Numbers in Hebrew: gender forms, letter numerals, ordinals, counting

Masculine and feminine numbers: the polarity puzzle

Numbers in Hebrew agree in gender with the noun they count, and from three to ten they do it in a way that looks backwards. The masculine forms end in -a, שלושה, shloshá, the ending that usually marks a feminine noun, and the feminine forms have no ending, שלוש, shalósh. The site's numbers 1 to 10 page calls this pattern polarity and notes that Arabic shares it.

So three boys takes the form that looks feminine and three girls the one that looks masculine. One and two behave normally: אחד and אחת, one, masculine and feminine; שניים and שתיים, two, with the short forms שני and שתי before a noun.

When nothing is being counted, the numbers in Hebrew take the feminine form. The Wikipedia article on Hebrew numerals gives the rule with the example of telephone numbers, which are read out in feminine forms. That is why the counting row at the top of this page, אחת, שתיים, שלוש, is feminine. Above twenty the tens have one form for both genders, and only the unit in a compound number changes.

Letter numerals: from א to ת

Hebrew can write numbers with the letters of the alphabet. The first nine letters stand for 1 to 9, the next nine for the tens from 10 to 90, and the last four for 100 to 400: א is 1, י is 10, ק is 100, ת is 400. Larger values are added up, so 500 is ת״ק, 400 and 100. Wikipedia notes that the five final letter forms, ך ם ן ף ץ, were sometimes given the values 500 to 900, but usually they count the same as their ordinary forms: ך is 20 like כ. Thousands are counted separately and stand to the right, before the rest of the number, which is how a year such as ה׳תשס״ד, 5764, begins with ה׳, five thousand.

The Wikipedia article on Hebrew numerals describes where they are used today: for the days and years of the Hebrew calendar, for chapters and verses of traditional texts, for numbered lists, and in numerology. A single letter used as a number takes a geresh, ק׳ for 100; a group of letters takes gershayim before its last letter, י״ב for 12.

Two combinations are avoided. Fifteen is not written י״ה, ten and five, nor sixteen י״ו, because these spell forms of the divine name; they are written ט״ו and ט״ז, nine and six, nine and seven. The number systems article sets the Hebrew letters beside Greek and Roman numerals.

Ordinals and large numbers

The ordinals from first to tenth are adjectives with their own forms: ראשון, rishón, first; שני, shení, second; שלישי, shlishí, third; then רביעי, חמישי, שישי, שביעי, שמיני, תשיעי and עשירי. Their feminine forms end in -it from third on, שלישית, while first and second have ראשונה and שנייה: the second time is הפעם השנייה. These are the words that name the weekdays, and the days of the week in Hebrew are literally the first to sixth day. Above ten Hebrew uses the cardinal number in place of an ordinal, as the Wikipedia article on Hebrew numerals notes.

For large numbers, Hebrew uses מיליון for a million and מיליארד, milyárd, for a thousand million. According to the same article, the official scale long followed the long scale, and since 21 January 2013 the Academy of the Hebrew Language has made official the usage that was already standard in speech, with milyard for 10⁹ and טריליון for 10¹².