In Modern Israeli Hebrew,א(“alef”) represents either a glottal stop (/ʔ/), or has no pronunciation besides that of the vowel attached to it. The pronunciation varies from group to group.
א(“alef”)—along with the other guttural letters,ע(ʿ,“ayin”),ר(r,“resh”),ה(h,“he”), andח(ḥ,“ḥêṯ”)—cannot receive a dagesh (the dot inבּ(b,“bet”), which can appear in most other Hebrew letters), although there are rare examples where the Masoretes added a dagesh to it.
א(“alef”) is sometimes used to denote a vowel (usually/a/) in words of Aramaic and Arabic origin, in foreign names, and in some other borrowed words.
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