The Origin of Letters and Numerals According to the Sefer Yetzirah

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To understand how the letters of the Tetragrammaton The sacred four-letter Name of God, YHWH (יהוה). can be vowels, it is necessary to know what the Hebrew vowels are. Here the views of various writers differ widely. Dunash Ibn Tamim A 10th-century North African scholar and physician who wrote a commentary on the "Book of Formation."¹⁰), whose opinion was shared by many Hebrew writers, maintained that the three letters Aleph, He, and Vav א, ה, and ו are the original vowels of the Hebrew alphabet; Roger Bacon A 13th-century English philosopher and scientist who studied linguistics.¹¹), Masklef, and others held that the six letters Aleph, He, Vav, Yod, Ayin, and Het א, ה, ו, י, ע, and ח were originally vowels; and Jerome The 4th-century scholar famous for translating the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate). and many others asserted that the five letters Aleph, He, Vav, Yod, and Ayin א, ה, ו, י, and ע were the original vowels. In my opinion the original vowels are the four letters Aleph, He, Vav, and Ayin א, ה, ו, and ע, which are still used as vowels in transcribing other languages in Hebrew characters. The Sefardic Jews Jews originating from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal)., when writing Spanish with Hebrew letters, transcribe a by Aleph א; i and e by Yod י; and u and o by Vav ו. The Ashkenazic Jews Jews originating from Central and Eastern Europe., when writing German with Hebrew letters, transcribe a and o by Aleph א, e by Ayin ע, u by Vav ו, and i or j by Yod י. An investigation into the relation of the letters to the vowel points according to the Ashkenazic pronunciation led me to the conclusion that Ayin ע has the sound of a, Aleph א of e, and o, Yod י of i, and Vav ו of u, besides its sound of w.

If this opinion with regard to the original letters be correct, not only an Aleph א is hidden under a He ה of the Tetragrammaton YHWH יהוה, as believed by Dunash Ibn Tamim,¹²) Judah ha-Levi A famous 12th-century Jewish physician, poet, and philosopher., and Abraham Ibn Ezra A prolific 12th-century scholar and grammarian., but also an Ayin ע. In order to understand the secret of the Tetragrammaton, the nature of the He ה must be better defined. We have seen that many authors since Jerome

¹⁰) Book of Formation original: "Sefer Yetzirah", London 1902, 20, 45, 48.
¹¹) See Jewish Quarterly Review, XV, 336.
¹²) Book of Formation original: "Sefer Yetzirah", London 1902, 45.