Q&A: Are there homophones in Hebrew? If so, what are some examples?

Absolutely—especially if the standard modern Israeli pronunciation is involved, whereby many letters (such aleph and ayin; tet and tav; het and khaph; kaph and quph; shin and samekh) sound alike that in the traditional Sephardi or Yemenite pronunciation, do not.

To demonstrate this—and the utter failure of conventional, quasi-phonetic transliteration of Hebrew in Roman characters to maintain the distinctions in Square Hebrew script between such homophones—see my poem, Modern-day Ecclesiastes, which begins:

“Et le’et – ve’et le’et!”

kara ha’ikar—veha’ikar: kara

mikreh shebo hi amrah “bo”

vehu, ba’aliyah, ba vehebit — aliyah vekotz bah

ve’amar:

“Ani, ani, velach miyeza — ve’at, at-at, lach

koret, be’odi koret.

“Hakol avir, vehakol — avir.”

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