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Taw
open-in-new
<h2 id="origins">Origins</h2> <p>Taw is believed to be derived from the <a href="/facts/Egyptian_hieroglyph/qXRpprLe">Egyptian hieroglyph</a> representing a <a href="/facts/Tally_mark/5rNQKmnM">tally mark</a>. </p> <table><tbody><tr><th><a href="/facts/Egyptian_hieroglyphs/qXRpprLe">Hieroglyph</a></th><th><a href="/facts/Proto-Sinaitic_script/aqPygGcT">Proto-Sinaitic</a></th><th><a href="/facts/Phoenician_alphabet/Vr4smuYg">Phoenician</a></th><th><a href="/facts/Paleo-Hebrew_alphabet/CU8hRVYz">Paleo-Hebrew</a></th></tr><tr><td><table><tbody><tr><td> <table><tbody><tr> <td></td></tr></tbody></table> </td></tr></tbody></table></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table> <h2 id="arabic-t">Arabic tāʾ</h2> <p>The letter is named <i><i>tāʼ</i></i>. It is written in several ways depending on its position in the word: </p><table><tbody><tr><th scope="row">Position in word:</th><th scope="col">Isolated</th><th scope="col">Final</th><th scope="col">Medial</th><th scope="col">Initial</th></tr><tr><th scope="row">Glyph form:(Help)</th><td>ت</td><td>ـت</td><td>ـتـ</td><td>تـ</td></tr></tbody></table> <p>Final ـَتْ (<i><a href="/facts/Fathah/7TAagmkr">fatha</a></i>, then <i>tāʼ</i> with a <a href="/facts/Sukun/7TAagmkr">sukun</a> on it, <a href="/facts/Arabic_phonology/4WhkxU18">pronounced</a> /at/, though diacritics are normally omitted) is used to mark feminine gender for third-person <a href="/facts/Perfective_aspect/Me4egTFk">perfective</a>/<a href="/facts/Past_tense/WkdWorjX">past tense</a> verbs, while final تَ (<i>tāʼ-fatḥa</i>, /ta/) is used to mark past-tense second-person singular masculine verbs, final تِ (<i>tāʼ-<a href="/facts/Kasrah/7TAagmkr">kasra</a></i>, /ti/) to mark past-tense second-person singular feminine verbs, and final تُ (<i>tāʼ-<a href="/facts/Damma/7TAagmkr">ḍamma</a></i>, /tu/) to mark past-tense first-person singular verbs. The plural form of Arabic letter ت is <i><i>tāʼāt</i></i> (تاءات), a <a href="/facts/Palindrome/PHo33zqN">palindrome</a>. </p><p>Recently, the isolated ت has been used online as an <a href="/facts/Emoticon/f0jk3C14">emoticon</a> in the Western world, because it resembles a smiling face.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:1" href="#fn:1"><sup>1</sup></a> </p> <h3>Tā' marbūṭa </h3> <p class="note">Not to be confused with <a href="/facts/%25C3%2596/bbDNKdFM">ö</a>.</p> <p>An alternative form (ـَة, ة) called <i>tāʼ marbūṭa</i> (تَاءْ مَرْبُوطَة), "bound <i><i>tāʼ </i></i>", is used at the end of words to mark <a href="/facts/Grammatical_gender/2hEshpnP">feminine gender</a> for <a href="/facts/Noun/SsnDNfkX">nouns</a> and <a href="/facts/Adjective/0ohBjtmT">adjectives</a>. Regular <i><i>tāʼ</i></i>, to distinguish it from <i>tāʼ marbūṭa</i>, is referred to as <i><i>tāʼ maftūḥa</i></i> (تَاءْ مَفْتُوحَة, "open <i>tāʼ</i>"). </p> <table><tbody><tr><th scope="row">Position in word:</th><th scope="col">Isolated</th><th scope="col">Final</th><th scope="col">Medial</th><th scope="col">Initial</th></tr><tr><th scope="row">Glyph