# Hebrew ligatures - cannot determine Hebrew character



## Allasso

Hello,

I have an image of a bit of Hebrew text that was copied from a book, which refers to the English phrase "in the last year of the Jubilee":




My question involves the first word of the phrase: , which I believe should translate roughly to the English word "year", and specifically the character that is positioned between "He" and "Bet", which I cannot discern clearly as any Hebrew character in spite of attempting to look it up in several Hebrew character references.

Using some Hebrew translators for the word "year", I came to the conclusion that the word might be 
*בשנה*

"He" "Nun" "Shin" "Bet".

Does this conclusion sound correct for the image above?

I was wondering if there is a common Hebrew ligature that combines "Nun" "Shin".  Could it be that the text in the book is using one such ligature for the middle character in the first word of the phrase?


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## Egmont

The first word is "bishnat," meaning "in the year of." The letters are bet-shin-nun-tav. Hebrew is read from right to left, not left to right.


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## Allasso

Thank you very much.  Are all four of those letters in the image I posted?  It looks like shin-nun kind of run together.


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## Egmont

Yes, all four letters are present individually. If they seem to run together, that's because of the resolution of the graphic and/or blurring of the ink in the original. The bump on the left of the shin touches, or almost touches, the line down the right side of the nun, but there is no ligature here - just two letters close to each other. Each letter has all its individual parts.


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## Allasso

Thank you again, you've been very helpful.


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## tFighterPilot

It's interesting to see Hebrew from the eyes of someone who isn't used to it. For me, it was clear in first sight that the word is בשנת, but after reading the source of the confusion, I can totally see that the ש and the נ look as if they form a single letter. It's kinda like when I'm trying to read Arabic or Syriac.


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## Allasso

Yes, that is true for any language, even English.  There is not only  character recognition, but _word_ recognition as well.  It is the way I  can read someone's less-than-neat handwriting, where some of the  characters may not even look anything like what they are supposed to be,  yet still recognize the word.

Perhaps someone can help me with a  few other words that came from the same book as well, where I am not  quite sure if the character is a "he", "het" or a "tav", and a "resh" or "dalet" :
(also, if you could tell me the name of the word, and its meaning, that would be much appreciated)


he?-resh?-alef-yod-shin-vav-f.nun


he?-resh?-alef-shin-vav-f.nun


he?-yod-vav-bet-lamed


he?-alef-het?-resh-vav-f.nun


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## Egmont

#1: You have the letters right. It's pronounced "harishon" and means "the first."
#2: Also correct, with a left parenthesis after the final nun. It's an alternative spelling of #1. A yod is added, as in #1, when writing without vowels to indicate the "i" sound. This spelling would usually be used only when writing with vowels.
#3: Correct. It's pronounced "hayovel" and means "the Jubilee."
#4: You've got those letters right too. Here, again, there's a left parenthesis after the final nun. It's pronounced "ha-acharon" and means "the last."

(By "the name of the word" I assume you mean its pronunciation. As far as I know, neither English nor Hebrew words have names.)


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## tFighterPilot

Never seen the spelling הראישון before. Searching it in Google brings 129 thousand results (as opposed to 45 million for ראשון)


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## origumi

tFighterPilot said:


> Never seen the spelling הראישון before. Searching it in Google brings 129 thousand results (as opposed to 45 million for ראשון)


See Job 15:7


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## Allasso

Egmont said:


> #1: You have the letters right. It's pronounced "harishon" and means "the first."
> #2: Also correct, with a left parenthesis after the final nun. It's an alternative spelling of #1. A yod is added, as in #1, when writing without vowels to indicate the "i" sound. This spelling would usually be used only when writing with vowels.
> #3: Correct. It's pronounced "hayovel" and means "the Jubilee."
> #4: You've got those letters right too. Here, again, there's a left parenthesis after the final nun. It's pronounced "ha-acharon" and means "the last."
> 
> (By "the name of the word" I assume you mean its pronunciation. As far as I know, neither English nor Hebrew words have names.)



Hello, Egmont,

I thought I thanked you already, but don't see it here.  I just wanted to let you know my appreciation.

Allasso


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## Egmont

Allasso said:


> Hello, Egmont,
> 
> I thought I thanked you already, but don't see it here.  I just wanted to let you know my appreciation.
> 
> Allasso


You did twice, actually - in posts 3 and 5. The thanks are appreciated. I know of some discussion forums on other subjects where people don't bother to thank those who reply to their questions. Aside from the fact that it's nice to thank people, it leaves those who reply not knowing if the person with the question ever saw their answer.

You're welcome!


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## MuttQuad

>>I was wondering if there is a common Hebrew ligature that combines "Nun"  "Shin".  Could it be that the text in the book is using one such  ligature for the middle character in the first word of the phrase?<<

Speaking as a (retired) typographic professional quite familiar with Hebrew fonts, I should let you know that Hebrew script does not employ ligatures -- except perhaps as a conceit in some special calligraphy.


