Hebrew Letters: Ayin

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The next letter of the Hebrew Alphabet is called Ayin, pronounced a-yeen.

  Hebrew audio: Listen to the sound of Ayin.

Here is what the Hebrew letter Ayin looks like:

Here is how to write Ayin:



 
Like Alef and Chet, Ayin is a special letter called a guttural. Its sound is often described as a vocal glottal stop, meaning that it is produced by making a sound similar to the letter a but far back in the throat, and closing the throat during the sound, slightly choking it. This sound does not exist in English.

The sound of Ayin is still present in Arabic, a language closely related to Hebrew. (Arabic, in fact, has two Ayin sounds.) Like the guttural Chet, Ayin is often not articulated correctly in Hebrew today, because Hebrew speakers have been influenced by many other languages where gutturals do not exist. Yemenite Jews, however, still articulate Ayin properly.

Like Alef, Ayin often carries a vowel with it. Those unable to articulate Ayin correctly often treat it as though it were Alef.
 

When learning Hebrew, you should at least try to pronounce letters like Chet and Ayin correctly. Failing to do so will make it much harder to spell Hebrew words, because you will not be able to use the correct sound of the word to guide you.

Ayin has the Gematria (numerical value) of 70.

Practise writing Ayin in the grid lines below:










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