Aramaic Letters: Pe

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The next letter of the Aramaic Alphabet is called Pe, pronounced similar to the words pen or hen but without the final n. It corresponds to the Hebrew letter Pe in the Hebrew Alphabet. The letters in the Aramaic Alphabet are almost identical to those in Hebrew, but have slightly different names and sometimes slightly different sounds.

  Aramaic audio: Listen to the sound of Pe.

Here is what the Aramaic letter Pe looks like:

 
Pe has two pronunciations, depending on whether it has the dot, or Dagesh, inside it. If it has a dot, it is pronounced with a hard p sound, like the words Palestine, Paul or person. Without the dot, it is pronounced f like the words Philistine, famine or fool.

Here are the two versions of Pe:

  with the dot, pronounced p

   without the dot, pronounced f

 
Pe is one of the five letters in the Aramaic Alphabet with a special form when they occur at the end of an Aramaic word. The final form of Pe looks like this:

  the form of Pe at the end of a word

At the end of an Aramaic word, Pe is generally pronounced with the harder sound p, rather than the harder sound f. This is the opposite to Hebrew, since Hebrew words ending in Pe always have the softer sound f, rather than the harder sound p.

Here is how to write Pe:



All forms of Pe have the Gematria (numerical value) of 80.

In Israel, Pe is one of the four Aramaic letters on the Dreidel, which is a spinning top used for playing games during the festival of Hannukah. In Israel, Pe often replaces the letter Sheen.

Practise writing Pe in the grid lines below:










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