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Bible Encyclopedias
Taw
The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia
or The twenty-second letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Its name is connected with "taw" = "sign" ( see Alphabet). "Taw" has a twofold pronunciation: (1) a soft, lisping sound uttered with a gentle expiration, like the Greek "theta" and the English "th" in "thin," and (2) a hard, attenuated sound without expiration, like the English "t"; the latter pronunciation is indicated by a "dagesh lene" in the letter. In the classification of letters (consonants) as it is found for the first time in "Sefer Yeáºirah" (4:3), the "taw" is included in the group of linguals 
which are formed at the upper edge of the tongue. According to modern phonetic terminology, "taw" is a surd mute dental, corresponding to which is the sonant dental "d." "Taw" sometimes interchanges with the lingual "á¹et" and the dental "shin." It occurs both as a radical and as a formative element. As a numeral "taw" has (in the later period) the value 400.
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Singer, Isidore, Ph.D, Projector and Managing Editor. Entry for 'Taw'. 1901 The Jewish Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tje/t/taw.html. 1901.
