GENETIC CORRESPONDENCES BETWEEN HEBREW, GREEK AND ROMAN ALPHABETS by John Opsopaus INTRODUCTION In an effort to translate into the Graeco-Roman Tradition some ideas from the Western Magical and Hermetic Tradition, including Qabala and Tarot, I've developed the following table of correspon- dence between the Hebrew alphabet and Greek and Roman alphabets. There are no deep secrets here; this information can be found in any history of the alphabet. What follows is a table of *genetic* correspon- dences rather than *phonetic* correspondences, the latter being much less exact and more changeable. Systematic genetic correspondences are possible because the Hebrew, Greek and Roman alphabets derive from a common source, the North Semitic alphabet of c.1700 BCE. The Roman comes to us via Etruscan and Greek c.800 BCE, and the Greek comes via Phoenician, c.1000 BCE. In this sense Aleph, Alpha and A are in essence the same letter. It's worth noting that the Modern Hebrew alphabet, which is commonly used in esoteric work, is no closer in form to the original alphabet than are the Greek or Roman alphabets. Indeed, the Old Hebrew alphabet (c. 900 BCE) looks much more like the Early Greek alphabet than it looks like Modern Hebrew. Therefore I see no reason to believe that the Modern Hebrew alphabet has more "magical potency" than the Greek or Roman alphabets. TABLE Table of Genetic Correspondences No Hebrew Greek Greek Roman Letter Letter Number Letter -------------------------------- 1 aleph alpha 1 A 2 beth beta 2 B 3 gimel gamma 3 CG 4 daleth delta 4 D 5 he e-psilon 5 E 6 wau wau *1 6 F 7 zayin zeta 7 Z 8 heth eta 8 H 9 teth theta 9 *3 10 yod iota 10 IJ 11 koph kappa 20 K 12 lamedh lambda 30 L 13 men mu 40 M 14 nun nu 50 N 15 samekh xi 60 X 16 ayin o-micron 70 O 17 pe pi 80 P 18 sade san *2 -- *4 19 qoph qoppa *1 90 Q 20 resh rho 100 R 21 sin sigma 200 S 22 tau tau 300 T ------------------------------- u-psilon 400 UVWY phi 500 chi 600 psi 700 o-mega 800 sampi *1 900 NOTES General: No: This is the numerical position of the letter in the Hebrew alphabet as used in various magical systems. It also essentially the order in the Phoenician and the earliest Greek alphabets. Hebrew Letter: The name of the Hebrew letter. Greek Letter: The name of the Greek letter; letters after the horizontal line below the 22nd letter are later additions that do not correspond to Phoenician or Hebrew letters. Greek Number: This is the numerical value of the Greek letter in the usual Greek number notation. With the possible exception of San, it corresponds to the Hebrew/Phoenician order (see note *2 below). Roman Letter: This is the Roman letter genetically related to the Hebrew/Phoenician. No Roman letters are derived from Teth and Sade. *1 Wau, Qoppa and Sampi are obsolete Greek letters, which in the classical period were only used for writing numerals. Wau looks like an F, Qoppa looks like a Q with a vertical tail. *2 San, corresponding to Sade, was used in some early Greek alphabets for an S sound. It is often taken to be equivalent to Sampi (also an obsolete S sound), and so it's reasonable to assign it the numerical value 900. *3 There is no Roman letter genetically related to Teth/Theta. Nor are there any Roman letters of similar form, so any correspondence is arbitrary. Y is nice, since it recalls the Thorn of Anglo-Saxon. *4 There is no Roman letter genetically related to Sade/San. However, in the earliest Greek and Semitic alphabets, where it appears, it looks like an M or inverted W, so it would be reasonable to represent it by the Roman W, on the basis of similar shapes. REFERENCES Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. alphabet. Crystal, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, pp. 176-7, 202. Sampson, Writing Systems, Chh. 5, 6. Gelb, A Study of Writing, Ch. 5.