Talk:Gimel

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Untitled[edit]

Camel or throwing stick? The article seems to claim both in separate sections, without discussion, which seems like a problem to me. It can't be both. What does the research say? Is it an open question? It would be good to have more than a footnote by Bertrand Russell to go by. 80.62.116.106 (talk) 01:06, 9 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]


I believed that gimel came from a Phenician letter representing a camel (gamal in hebrew). And when you look at the Hebrew letter, it can look like a camel.

Julia (jvigne' @ 'caramail.com)

Footnote 6 to chapter 1 of Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy makes the above assertion. Any evidence for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.105.10.214 (talk) 00:00, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Same question. It's a little weird to be citing Russell for this - he wasn't a linguist, he was a philosopher. He didn't do any scholarly work on Hebrew - he's just repeating was he was taught, or read somewhere. It would be like citing someone like Jerry Seinfeld if, in one of his books, Seinfeld had written, "'Gimel', the third letter of the Hebrew alphabet, means 'camel'." Which is all this footnote says. Very strange citation here. 2600:8801:9D00:AB:0:0:0:32 (talk) 18:31, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd rather this section was more strongly flagged as speculation based on the lack of reliable sourcing/evidence. There is a nice table at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet that shows different forms. Personally, I think it looks like a footprint or sandal strap.--Readingwords (talk) 03:53, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Arabic letter forms inconsistency among articles[edit]

Is there a reason to show the Arabic letter in the table in Gimel (letter) in its middle form: ﺟ , whereas in Heth (letter) the letter is shown in the final form: ح ? (cross-posted: Talk:Heth (letter)#Arabic letter forms inconsistency among articles)--Imz 00:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I'm solving this problem by adding 2 distinctive Arabic letter forms (initial and isolated, if they are present) to the tables: [1], [2].--Imz 02:11, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It needs to be mentioned that Gimel is always the winnar. Buttboy666 21:50, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arabic pronunciation question[edit]

I've heard that in Arabic it's pronounced "J" (as in "jump") but I've also heard that it's pronounced "J" as in "regime" or French "jour." I'm not speaking of the Egyptian pronunciation as "G" but the standard Arabic pronunciation. Thanks in advance for assistance on this. Badagnani 23:41, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In al-Fuṣḥā (standard Arabic), it's pronounced as ZH (the g in regime), but in certain regional dialects it's pronounced as DJ or G. MURRAYtheB مروان (talk) 21:35, 13 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alternate name of letter in Arabic[edit]

Can't the letter's name also be romanized as "jim" (in addition to "ǧīm," which is used here)? Badagnani 23:42, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

hi iam sobhan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.221.68.153 (talk) 13:45, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What is “spelling order”?[edit]

The introduction says that gimel is “fifth in spelling order”. What is “spelling order”? I couldn’t find this term in Wikipedia or the rest of the Web. palpalpalpal (talk) 11:08, 19 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The first five letters of the Arabic alphabet in dictionary, or "spelling", I guess, order are ا ب ت ث ج alif, bā, tā, thā, jīm (which corresponds to gimel). That order generally groups together consecutively letters with the same basic shape and differing only in the dots. It's in contrast to the traditional order, which is similar to the order of other Semitic alphabets such as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Phoenician. Largoplazo (talk) 02:36, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]