Sunday, November 25, 2012

Letter Form Mates - Letter Flipping

Ever wonder why, especially when first learning them, some letters share the same form or are very similar, just repositioned? Pairs. Did you ever notice?

b d | p q | f t | I H | h y | k x | L r | m w | n u | N Z | s z


Other type fonts show other possibilities.


Did you know the Greeks would flip and flop their letters?


The 22 Hebrew letters also have what are called "shape mates".


Why? 


Here's a clue:

vv, vav or wau or wen = [ = flips to become m ] + [ = u flips to become n ] = m + n = “man”

Spelling out the names of both wau will yield = wau + man = “woman”. 

vv, as w,w both flip to become m,m to yield "mam" and "mom". 

Vav transcribed as "v" yields "Eve".
 
 
Footnotes:

© Rabbi Yisroel David Berger–ydbe@geocities.com
NOTES:

(7)    “The Hebrew language is similar to English in that there are many different fonts which one can use to write the letters.  …”
Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, The Alef-Beit; Jewish Thought Revealed through the Hebrew Letters (New Jersey: Jason Aaronson Inc., 1995, 1991) 
Tzadik: The Faith of the Righteous One pg. 266

“…  The twenty-two letters of the alef-beit pair into eleven “form mates,” the two letters whose forms most closely resemble one another, as taught in Kabbalah. …”
  
Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, The Alef-Beit; Jewish Thought Revealed through the Hebrew Letters (New Jersey: Jason Aaronson Inc., 1995, 1991)
Kuf  Omnipresence:  Redemption of Fallen Sparks
Divinity  pg.285 

“The yud also resembles a “microcosmic” lamed (and is therefore its “form-mate”), as expounded in the halacha.”

Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburg, The Alef-Beit; Jewish Thought Revealed through the Hebrew Letters (Northvale New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1995, 1991) 
Vav  Connection 
Form  pg. 97  [in brackets added]

"The vav [ v ] is a vertical line representing a pillar or a man standing upright.”

Letters U, V, W and Y
By Allan Haley 
Copyright 2001 - 2009 Fonts.com

"The story of U is also the story of our V, W and Y. In fact, the origins of U even have something in common with the F, the sixth letter of our alphabet.

"As for the graphic form of W, it was created by the Anglo-Saxons, more or less during the 13th century. Sensibly, they tried to distinguish among the various sounds represented by the inherited letter when they wrote it down. So, though they used a V for both the ‘u’ and ‘v’ sounds, they wrote the V twice for the ‘w’ sound. Eventually the two Vs were joined to form a single character, called “wen.” This early ligature stuck and became part of the common alphabet rather than an accessory.”
. . .


Douglas C. McMurtrie: The Book; The Story of Printing and Bookmaking (New York: Oxford University Press, 1948, 1943) 
Chapter II: The Origin of the Alphabet pg 35 
. . .
From a casual inspection of some very early inscriptions from Thera, Attica, and Corinth, “and especially a few lines from the famous inscription in which were published, about 650 B.C., some of the laws of the ancient Cretan city of Gortyna” …. “it would seem that the Greeks, in their first struggles with alphabetic writing, were somewhat like our primary-school children. They apparently felt quite at liberty to write as they pleased, with the characters sideways, hindside before, or upside down, and in a delightful variety of forms. To them, it would seem, a letter was a letter, no matter in what position it was written or carved. …"