form:(Help)</th><td>ة</td><td>ـة</td><td>ـة</td><td>ة</td></tr></tbody></table> <p>In words such as رِسَالَة ('letter, message, epistle'), the <i><a href="/facts/Fathah/7TAagmkr">fatha</a></i> (/a/) + <i>tāʼ marbūṭa</i> combination (ـَة) is <a href="/facts/Transliteration/1eemsW6o">transliterated</a> as <i><i>-a</i></i> or <i><i>-ah</i></i> (<i><i>risāla</i></i> or <i><i>risālah</i></i>), and pronounced as /-a/ (as if there were only a <i>fatha</i>). Historically, <i>tāʼ marbūṭa</i> was pronounced as the /<a href="/facts/Voiceless_alveolar_plosive/1GaDe2Vy">t</a>/ sound in all positions, but now the /<a href="/facts/Voiceless_alveolar_plosive/1GaDe2Vy">t</a>/ sound is dropped in coda positions. </p><p>However, when a word ending with a <i><i>tāʼ marbūṭa</i></i> is suffixed with a <a href="/facts/%25CA%25BEI%25CA%25BFrab/y3fBbrle">grammatical case ending</a> or any other suffix, the /t/ is clearly pronounced. For example, the word رِسَالَة ('letter, message', 'epistle') is pronounced as <i>risāla</i> in <a href="/facts/Pausa/uXbl4YL4">pausa</a> but is pronounced <i>risālatun</i> in the nominative case (/un/ being the nominative case ending), <i>risālatin</i> in the genitive case (/in/ being the genitive case ending), and <i>risālatan</i> in the accusative case (/an/ being the accusative case ending). When the possessive suffix <i>-ī</i> ('my') is added, it becomes <i>risālatī</i> ('my letter') . The /t/ is also always pronounced when the word is in <a href="/facts/Construct_state/duxG0U0K">construct state</a> (<i>iḍāfa</i>), for example in <i><a href="/facts/Risalat_al-Ghufran/vEqY7Yv6">Risālat al-Ghufrān</a></i> ('The Epistle of Forgiveness'). </p><p>The isolated and final forms of this letter combine the shape of <i>hāʼ</i> (<a href="/facts/%25D9%2587/xX9tL4gb">ه</a>) and the two dots of <i>tāʼ</i> (ت). When words containing the symbol are borrowed into other languages written in the <a href="/facts/Arabic_script/GB5gsj1F">Arabic script</a>, such as <a href="/facts/Persian_language/jfUYbHbt">Persian</a>, <i><i>tāʼ marbūṭa</i></i> usually becomes either a regular ه or a regular ت. </p> <h2 id="hebrew-tav">Hebrew tav</h2> <table><tbody><tr><th colspan="5"><a href="/facts/Orthography/sJPhCpsU">Orthographic</a> variants</th></tr><tr><th colspan="3">Various print fonts</th><th rowspan="2"><a href="/facts/Cursive_Hebrew/U4VshtQ9">CursiveHebrew</a></th><th rowspan="2"><a href="/facts/Rashi_script/zw8JdWzr">Rashiscript</a></th></tr><tr><th>Serif</th><th><a href="/facts/Sans-serif/25okAUVu">Sans-serif</a></th><th><a href="/facts/Monospaced/or1TCAoh">Monospaced</a></th></tr><tr><td>ת</td><td>ת</td><td>ת</td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table> <p>Hebrew spelling: תָּיו, תָּי״ו </p> <h3>Hebrew pronunciation</h3> <p>The letter <i>tav</i> in <a href="/facts/Modern_Hebrew/xIj94mYw">Modern Hebrew</a> usually represents a <a href="/facts/Voiceless_alveolar_plosive/1GaDe2Vy">voiceless alveolar plosive</a>: /t/. </p> <h4>Variations on written form and pronunciation</h4> <p>The letter <i>tav</i> is one of the six letters that can receive a <a href="/facts/Dagesh_kal/pWDjK9M0">dagesh