LAMED

LAMED (Heb. ל;לָמֶד), the 12th letter of the Hebrew alphabet; its numerical value is 30. The earliest representation of this letter is a pictograph of an ox-goad \!ejud\_0002\_0012\_0\_img1228\>\> , \!ejud\_0002\_0012\_0\_img1229\>\> . The Phoenician script in the 11th century B.C.E. fixed the stance of the lamed, so that the curve was drawn as the base \!ejud\_0002\_0012\_0\_img1230\>\> . In the later Phoenician, as well as in the Hebrew and Aramaic, scripts there was a tendency to sharpen the curve into an angle \!ejud\_0002\_0012\_0\_img1231\>\> . The diagonal upper stroke began at a higher point than the other letters of the alphabet, while the rightward base was drawn just beneath the ceiling line. In the fifth-century B.C.E. Phoenician lamed, a leftward bar resembling a tail was added at the right extremity of its base \!ejud\_0002\_0012\_0\_img1232\>\> . A similar development occurred in the fourth-century Aramaic script. As the Aramaic lamed of this period consisted of a high vertical downstroke, curving under the ceiling line to the right \!ejud\_0002\_0012\_0\_img1233\>\> , the new form with the tail \!ejud\_0002\_0012\_0\_img1234\>\> easily turned in the Aramaic cursive into a wavy line \!ejud\_0002\_0012\_0\_img1235\>\> . (The Hebrew as well as the Samaritan lamed \!ejud\_0002\_0012\_0\_img1236\>\> never developed such a tail.) The Hebrew script preserved the tail of the Aramaic lamed, and it became a main part of the letter \!ejud\_0002\_0012\_0\_img1237\>\> . The Arabic script adopted the Nabatean cursive lamed \!ejud\_0002\_0012\_0\_img1238\>\> , which is a descendant of the Aramaic wavy line form. The modern Hebrew cursive lamed, which developed from the Hebrew book-hand shape of this letter, is essentially also some variation of a wavy line: \!ejud\_0002\_0012\_0\_img1239\>\> → \!ejud\_0002\_0012\_0\_img1240\>\> . See Alphabet, Hebrew\>\> . (Joseph Naveh)