7) instead of Yud and Vav (10+6) to avoid spelling part of the Tetragrammaton.

Tet is also one of the seven letters which receive special crowns (called tagin) when written in a Sefer Torah. See Shin, Ayin, Gimmel, Nun, Zayin, and Tzadi.

Similar symbols

A symbol similar to the Phoenician teth is used for the tensor product, as $\otimes$, but this is presumably an independent development, by modification of the multiplication sign ×. The Hebrew Template:Script/Hebrew is also visually similar to the letter Ʋ.

See also

• Ṭ