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Hebrew Helps: 22-25
© 2010, T. Michael W. Halcomb

Help 22: In biblical Hebrew, there are four letters known as gutturals. Simply put, gutturals are sounds
produced at the back of the tongue/mouth. In Hebrew, depending on where these gutturals appear in a
term, they may influence inflection (or, how a word changes). Our four gutturals are:
‫א ה ח ע‬.
r
Some scholars suggest that the letter “Resh” is a guttural. However, because it is only like gutturals
in that it rejects doubling, we will not acknowledge it as a guttural here. We shall say more about
doubling later.

Help 23: Whenever the Direct Article (DA) joins to a word that begins with a guttural, changes in the
world may occur. For example, here are the changes that take place to the DA:

becomes
before

becomes
before

becomes
OR an unaccented
before

Help 24: Along with the gutturals, the Hebrew “Mem” and “Yod” (or Yodh), when interacting with the
DA, causes the DA to morph:

becomes
before

*Note: There are many exceptions to this rule!

Help 25: Here is a helpful little flow chart I have created to show how the DA acts in conjunction with
gutturals, resh, mem and yod:
Normal

Or

Or an unaccented