Gimel (Letter) Information

Gimel is the third letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew ג, Syriac ܓ and Arabic ǧīm ج (in alphabetical order; 5th in spelling order). Its sound value in the original Phoenician and in all derived alphabets save Arabic is a voiced velar plosive [ɡ]; in Modern Standard Arabic, it has three standard pronunciations: [ɡ], [ʒ] or [dʒ] (look below)

In its unattested Proto-Canaanite form, the letter may have been named after a weapon which was perhaps either a staff sling or a throwing stick, ultimately deriving from a Proto-Sinaitic glyph based on the hieroglyph below:

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek gamma (Γ) and the Latin C and G and the Cyrillic Г.

Hebrew Gimel

Variations

Hebrew spelling: גִּימֵל

The letter gimel is one of the six letters which can receive a Dagesh Kal. The six are Bet, Gimel, Daled, Kaph, Pe, and Taf. Three of them (Bet, Kaph, and Pe) have their sound value changed in modern Hebrew from the fricative to the plosive by adding a dagesh. The other three represent the same pronunciation in modern Hebrew, but have had alternate pronunciations at other times and places. In the Temani pronunciation, Gimel represents /ɡ/, /ʒ/, or /d͡ʒ/ when with a dagesh, and /ɣ/ without a dagesh. In modern Hebrew, the combination ג׳ (gimel followed by a geresh) is used in loanwords and foreign names to denote [d͡ʒ].

Significance

In gematria, gimel represents the number three.

It is written like a vav with a yud as a "foot", and it resembles a person in motion; symbolically, a rich man running after a poor man to give him charity, as in the Hebrew alphabet gimel directly precedes dalet, which signifies a poor or lowly man, from the Hebrew word dal.

The word gimel is related to gemul, which means justified repayment, or the giving of reward and punishment.

Gimmel is also one of the seven letters which receive a special crown (called a tagin) when written in a Sefer Torah. See shin, ayin, teth, nun, zayin, and tsadi.

in Modern Hebrew the frequency of the usage of gimel, out of all the letters, is 1.26%.

Syriac Gamal/Gomal

In the Syriac alphabet, the third letter is ܓ — Gamal in eastern pronunciation, Gomal in western pronunciation (ܓܵܡܵܠ). It is one of six letters that represents two associated sounds (the others are Bet, Dalet, Kaph, Pe and Taw). When Gamal/Gomal has a hard pronunciation (qûššāyâ) it is a [ɡ], example "goat". When Gamal/Gomal has a soft pronunciation (rûkkāḵâ) it is traditionally pronounced as a [ɣ] (ܓ݂ܵܡܵܠ), or Ghamal/Ghomal. The letter, renamed Jamal/Jomal, is written with a tilde/tie either below or within it to represent the borrowed phoneme [dʒ] (ܓ̰ܡܵܠ), which is used in Garshuni and some Neo-Aramaic languages to write loan and foreign words from Arabic or Persian.

Arabic ǧīm

The associated Arabic letter ج is named جيم ǧīm. It is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

Modern Standard Arabic has three correct standard pronunciations for the letter: most prominently, in Egypt: [ɡ], in Levant and most of North west Africa: [ʒ], in Algeria and Arabian Peninsula excluding Syria and Jordan: [dʒ].

The difference in pronunciations is because Modern Standard Arabic is not primarily a spoken language and as a result, the letter is pronounced in accordance to the spoken varieties of Arabic: Egyptian Arabic and some Yemeni dialects (such as Tihami), normally pronounce [ɡ] (as in Hebrew and the other Semitic languages); in Levantine dialects as [ʒ]; in Kuwaiti Arabic and Gulf Arabic as [j] (but not [j] when they pronounced Modern Standard Arabic); and still others (particularly among Bedouins) as [ɡʲ], the most common reconstruction of Classical Arabic (/ɡʲ/ or /ɟ/).

Egyptians always use the letter ج to represent [ɡ], as well as in loanwords, such as جولف "golf", but in other regions, letters such as: گ (not a standard letter), ق,‎ ك,‎ غ might be used to transcribe /ɡ/ in names and loanwords, but never in Egypt.

The letter ǧīm is matched only by the pronunciation of ق among pronunciations in varieties of Arabic, for example, in Persian Gulf, the pronunciation of ج in Modern Standard Arabic is [dʒ], while their pronunciation of ق in Gulf Arabic is [dʒ].

In Perso-Arabic script, it is called jim.

In Egypt, when there is a need to transcribe /ʒ/ or /d͡ʒ/, both are approximated into [ʒ] using چ.

External links

• The Mystical Significance of the Hebrew Letters: Gimel

Categories: Phoenician alphabet | Arabic letters | Hebrew alphabet

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See Also:

• Shin (Letter)
• Waw (Letter)