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.