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From The Hebrew Alphabet...

The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Chet


Chet is the name of the eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. An easy way to remember the pronunciation of chet is that it rhymes with "mate". It has several other spellings in other Semitic alphabets such as Het, Khet, Cheth, Kheth, or Heth.

In Modern Hebrew, the letter chet which can also be spelled as Khet usually will have the sound value of a type of a consonantal sound which is used in some spoken languages. This is what you are speaking of when you refer to a voiceless velar fricative. This was largely brought about by European influence.
Chet is one of three letters that can take a vowel at the end of a word. Chet, along with Aleph, Resh, He and Ayin is not able to receive a dagesh. It is because those pharyngeal fricatives are hard for most English speaking people to pronounce that loanwords are typically Anglicized to have /h/.
The representation of chet in gematria is the number eight. The letter chet means 8000 when it comes at the beginning of the Hebrew year.

When the letter chet is used repeatedly in online forums and chat rooms, it denotes laughter just as LOL denotes laughter in English.

Chet has been named the letter of life. It is taught in Chassidut that there are basically two levels of life: "life to enliven" and "essential life". God and "Essential life" go hand in hand. God’s creative power, continually permeates all of reality which is "life to enliven".


The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Aleph
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Bet
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Gimel
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Dalet
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter He
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Vav
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Zayin
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Chet
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Tet
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Yud
The Hebrew Alphabet Letters Kaph and Khaph
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Lamed
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Mem
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Nun
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Samekh
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Ayin
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Pe
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Tsade
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Qoph
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Resh
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Shin
The Hebrew Alphabet Letter Tav

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