Both systems exist, but it is more common not to assign a special meaning to the
final letters.
See http://www.qsm.co.il/Hebrew/Gimatria.htm
Jony
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Timothy Partridge [mailto:timpart@perdix.demon.co.uk]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 1:05 AM
> To: Unicode List
> Cc: unicode@unicode.org
> Subject: RE: Final letters in Hebrew and Arabic
>
>
> James Agenbroad recently said:
>
> > On Sat, 10 Mar 2001, Jonathan Rosenne wrote:
> >
> > > Regarding Hebrew:
> > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Nick NICHOLAS [mailto:nicholas@uci.edu]
> > > > Sent: Friday, March 09, 2001 10:12 PM
> > > > To: Unicode List
> > > > Cc: Nick NICHOLAS
> > > > Subject: Final letters in Hebrew and Arabic
> > >
> > > > (1) When a letter with a final variant appears alone --- say as
> a numeral,
> > > > or in discussion of the letter or phoneme --- does it under any
> > > > circumstances appear in its final form, or is it always medial?
> > >
> > Monday, March 12, 2001
> > When Hebrew letters are used as numbers, (probably not a current
> > mainstream practice) the final forms of kaph, mem, num, pe and ssadhe are
> > used to repreent 500, 600, 700, 800 and 900. My source: "Alphabete und
> > Schriftzeichen des Morgen- und des Abendlandes. 2. Aufl. Berlin:
> > Bundesdruckeri, 1969. Hence my use of German transliterated letter names.
> > Use of medial forms would thus change the numeric value; this would also
> > mean the final forms could appear in the middle of of a number. Nakanishi
> > (p. 32), Daniels and Bright, (p.490) and Van Ostermann (1952, p.120) only
> > give numeric values for Hebrew letters through 400. I do not know if it is
> > safe to infer from their silence that use of final forms for 500 to 900
> > is a seldom used twig of a seldom used branch.
>
> Gesenius' Hebrew Grammer Section 5k doesn't mention these. Instead it says a
> preceding taw is used to add an extra 400. It also says that thousands are
> sometimes denoted by two dots above the letter, e.g. aleph with two dots is
> one thousand.
>
> Tim
>
> --
> Tim Partridge. Any opinions expressed are mine only and not those of
> my employer
>
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