אל"ף מצעית כאם-קריאה בתעודות עבריות וארמיות מקומראן בהשואה למקורות עבריים וארמיים אחרים

Whereas in the Bible the initial alef does not appear as a vowel letter unless it is etymological, the Second Temple period developed the usage of the initial alef for indicating the vowel a and sometimes also e. In Qumran there are 48 occurrences of the initial alef as a vowel letter, most of them in the Isaiah Scroll and in the Genesis Apocryphon. In most cases the alef is written after the consonantal yod or waw. This practice is usually to be found in Christian Aramaic and in Samaritan Aramaic. On the other hand, it seldom appears in Mishnaic Hebrew or in Galilaean Aramaic, most probably because another system for indicating the consonants yod and waw predominated, namely, the double yod or double waw. But one may also find there remnants of the other practice. Not enough material has been collected as yet either from Mishnaic Hebrew or Aramaic dialects; however, from the material presented in this article it is clear that the usage of alef was not arbitrary, but it appears especially in certain circumstances, such as after waw or yod, to differentiate between homographs, near another guttural, etc.