Taw

This article is about the Semitic letter. For other uses, seeTaw (disambiguation).

← Shin Taw Ṯāʾ →
Phoenician	𐤕
Hebrew	ת
Aramaic	𐡕‎
Syriac	ܬ
Arabic	ت
Phonemic representation	t(alsoθ,s)
Position in Alpha bet	22
Numerical value	400
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
Greek	Τ,Χ
Latin	T,X
Cyrillic	Т,Х

Taw,tav,ortafis the twenty-second and lastletterof theSemitic abjads,includingPhoeniciantāw𐤕,Hebrewtavת,Aramaictaw𐡕‎,Syriactawܬ, andArabictāʾت (22nd inabjadi order,3rd in modern order). In Arabic, it also gives rise to the derived letterثṯāʾ.Its original sound value is/t/.

The Phoenician letter gave rise to theGreektau(Τ),LatinT,andCyrillicТ.

Origins

Taw is believed to be derived from theEgyptian hieroglyphrepresenting atally mark.

Hieroglyph	Proto-Sinaitic	Phoenician	Paleo-Hebrew

Arabic tāʾ

The letter is namedtāʼ.It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ت‎	ـت‎	ـتـ‎	تـ‎

Finalـَتْ(fatha,thentāʼwith asukunon it,pronounced/at/,though diacritics are normally omitted) is used to mark feminine gender for third-personperfective/past tenseverbs, while finalتَ(tāʼ-fatḥa,/ta/) is used to mark past-tense second-person singular masculine verbs, finalتِ(tāʼ-kasra,/ti/) to mark past-tense second-person singular feminine verbs, and finalتُ(tāʼ-ḍamma,/tu/) to mark past-tense first-person singular verbs. The plural form of Arabic letterتistāʼāt(تاءات), apalindrome.

Recently, the isolatedتhas been used online as anemoticon,because it resembles a smiling face.

Tā' marbūṭa

An alternative form calledtāʼ marbūṭa(ـَة, ة) (تَاءْ مَرْبُوطَة), "boundtāʼ") is used at the end of words to markfeminine genderfornounsandadjectives.Regulartāʼ,to distinguish it fromtāʼ marbūṭa,is referred to astāʼ maftūḥa(تَاءْ مَفْتُوحَة,"opentāʼ").

Position in word	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form: (Help)	ة‎	ـة‎	ـة‎	ة‎

In words such asرِسَالَة('letter, message, epistle'), thefatha(/a/) +tāʼ marbūṭacombination (ـَة) istransliteratedas-aor-ah(risālaorrisālah), and pronounced as/-a/(as if there were only afatha). Historically,tāʼ marbūṭawas pronounced as the/t/sound in all positions, but now the/t/sound is dropped in coda positions.

However, when a word ending with atāʼ marbūṭais suffixed with agrammatical case endingor any other suffix, the/t/is clearly pronounced. For example, the wordرِسَالَة('letter, message', 'epistle') is pronounced asrisālainpausabut is pronouncedrisālatunin the nominative case (/un/being the nominative case ending),risālatinin the genitive case (/in/being the genitive case ending), andrisālatanin the accusative case (/an/being the accusative case ending). When the possessive suffix-ī('my') is added, it becomesrisālatī('my letter'). The /t/ is also always pronounced when the word is inconstruct state(iḍāfa), for example inRisālat al-Ghufrān('The Epistle of Forgiveness').

The isolated and final forms of this letter combine the shape ofhāʼ(ه) and the two dots oftāʼ(ت). When words containing the symbol are borrowed into other languages written in theArabic script,such asPersian,tāʼ marbūṭausually becomes either a regularهor a regularت.

Hebrew tav

Orthographicvariants
Various print fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi script
Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced
ת	ת	ת

Hebrew spelling:תָו‎

Hebrew pronunciation

The lettertavinModern Hebrewusually represents avoiceless alveolar plosive:/t/.

Variations on written form and pronunciation

The lettertavis one of the six letters that can receive adagesh kaldiacritic; the others arebet,gimel,dalet,kaphandpe.Bet, kaph and pe have their sound values changed in modern Hebrew from the fricative to the plosive, by adding a dagesh. In modern Hebrew, the other three do not change their pronunciation with or without a dagesh, but they have had alternate pronunciations at other times and places.

