Gimel

Gimel is the third letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician gīml 𐤂, Hebrew gīmel ג, Aramaic gāmal 𐡂, Syriac gāmal ܓ, and Arabic ǧīm ج (in alphabetical order; fifth in spelling order). Its sound value in the original Phoenician and in all derived alphabets, except Arabic, is a voiced velar plosive [ɡ]; in Modern Standard Arabic, it represents either a /d͡ʒ/ or /ʒ/ for most Arabic speakers except in Northern Egypt, the southern parts of Yemen and some parts of Oman where it is pronounced as the voiced velar plosive [ɡ] (see below).

Gimel
PhoenicianGimel
Hebrew
ג
AramaicGimel
Syriac
ܓ
Arabic
ج
Phonemic representationd͡ʒ, ʒ, ɡ, ɟ, ɣ
Position in alphabet3
Numerical value3
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician
GreekΓ
LatinC
CyrillicГ

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

T14

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek gamma (Γ), the Latin C, G, Ɣ and yogh , and the Cyrillic Г, Ґ, Ғ.

Hebrew gimel

Variations

Orthographic variants
Various print fonts Cursive
Hebrew
Rashi
script
SerifSans-serifMonospaced
ג ג ג

Hebrew spelling: גִּימֶל

Bertrand Russell posits that the letter's form is a conventionalized image of a camel.[1][2] The letter may be the shape of the walking animal's head, neck, and forelegs. Barry B. Powell, a specialist in the history of writing, states “It is hard to imagine how gimel = ‘camel’ can be derived from the picture of a camel (it may show his hump, or his head and neck!)”.[3]

Gimel is one of the six letters which can receive a dagesh qal. The two functions of dagesh are distinguished as either qal (light) or hazaq (strong). The six letters that can receive a dagesh qal 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. They are essentially pronounced in the fricative as ג gh غ, dh ذ and th ث. 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 is traditionally believed to resemble a person in motion; symbolically, a rich man running after a poor man to give him charity. In the Hebrew alphabet gimel directly precedes dalet, which signifies a poor or lowly man, given its similarity to the Hebrew word dal (b. Shabbat, 104a).[4]

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

The letter gimel is the electoral symbol for the United Torah Judaism party, and the party is often nicknamed Gimmel.[5][6]

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

Syriac gamal/gomal

Gamal/Gomal
Madnḫaya Gamal
Serṭo Gomal
Esṭrangela Gamal

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 represent two associated sounds (the others are Bet, Dalet, Kaph, Pe and Taw). When Gamal/Gomal has a hard pronunciation (qûššāyâ ) it represents [ɡ], like "goat". When Gamal/Gomal has a soft pronunciation (rûkkāḵâ ) it traditionally represents [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 [d͡ʒ] (ܓ̰ܡܵܠ), which is used in Garshuni and some Neo-Aramaic languages to write loan and foreign words from Arabic or Persian.

Arabic ǧīm

an approximation of the main pronunciations of written ج in Arabic dialects.

The Arabic letter ج is named جيم ǧīm ج [d͡ʒiːm, ʒiːm, ɡiːm, ɟiːm]. It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word:

Position in word Isolated Final Medial Initial
Glyph form:
(Help)
ج ـج ـجـ جـ

Pronunciation

In all varieties of Arabic, cognate words will have consistent differences in pronunciation of the letter. The standard pronunciation taught outside the Arabic speaking world is an affricate [d͡ʒ], which was the agreed upon pronunciation by the end of the nineteenth century to recite the Qur'an. It is pronounced as a fricative [ʒ] in most of Northern Africa and the Levant, and [ɡ] is the prestigious and most common pronunciation in Egypt, which is also found in Southern Arabian Peninsula. Differences in pronunciation occur because readers of Modern Standard Arabic pronounce words following their native dialects.

Egyptians always use the letter to represent [ɡ] as well as in names and loanwords, such as جولف "golf". However, ج may be used in Egypt to transcribe /ʒ~d͡ʒ/ (normally pronounced [ʒ]) or if there is a need to distinguish them completely, then چ is used to represent /ʒ/, which is also a proposal for Mehri and Soqotri languages.

The literary standard pronunciations
Non-literary pronunciation
  • [j]: In eastern Arabian Peninsula in the most colloquial speech, however [d͡ʒ] or sometimes [ʒ] to pronounce Literary Arabic loan words.