kal</a> diacritic; the others are <a href="/facts/Beth_(letter)/Srgaea2b">bet</a>, <a href="/facts/Gimel/X9bUMl2A">gimel</a>, <a href="/facts/Dalet/0twlfWSk">dalet</a>, <a href="/facts/Kaph/0wPVqGlz">kaph</a> and <a href="/facts/Pe_(Semitic_letter)/QDVgytTJ">pe</a>. Bet, kaph and pe have their sound values changed in modern Hebrew from the fricative to the plosive, by adding a dagesh. In modern Hebrew, the other three do not change their pronunciation with or without a dagesh, but they have had alternate pronunciations at other times and places. </p><p>In traditional <a href="/facts/Ashkenazi/B9PIYy71">Ashkenazi</a> pronunciation, tav represents an /s/ without the <a href="/facts/Dagesh/pWDjK9M0">dagesh</a> and has the plosive form when it has the dagesh. Among <a href="/facts/Yemenite_Jews/MMxYSKUt">Yemen</a> and some <a href="/facts/Sephardi/VrvPsCeh">Sephardi</a> areas, tav without a dagesh represented a <a href="/facts/Voiceless_dental_fricative/hmQpb6pI">voiceless dental fricative</a> /θ/—a pronunciation hailed by the <a href="/facts/Bension_Kohen/Wjg0uzeR">Sfath Emeth</a> work as wholly authentic, while the tav with the dagesh is the plosive /t/. In traditional <a href="/facts/Italian_Jews/6AM1e7Wm">Italian</a> pronunciation, tav without a dagesh is sometimes /d/. </p><p>Tav with a <a href="/facts/Geresh/Krlv1G2F">geresh</a> (ת׳) is sometimes used in order to represent the TH digraph in loanwords. </p> <h3>Significance of tav</h3> <p>In <a href="/facts/Gematria/9AGu2Q9x">gematria</a>, tav represents the number 400, the largest single number that can be represented without using the <i><i>sophit</i></i> (final) forms (see <a href="/facts/Kaph/0wPVqGlz">kaph</a>, <a href="/facts/Mem/ykDtAr5g">mem</a>, <a href="/facts/Nun_(letter)/3mQbmbHv">nun</a>, <a href="/facts/Pe_(Semitic_letter)/QDVgytTJ">pe</a>, and <a href="/facts/Tzade/cN3xQlt6">tzade</a>). </p><p>In representing names from foreign languages, a <i><a href="/facts/Hebrew_numerals/I8ezGsaM">geresh</a></i> can also be placed after the tav (ת׳), making it represent /<a href="/facts/Voiceless_dental_fricative/hmQpb6pI">θ</a>/. (See also: <a href="/facts/Hebraization_of_English/xQE5nDVh">Hebraization of English</a>) </p> <h4>In Judaism</h4> <p>Tav is the last letter of the Hebrew word <i>emet</i>, which means '<a href="/facts/Truth/NyQmBtUC">truth</a>'. The <a href="/facts/Midrash/I7xJG8jn">midrash</a> explains that <i>emet</i> is made up of the first, middle, and last letters of the <a href="/facts/Hebrew_alphabet/qQStmr5u">Hebrew alphabet</a> (<a href="/facts/Aleph/fFWqQp9C">aleph</a>, <a href="/facts/Mem/ykDtAr5g">mem</a>, and tav: אמת). <i>Sheqer</i> (שקר, falsehood), on the other hand, is made up of the 19th, 20th, and 21st (and penultimate) letters. </p><p>Thus, truth is all-encompassing, while falsehood is narrow and deceiving. In <a href="/facts/Jewish_mythology/m5wGnldx">Jewish mythology</a> it was the word <i>emet</i> that was carved into the head of the <a href="/facts/Golem/qz13hQDM">Golem</a> which ultimately gave it life. But when the letter <i>aleph</i> was erased from the golem's forehead, what was left was "<i>met</i>"—dead. And so the golem died. </p><p><a href="/facts/Book_of_Ezekiel/kcSImkzj">Ezekiel</a> 9:4 depicts a vision in which the <i>tav</i> plays a <a href="/facts/Passover/klu4sC0g">Passover</a> role similar to the blood on the lintel and doorposts of a Hebrew home in Egypt.