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## MuttQuad

>>It's interesting to see Hebrew from the eyes of someone who isn't used  to it. For me, it was clear in first sight that the word is בשנת, but  after reading the source of the confusion, I can totally see that the ש  and the נ look as if they form a single letter. It's kinda like when I'm  trying to read Arabic or Syriac.<<

They are just touching because of bad typographic spacing. You won't find typographic ligatures, nor connected letters, in Hebrew as you would in the Arabic script or Syriac. Arabic, of course, is particularly known for its almost limitless variety of 2- and 3-letter ligatures. Nothing similar exists in Hebrew's "ktab merubah" or even cursive writing.


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## MuttQuad

>>
Perhaps someone can help me with a  few other words that came from the  same book as well, where I am not  quite sure if the character is a  "he", "het" or a "tav", and a "resh" or "dalet"<<

You have named some of the "look-alike" letters of the Hebrew alphabet which tend to give beginning readers problems. They are distinguished from each other by small (but clear if you know what to look for) differences:

He -- leftmost vertical stroke does not touch top line

Het -- leftmost vertical stroke does touch top line

Tav -- small foot at left bottom of leftmost vertical stroke

Daled -- top right corner is square, sometimes extends a bit leftward of the vertical

Resh -- top right corner is rounded, cannot extend past he vertical stroke

Two others that notoriously cause confusion are the Gimel and Nun. The former may be distinguished from the latter by the slight gap at the bottom right corner joint.

With Hebrew (and many other non-Latin) fonts so easy and cheap to come by in today's world of desktop typesetting, a lot of quite atrocious (and sometimes amusing) errors find their way into print when compositors try to follow manuscript by picking letters strictly according to appearance without really knowing the language's script thoroughly. I used to collect and publish many in a column I wrote years ago called "Terrible Typos."


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## Allasso

MuttQuad:

Thank you for your additional insight.

Allasso


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## airelibre

I've just got one thing to add for the asker that I don't think has been covered already. שנה, shana means year and שנת shanat means year of. בשנת bishnat means in the year of. Just to make absolutely clear.


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## Allasso

thank you.  An interesting language that can include a verb, noun and modifier all in one word.


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## arielipi

That is incorrect, hebrew contains prefixes,suffixes etc in singular letters added to words(=modifiers), with that you have formations of meanings.

The word itself is shana, bi is in the [X] for example.
Shanat is the smichut word for shana, meaning, and here is an easier example: kelev is dog, kalbo is his dog = that is smichut - proximity ; (grammar) construct state, contiguity
​


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## OsehAlyah

Egmont said:


> You did twice, actually - in posts 3 and 5. The thanks are appreciated. I know of some discussion forums on other subjects where people don't bother to thank those who reply to their questions. Aside from the fact that it's nice to thank people, it leaves those who reply not knowing if the person with the question ever saw their answer.
> 
> You're welcome!


I'm guilty of that,  especially when I just joined this forum. But the biggest reason I didn't post Thank You replies is because most forums have a very high volume, and the noise to useful info ratio tends to be, well not that great. So adding a post with just Thank You, sometimes adds to the already overwhelming volume. However, this forum is pretty good about that. So I started posting Thank You posts. I agree it is a nice thing to do, and it feels right to do it.


MuttQuad said:


> >>
> Perhaps someone can help me with a  few other words that came from the  same book as well, where I am not  quite sure if the character is a  "he", "het" or a "tav", and a "resh" or "dalet"<<
> 
> You have named some of the "look-alike" letters of the Hebrew alphabet which tend to give beginning readers problems. They are distinguished from each other by small (but clear if you know what to look for) differences:
> 
> He -- leftmost vertical stroke does not touch top line
> 
> Het -- leftmost vertical stroke does touch top line
> 
> Tav -- small foot at left bottom of leftmost vertical stroke
> 
> Daled -- top right corner is square, sometimes extends a bit leftward of the vertical
> 
> Resh -- top right corner is rounded, cannot extend past he vertical stroke
> 
> Two others that notoriously cause confusion are the Gimel and Nun. The former may be distinguished from the latter by the slight gap at the bottom right corner joint.
> 
> With Hebrew (and many other non-Latin) fonts so easy and cheap to come by in today's world of desktop typesetting, a lot of quite atrocious (and sometimes amusing) errors find their way into print when compositors try to follow manuscript by picking letters strictly according to appearance without really knowing the language's script thoroughly. I used to collect and publish many in a column I wrote years ago called "Terrible Typos."


As I get older and my eyesight is starting to .... Never mind, I just though I'd mention that Samekh and Mem Sofit can be tough to tell apart too.


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## Egmont

OsehAlyah said:


> ... just though I'd mention that Samekh and Mem Sofit can be tough to tell apart too.


Yes. Samekh is usually rounded along the bottom, though in some fonts that's only visible as a diagonal slice off the bottom right corner. A final mem is squared off there. Aside from that, if it's not at the end of a word, there's no possible confusion.


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## MuttQuad

>>As I get older and my eyesight is starting to .... Never mind, I just  though I'd mention that Samekh and Mem Sofit can be tough to tell apart  too.  <<

Yep. Another of Hebrew's pitfall pairs. The Mem sofit, of course, has a straight bottom; and the Samekh a rounded one. Another such pair that comes to mind at the moment is the Zion and Vav, the former distinguishable because to top stroke extends on both sides of the vertical.

Other scripts also have tricky pairs of letters for the uninitiated to distinguish, e.g. Cyrillic; but I think Hebrew may have the most of them.


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