1.4 Five “KiMNePaTZ” letters have different final forms

The Kimnepatz Letters

Figure 1.5: The Kimnepatz Letters

Hebrew does not have capital letters the way English does, but a somewhat similar concept is five letters take what are called “Final” or “Sofit”13 forms when they appear at the END of a word

  • Those letters are in red text above
  • The letter Kaf כּ is the first letter in the Aleph-bet with a sofit form
    • The final form is named Kaf Sofit ך
    • Same for Mem מ and Mem sofit ם and so on14
  • The five letters that have these forms are Kaf, Mem, Nun, Pei, and Tsaddi: ך ם ן ף ץ
  • You can remember the acronym, KiMNePaTZ, which is the made-up word you get when you string the five letters in a row
  • The KiMNePaTZ sofit forms can look like other letters - your Anki work for this Lesson will give you practice with identifying look-alike letters

  1. Sofit is just the Hebrew word for final↩︎

  2. “Final Kaf,” “Final Mem,” etc., are also terms you may hear.↩︎