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2"><sup>2</sup></a> In Ezekiel's vision, the Lord has his angels separate the demographic wheat from the chaff by going through Jerusalem, the capital city of ancient Israel, and inscribing a mark, a tav, "upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof." </p><p>In Ezekiel's vision, then, the Lord is counting tav-marked Israelites as worthwhile to spare, but counts the people worthy of annihilation who lack the tav and the critical attitude it signifies. In other words, looking askance at a culture marked by dire moral decline is a kind of <a href="/facts/Shibboleth/lnlrjqcQ">shibboleth</a> for loyalty and zeal for God.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a> </p> <h4>Sayings with taf</h4> <p>״מאל״ף עד תי״ו״, "From aleph to taf" describes something from beginning to end, the Hebrew equivalent of the English "From A to Z." </p> <h2 id="syriac-taw">Syriac taw</h2> <p>In the <a href="/facts/Syriac_alphabet/dA2LyFax">Syriac alphabet</a>, as in the Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets, <i>taw</i> (ܬܰܐܘ) or <i>tăw</i> (ܬܲܘ <i>or</i> ܬܰܘ) is the final letter in the alphabet, most commonly representing the <a href="/facts/Voicelessness/575TtTUn">voiceless</a> <a href="/facts/Dental_consonant/Yraaz9Nm">dental</a> <a href="/facts/Stop_consonant/okC9pztc">stop</a> [<a href="/facts/Voiceless_dental_plosive/1GaDe2Vy">t̪</a>] and <a href="/facts/Fricative_consonant/1FQuuhfX">fricative</a> [<a href="/facts/Voiceless_dental_fricative/hmQpb6pI">θ</a>] consonant pair, differentiated phonemically by <a href="/facts/Syriac_alphabet/dA2LyFax">hard and soft markings</a>. When left as unmarked ܬ ܬ ܬ or marked with a <i>qūššāyā</i> dot above the letter ܬ݁ ܬ݁ ܬ݁ indicating 'hard' pronunciation, it is realized as a <a href="/facts/Voiceless_dental_and_alveolar_stops/1GaDe2Vy">plosive</a> /t/. When the <a href="/facts/Phoneme/EXGHlJ7a">phoneme</a> is marked with a <i>rūkkāḵā</i> dot below the letter ܬ݂ ܬ݂ ܬ݂ indicating 'soft' pronunciation, the <a href="/facts/Phone_(phonetics)/SDJtYApq">phone</a> is <a href="/facts/Lenition/htEV4TwT">spirantized</a> to a <a href="/facts/Voiceless_dental_fricative/hmQpb6pI">fricative</a> /θ/. Hard taw (<i>taw qšīṯā</i>) is <a href="/facts/Romanization/a4fl8fee">Romanized</a> as a plain <i>t</i>, while the soft form of the letter (<i>taw rakkīḵtā</i>) is transliterated as <i><i>ṯ</i></i> or <i><i>th</i></i>. </p> <table><tbody><tr><th><i>ʾEsṭrangēlā</i>(classical)</th><th><i>Maḏnḥāyā</i>(eastern)</th><th><i>Serṭo</i>(western)</th><th>Unicodecharacter</th></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>ܬܬܬ</td></tr></tbody></table> <table><tbody><tr><th scope="row">Position in word:</th><th scope="col">Isolated</th><th scope="col">Final</th><th