Historical pronunciation

While in all Semitic languages, e.g. Aramaic, Hebrew, Ge'ez, Old South Arabian the equivalent letter represents a [ɡ], Arabic is considered unique among them where the Jīm ج was palatalized to an affricate [d͡ʒ] or a fricative [ʒ] in most dialects from classical times. While there is variation in Modern Arabic varieties, most of them reflect this palatalized pronunciation except in coastal Yemeni and Omani dialects as well as in Egypt, where it is pronounced [g].

It is not well known when palatalization occurred or the probability of it being connected to the pronunciation of Qāf ق as a [ɡ], but in most of the Arabian peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE and parts of Yemen and Oman) which is the homeland of the Arabic language, the ج represents a [d͡ʒ] and ق represents a [ɡ], except in coastal Yemen and southern Oman where ج represents a [ɡ] and ق represents a [q], which shows a strong correlation between the palatalization of ج to [d͡ʒ] and the pronunciation of the ق as a [ɡ] as shown in the table below:

Language / Dialects Pronunciation of the letters
ج ق
Proto-Semitic [g] []
Parts of Southern Arabia1 [g] [q]
Most of the Arabian Peninsula [d͡ʒ]2 [g]
Modern Standard Arabic [d͡ʒ]3 [q]4

Notes:

  1. Western and southern Yemen: Taʽizzi-Adeni and Tihamiyya dialects (coastal Yemen), in addition to southwestern (Salalah region) and eastern Oman, including Muscat, the capital.
  2. [ʒ] is an allophone in eastern Arabia.
  3. Actually, the [d͡ʒ] variant is the preferred pronunciation when taught outside of Arabic speaking countries where the local variant of ج is accepted as the standard, namely [d͡ʒ], [ʒ], [ɟ], or [ɡ].
  4. In Sanaa, [ɡ] is used as the literary standard for ق, whereas the literary standard pronunciation in Sudan is [ɢ] or [ɡ].

Character encodings

Character information
Previewגجگܓ
Unicode name HEBREW LETTER GIMEL ARABIC LETTER JEEM ARABIC LETTER GAF SYRIAC LETTER GAMAL SAMARITAN LETTER GAMAN GIMEL SYMBOL
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechexdechexdechexdechex
Unicode1490U+05D21580U+062C1711U+06AF1811U+07132050U+08028503U+2137
UTF-8215 146D7 92216 172D8 AC218 175DA AF220 147DC 93224 160 130E0 A0 82226 132 183E2 84 B7
Numeric character referenceגגججگگܓܓࠂࠂℷℷ
Named character referenceℷ
Character information
Preview𐎂𐡂𐤂
Unicode name UGARITIC LETTER GAMLA IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER GIMEL PHOENICIAN LETTER GAML
Encodingsdecimalhexdechexdechex
Unicode66434U+1038267650U+1084267842U+10902
UTF-8240 144 142 130F0 90 8E 82240 144 161 130F0 90 A1 82240 144 164 130F0 90 A4 82
UTF-1655296 57218D800 DF8255298 56386D802 DC4255298 56578D802 DD02
Numeric character reference𐎂𐎂𐡂𐡂𐤂𐤂

See also

The serif form of the Hebrew letter gimel is occasionally used for the gimel function in mathematics.

References

  1. Russell, Bertrand (1972). A history of western philosophy (60th print. ed.). New York: Touchstone book. ISBN 9780671314002.
  2. Stan Tenen - Meru Foundation. "Meru Foundation Research: Letter Portrait: Gimel". meru.org.
  3. Powell, Barry B. (27 March 2009). Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization. Wiley Blackwell. p. 182. ISBN 978-1405162562.
  4. Ginzburgh, Yitzchak; Trugman, Avraham Arieh; Wisnefsky, Moshe Yaakov (1991). The Alef-beit: Jewish Thought Revealed Through the Hebrew Letters. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 42, 389. ISBN 9780876685181.
  5. "Mass Rally for United Torah Judaism - Hamodia.com". Hamodia. 11 March 2015.
  6. "Gedolim at Special Conference Call to Strengthen UTJ to Uphold Torah, Shabbos and Religious Character - Hamodia.com". Hamodia. 1 April 2019.
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