THE ORIGIN OF LETTERS AND NUMERALS.

...arranged with the Aleph א at the beginning, the Mem מ in the middle, and the Shin ש and the Tav ת at the end; while the Arabic alphabet was originally arranged with the Aleph א at the beginning, the Ayin ע in the middle, and the Vav ו and Yod י at the end. The Arabic alphabet originally consisted of the following seventeen letters: This refers to the "Abjadi" order, an ancient arrangement of the Arabic alphabet that mirrors the Phoenician/Hebrew sequence more closely than the modern alphabetical order.

The fact that the Arabic alphabet has the Aleph א at the beginning, the Ayin ע in the middle, and the Vav ו and the Yod י at the—

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^13) Since Aleph, Ayin, Vav, and Yod original: "אעו'י" were originally vowels and as He ה has an aspirate sound, which originally may not have been counted as a consonant, therefore there are only twelve consonant letters in this alphabet. Hugo Winckler A German archaeologist and scholar of the Ancient Near East (1863–1913). (The Babylonian Culture, Leipzig 1902, p. 47) says: Originally, twelve "consonants" named after the signs of the zodiac were distinguished, which are governed by three vowels, just as the zodiac is governed by the three regents. original: "Es wurden ursprünglich zwölf nach dem Tierkreiszeichen benannte „Konsonanten“ unterschieden, welche durch drei Vokale regiert werden, wie der Tierkreis durch die drei Regenten." The Hebrew letters according to the Arabic order would be as follows: Aleph-Bet-Tav, Gimel-Het-Dalet-Resh, Vav-Zayin, Shin-Tzade-Tzade (final), Tet-Ayin-Pe-Pe (final), Koph-Kaf-Kaf (final), Lamed-Tet-Mem, Nun-Nun (final), He-Yod-Yod. This list shows how the Hebrew letters are redistributed when following the early Arabic sequence.

If this were also the original order of the Hebrew alphabet, the Aleph א must have been at the beginning, the Ayin ע in the middle and the Vav ו and the Yod י at the end, instead of Aleph א at the beginning, Mem מ in the middle, and Shin ש and Tav ת at the end.

Although the Aleph א has been placed at the beginning of the alphabet its two sounds, e and o, however, harmonize between a and u—the sounds of Ayin ע and Vav ו respectively. And the Aleph [can] whistle [u] like the Vav, be silent [a] like the Ayin, and the Ayin sound acts as the deciding factor between them. original: "ואל"ף שורקת שי"ן (= ו) דוממת שי"ן (= ע) ט"ם (= ע) מכריע בינתים" (Text § 10). This would indicate that the author also knew of an order of the vowel letters, as Ayin-Aleph-Aleph-Yod עאא"י = a, e, o, u, i.

G. H. von Meyer A 19th-century German anatomist who studied the physiological production of speech sounds. (The Organs of Speech, New York 1884 p. 225) says: "Czermack Johann Nepomuk Czermak (1828–1873), a pioneer in using mirrors to view the larynx and study vowel production. first showed that the elevation of the soft palate differed with the utterance of each vowel, the greatest elevation occurring with the vowel i (ee in see) and that the elevation gradually diminished when the vowels were uttered in the following order: i, u, o, e, a." The Book of Formation original: "Sefer Yetzira" seems to be of the same opinion.