scope="col">Medial</th><th scope="col">Initial</th></tr><tr><th scope="row">Glyph form:(Help)</th><td>ܬ</td><td>ـܬ</td><td>ـܬـ</td><td>ܬـ</td></tr></tbody></table> <h2 id="character-encodings">Character encodings</h2> Character information<table><tbody><tr><th scope="row">Preview</th><th colspan="2">ת</th><th colspan="2">ت</th><th colspan="2">ܬ</th></tr><tr><th>Unicode name</th><td colspan="2">HEBREW LETTER TAV</td><td colspan="2">ARABIC LETTER TEH</td><td colspan="2">SYRIAC LETTER TAW</td></tr><tr><th>Encodings</th><th>decimal</th><th>hex</th><th>dec</th><th>hex</th><th>dec</th><th>hex</th></tr><tr><td><a href="/facts/Unicode/DDu3MfPV">Unicode</a></td><td>1514</td><td>U+05EA</td><td>1578</td><td>U+062A</td><td>1836</td><td>U+072C</td></tr><tr><td><a href="/facts/UTF-8/xlaVHSyf">UTF-8</a></td><td>215 170</td><td>D7 AA</td><td>216 170</td><td>D8 AA</td><td>220 172</td><td>DC AC</td></tr><tr><td><a href="/facts/Numeric_character_reference/wCEzNIlC">Numeric character reference</a></td><td>ת</td><td>ת</td><td>ت</td><td>ت</td><td>ܬ</td><td>ܬ</td></tr></tbody></table> Character information<table><tbody><tr><th scope="row">Preview</th><th colspan="2">ࠕ</th><th colspan="2">𐎚</th><th colspan="2">𐡕</th><th colspan="2">𐤕</th></tr><tr><th>Unicode name</th><td colspan="2">SAMARITAN LETTER TOF</td><td colspan="2">UGARITIC LETTER TO</td><td colspan="2">IMPERIAL ARAMAIC LETTER TAW</td><td colspan="2">PHOENICIAN LETTER TAU</td></tr><tr><th>Encodings</th><th>decimal</th><th>hex</th><th>dec</th><th>hex</th><th>dec</th><th>hex</th><th>dec</th><th>hex</th></tr><tr><td><a href="/facts/Unicode/DDu3MfPV">Unicode</a></td><td>2069</td><td>U+0815</td><td>66458</td><td>U+1039A</td><td>67669</td><td>U+10855</td><td>67861</td><td>U+10915</td></tr><tr><td><a href="/facts/UTF-8/xlaVHSyf">UTF-8</a></td><td>224 160 149</td><td>E0 A0 95</td><td>240 144 142 154</td><td>F0 90 8E 9A</td><td>240 144 161 149</td><td>F0 90 A1 95</td><td>240 144 164 149</td><td>F0 90 A4 95</td></tr><tr><td><a href="/facts/UTF-16/ofSmbCem">UTF-16</a></td><td>2069</td><td>0815</td><td>55296 57242</td><td>D800 DF9A</td><td>55298 56405</td><td>D802 DC55</td><td>55298 56597</td><td>D802 DD15</td></tr><tr><td><a href="/facts/Numeric_character_reference/wCEzNIlC">Numeric character reference</a></td><td>ࠕ</td><td>ࠕ</td><td>𐎚</td><td>𐎚</td><td>𐡕</td><td>𐡕</td><td>𐤕</td><td>𐤕</td></tr></tbody></table> <h2 id="see-also">See also</h2> <ul><li><a href="/facts/Tav_(number)/D5Yrk6nL">Tav (number)</a></li></ul> <h2 id="footnotes">Footnotes</h2> <h2 id="external-links">External links</h2> Wikimedia Commons has media related to Taw (letter). <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>"Smileys Symbols ㋡ ㋛ ☺ ☹ ☻ 〠 シ ッ ツ ヅ". www.i2symbol.com. Retrieved 2021-07-22. <a href="http://www.i2symbol.com/symbols/smileys" target="_blank">http://www.i2symbol.com/symbols/smileys</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Exodus 12:7,12. <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>Cf. the New Testament's condemnation of lukewarmness in Revelation 3:15-16 <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>