Ancient Hebrew Language and Alphabet

Parent Roots
Ancient Hebrew Language and Alphabet
When two letters/pictographs are put together, a Parent
Root word is formed. When the (bet, a house) is
combined with the (nun, a seed which continues the
next generation) the Parent Root (pronounced ben 32 )
is formed. The two letters of this root have the combined
meaning of "the house of seeds" or "the seeds that
continue the house/family" and are usually translated
simply as "son".
Another example is the Parent Root (shaph) 33 . The
is a picture of the two front teeth meaning "sharp". The
is a mouth. This Parent Root means "a sharp mouth"
or simply "a serpent" whose sharp fangs are in the mouth.
Hebrew word structure, as will be seen later, often
requires a three consonant root; therefore the second
consonant in the Parent Root is duplicated to turn the two
consonant Parent Root into a three consonant root. The
meaning of this derivative from the Parent Root is usually
identical in meaning to the original Parent Root. As in our
example above, the second letter is doubled, forming
the root (shaphaph), also meaning "serpent".
32 Hebrew is written from right to left.
33 The Biblical word for serpent is "shaphaph" a lengthened form of
the parent root "shaph".
35