In traditionalAshkenazipronunciation, tav represents an/s/without thedageshand has the plosive form when it has the dagesh. AmongYemenand someSephardiareas, tav without a dagesh represented avoiceless dental fricative/θ/—a pronunciation hailed by theSfath Emethwork as wholly authentic, while the tav with the dagesh is the plosive/t/.In traditionalItalianpronunciation, tav without a dagesh is sometimes/d/.

Tav with ageresh(ת׳‎) is sometimes used in order to represent the TH digraph in loanwords.

Significance of tav

Ingematria,tav represents the number 400, the largest single number that can be represented without using thesophit(final) forms (seekaph,mem,nun,pe,andtzade).

In representing names from foreign languages, agereshorchupchikcan also be placed after the tav (ת׳), making it represent/θ/.(See also:Hebraization of English)

In Judaism

Tav is the last letter of the Hebrew wordemet,which means 'truth'. Themidrashexplains thatemetis made up of the first, middle, and last letters of theHebrew Alpha bet(aleph,mem,and tav:אמת).Sheqer(שקר, falsehood), on the other hand, is made up of the 19th, 20th, and 21st (and penultimate) letters.

Thus, truth is all-encompassing, while falsehood is narrow and deceiving. InJewish mythologyit was the wordemetthat was carved into the head of thegolemwhich ultimately gave it life. But when the letteralephwas erased from the golem's forehead, what was left was "met"—dead. And so the golem died.

Ezekiel9:4 depicts a vision in which thetavplays aPassoverrole similar to the blood on the lintel and doorposts of a Hebrew home in Egypt.In Ezekiel's vision, the Lord has his angels separate the demographic wheat from the chaff by going through Jerusalem, the capital city of ancient Israel, and inscribing a mark, a tav, "upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof."

In Ezekiel's vision, then, the Lord is counting tav-marked Israelites as worthwhile to spare, but counts the people worthy of annihilation who lack the tav and the critical attitude it signifies. In other words, looking askance at a culture marked by dire moral decline is a kind ofshibbolethfor loyalty and zeal for God.

Sayings with taf

"From aleph to taf" describes something from beginning to end, the Hebrew equivalent of the English "From A to Z."

Syriac taw

In theSyriac Alpha bet,as in the Hebrew and Phoenician Alpha bets,taw(ܬܰܐܘ‎) ortăw(ܬܲܘ‎orܬܰܘ‎) is the final letter in the Alpha bet, most commonly representing thevoicelessdentalstop[t̪]andfricative[θ]consonant pair, differentiated phonemically byhard and soft markings.When left as unmarkedܬ‎ܬ‎ܬ‎or marked with aqūššāyādot above the letterܬ݁‎ܬ݁‎ܬ݁‎indicating 'hard' pronunciation, it is realized as aplosive/t/.When thephonemeis marked with arūkkāḵādot below the letterܬ݂‎ܬ݂‎ܬ݂‎indicating 'soft' pronunciation, thephoneisspirantizedto africative/θ/.Hard taw (taw qšīṯā) isRomanizedas a plaint,while the soft form of the letter (taw rakkīḵtā) is transliterated asṯorth.

ʾEsṭrangēlā (classical)	Maḏnḥāyā (eastern)	Serṭo (western)	Unicode character
			ܬ‎ ܬ‎ ܬ‎

Character encodings

Character information

Preview	ת		ت		ܬ
Unicode name	HEBREW LETTER TAV		ARABIC LETTER TEH		SYRIAC LETTER TAW
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	1514	U+05EA	1578	U+062A	1836	U+072C
UTF-8	215 170	D7 AA	216 170	D8 AA	220 172	DC AC
Numeric character reference	ת	ת	ت	ت	ܬ	ܬ

Character information

Preview	ࠕ		𐎚		𐡕		𐤕
Unicode name	SAMARITAN LETTER TOF		UGARITIC LETTER TO		IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER TAW		PHOENICIAN LETTER TAU
Encodings	decimal	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex	dec	hex
Unicode	2069	U+0815	66458	U+1039A	67669	U+10855	67861	U+10915
UTF-8	224 160 149	E0 A0 95	240 144 142 154	F0 90 8E 9A	240 144 161 149	F0 90 A1 95	240 144 164 149	F0 90 A4 95
UTF-16	2069	0815	55296 57242	D800 DF9A	55298 56405	D802 DC55	55298 56597	D802 DD15
Numeric character reference	ࠕ	ࠕ	𐎚	𐎚	𐡕	𐡕	𐤕	𐤕

See also

• Tav (number)