א

The alef or alef (also aleph) is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It comes from the Phoenician letter ʾalp (𐤀) through Aramaic. The term alef means "ox", so surely the letter comes from the hieratic Egyptian letter that represented said animal (the head with the two horns).

Shape

Variants
Square	Manuscript	Rashi
Русский

Yiddish

In Yiddish, alef is used for various orthographic purposes in native words, usually with different diacritics borrowed from Hebrew niqqud:

• Without diacritics, alef is mute; it is written at the beginning of the words before the vowels spelled with the letter vav or Yod. For example, oykh it is also written as מו.. The digit is the initial diptongo [e.g.], but that digit is not allowed at the beginning of a word in yiddish spelling, so it is preceded by a silent alep. Some publications use a silent alef adjacent to such vowels in the middle of a word also when it is necessary to avoid ambiguity.
• An alef with diacritical paediac, א, represents the [a] vowel in standard yiddish.
• An alef with diacritical kamatz, א., represents the vowel [.] in standard yiddish.

Loanwords from Hebrew or Aramaic are written as in their native language.

Uses

Maths

His symbol is Русский Русский {displaystyle aleph } and in the mathematical sphere represents the different types of infinity (lef numbers): for example Русский Русский 0{displaystyle aleph _{0}} represents the cardinal of the natural numbers 日本語N日本語{displaystyle Δmathbb {N} ̄.

Aleph represents the cardinal number immediately superior to which, if the Continuum Hypothesis is given, coincides with the cardinality of the set of real numbers.

Mistism

Due to the mystical nature of the alphabet, its first letter gave its name to El Aleph, the mythical point where all the points of the universe converge, in the work of Jorge Luis Borges.

In the Jewish tradition

As one of the three letters "mothers" the àlef symbolizes the air.^{[citation needed]} In relation to its numerical value, the àlef is also a symbol of God in reference to monotheism (God is unique as the àlef is the one). In addition, there are several names to designate God that have the àlef as the initial letter (Adonai אדוניי, Elohim אלוהים,...). The name of the first man (Adam אדם) and that of the first patriarch (Abraham אברהם) are also written with an initial àlef. The aleph symbolizes the beginning, the birth of everything. It is by writing the word אמת ("truth", word with initial àlef) on the golem's forehead that he brought it to life. When the àlef was erased, only the last two letters that make up the word מת, which means "dead", remained, so the golem died.^{[citation needed ]}

Encoding