There are seven letters that appear throughout the Hebrew language — in pronouns, nouns, verbs, and even inside the roots of words themselves.
I didn’t discover these letters. I first read about them in the Malbim, who learned about them from Rav Shlomo Poppenheim.
If you learn to spot these letters, they’ll help you read more fluently, translate more accurately, and start to see the underlying structure and system that gives Hebrew its shape and beauty.
Let’s meet the letters and then see how it works.
Meet the Letters
These are the seven letters to keep an eye on:
א — Aleph
ה — Hey
ו — Vav
י — Yud
מ — Mem
נ — Nun
ת — Tav
You can remember them with the following Hebrew mnemonic:
הֶאֱמַנְתִּיו — He caused him to believe
Once you’re aware of these letters, you’ll start notice that they appear over and over again in “supporting” roles.
How It Works
Pronouns
Take a look at the standard Hebrew pronouns:
אני — I
אתה / את — You (masc. / fem.)
הוא / היא — He / She
אנו — We
אתם / אתן — You all
הם / הן — They
Note how every single pronoun is made up of the variable letters and only the variable letters - with one exception. There is a version of both I and We that use the letters Chaf (כ) and Chet (ח):
אנכי
אנחנו
What is interesting is that both of these letters are formed from the same part of the throat (they are guttural letters).
Either way, the basic point remains - the pronouns are made from the variable letters - with an interesting stylistic addition in the first person form of the pronouns.
Let’s continue.
Past Tense Verb Endings Use Them
Consider the following root word: ש–מ–ר
This root represents the concept of guarding, but in its raw root form it doesn’t yet have any concrete meaning. Let’s change that and turn it into a past tense verb. We’ll start with “I guarded”:
שמרתי
Notice what we did here - we added two letters to the end of the root. In particular, two of our variable letters:
ת — Tav
י — Yud
And indeed, if we look at all the different past tense conjugations, we’ll notice they are formed by adding our variable letters:
שמרתי — I guarded
שמרת — You guarded
שמרה — She guarded
שמרנו — We guarded
שמרתם — You (plural, male) guarded
שמרתן — You (plural, female) guarded
שמרו — They guarded
The endings are made up solely of our variable letters (with only the aleph not making a showing).
Future Tense Verb Prefixes Use Them
And it’s not only past tense verbs that use the variable letters. The future tense verbs also - by adding them to the begging of the word (and sometimes to both the beginning and the end).
אשמור — I will guard
תשמור — You will guard
ישמור — He will guard
תשמור — She will guard
נשמור — We will guard
תשמורו — You will guard (plural, male)
תשמורנה — You will guard (plural, female)
ישמורו — They will guard
Once again, the variable letters (and only the variable letters) are used to form the future tense.
Noun Forms (and Present Tense) Use Them Too
And what is true about the verbs is also true about the nouns (and the “present tense” verb form). This time, though, you add the variable letters to the middle of the word (and sometimes to the middle and the end).
From that same root שמר, we get:
שומר — Guard (masc.)
שומרת — Guard (fem.)
שומרים — Guards (masc. pl.)
שומרות — Guards (fem. pl.)
And as I write this, an interesting thought just came to me.
Past tense verbs are formed by adding the variable letters** after** the root.
Future tense verbs by adding them** before** the root.
Present tense verbs in the middle of the root.
It’s almost as if their placement echoes their tense. We note the past after it has taken place.
We note the future before it takes place.
And the present is with us as it happens.
Now, from what I understanding, not everyone thinks that Biblical Hebrew works with past, present and future tense in the way that we commonly use and understand those tenses - so this may need to be modified. But it seems to me that there just may be something here worth noting.
With that said, let’s note one more use of these letters.
They (may) Appear Inside the Root
Let’s return to the root of our word: ש–מ–ר
Notice the middle letter there, מ. That is one of our variable letters. Let’s try something - we’ll keep our non-variable letters as they are and just switch around the variable letter:
שאר — Sha’ar (remnant)
שור — Shor (ox)
שיר — Shir (song)
Interesting, three new words - each formed by simply changing middle letter for a different variable letter. Of course, we could challenge this by noting some other words such as שבר and שקר. But let’s not give up so fast. Let’s vary up the order of the ש and ר:
אשר
ישר
נשר
Or how about
שרה
שרת
And:
ראש
רוש
רמש
According to the Malbim (based on Rav Shlomo Poppenheim), this actually represents one of the ways in which words are “created” in Biblical Hebrew. Take two consonants, combine them with one of the variable letters - and, voila - you have a Hebrew word. True, they note, this is not the only way that words are formed in The Holy Tongue, but it is one way.
And when we look, we see that many words fit this pattern:
באר
ברא
ברה
בתר
בור
דור
דיר
חור
Etc.
Is this a stretch? Maybe. But given the prominence of these letters elsewhere, and how many examples we can find, it seems to me that they (the Malbim and Rav Shlomo Poppenheim) are on to something.
So What?
Now, you may say - very nice, but (not to be rude), so what.
Well, here are a few “what’s” to consider:
What #1:
If you are having trouble locating the root of a word, look for the variable letters in the beginning or end of the word (or, in the case of a vav, in the middle). Then see if you can figure out the root of the word by ignoring these letters.
What #2:
If you are having trouble conjugating a word, look for the variable letters in the beginning, middle and/or end of the word and see if they can help you.
What #3:
It’s nice to note the beauty and structure of the Hebrew Language
What #4:
It’s interesting that there seem to be** seven** (7) variable letters. After all, seven is a rather significant number in the Torah.
What #5:
The Malbim uses this to explain various statements of Chazal which seem to make a lot of sense if we accept that many words are formed vis-a-vis the variable letters.
And I’m sure there may be a few more “what’s” that I’m missing.
