The Hebrew Alphabet

Character			Name	Pronunciation	Numerical Value
		finals
	א		Aleph	A cutting off of the breath, like the 'h' in 'honest'	1
בּ	ב		Beth	The dotted Beth is pronounced 'b,' the undotted 'v'	2
גּ	ג		Gimel	The dotted Gimel is a hard 'g,' and the undotted is a soft gutteral 'gh'	3
דּ	ד		Daleth	The dotted Daleth is pronounced 'd,' and the undotted is a voiced 'th' as in 'the'	4
	ה		Hey	Pronounced 'h'	5
	ו		Waw	Pronounced 'w'	6
	ז		Zayin	Pronounced 'z'	7
	ח		Heth	A gutteral 'h' as in the Scottish 'loch'	8
	ט		Teth	A dull 't'	9
	י		Yod	Pronounced 'y'	10
כּ	כ	ך	Kaph	The dotted Kaph is 'k,' undotted 'ch'	20
	ל		Lamed	Pronounced 'l'	30
	מ	ם	Mem	Pronounced 'm'	40
	נ	ן	Nun	Pronounced 'n'	50
	ס		Samek	A dull 's'	60
	ע		Ayin	Hard to pronounce. Like a gulping sound.	70
פּ	פ	ף	Pey	The dotted Pey is 'p,' undotted is 'f'	80
	צ	ץ	Tsade	A harsh dental 's'	90
	ק		Koph	A 'k' at the back of the throat	100
	ר		Resh	Pronounced 'r'	200
שׂ	שׁ		Sin, Shin	Sin (with a dot over the left) pronounced 's,' Shin (dot over the right) is 'sh'	300
תּ	ת		Taw	The dotted Taw is a 't,' undotted 'th' as in 'think'	400

The Hebrew characters shown here are those of the "square" script, which the Jews borrowed from Assyria during the Babylonian exile. Prior to that, Israelites had used alphabetical characters closely resembling those of the Phoenicians, who were the first to devise a phonetic alphabet. The original characters of the Phoenician alphabet are shown above the corresponding "square" script characters in the table below.

The Phoenician alphabet (top) compared with the square Hebrew characters

The historical development of the Hebrew alphabet may be seen in the Table of Alphabets by M. Lidzbarski.