Wikipedia's first sentence called it “fourth letter of many abjad alphabets”. Today it says “fourth letter of the semitic abjads”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2005 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2005
Dalet or daleth is the fourth letter of many abjad alphabets, including Phoenician , Hebrew , and Aramaic . It has the sound of English D .1The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek delta (Δ), Latin D and the equivalent in the Cyrillic alphabet .2This letter is named daleth , following the Tiberian Hebrew pronunciation, in academic circles, and dalet , following the modern Israeli Hebrew pronunciation, in Israel and by most Jews familiar with Hebrew, although some also use the daleth pronounciation. Daleth may be both an ancient usage or even an Anglicisation of the letter dalet .3
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 17867747.
The opening as it stood in 2010 4 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Dalet ( dāleth , also spelled Daleth or Daled ) is the fourth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician , Aramaic , Hebrew ד , Syriac ܕ and Arabic dāl ﺩ (in abjadi order ; 8th in modern order).Its sound value is a voiced alveolar plosive ( [d] ).The letter is based on a glyph of the Middle Bronze Age alphabets , probably called dalt "door" ( door in Modern Hebrew is delet ), ultimately based on a hieroglyph depicting a door, The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek delta (Δ), Latin D and the equivalent in the Cyrillic Д .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 358532088.
The opening as it stood in 2015
Dalet ( dāleth , also spelled Daleth or Daled ) is the fourth letter of the Semitic abjads , including Phoenician Dālet , Hebrew 'Dālet ד , Aramaic Dālath , Syriac Dālaṯ ܕ , and Arabic Dāl د (in abjadi order ; 8th in modern order). Its sound value is a voiced alveolar plosive ( [d] ). The letter is based on a glyph of the Middle Bronze Age alphabets , probably called dalt "door" ( door in Modern Hebrew is delet ), ultimately based on a hieroglyph depicting a door, The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek delta (Δ), Latin D and the equivalent in the Cyrillic Д .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 662647623.
The opening as it stood in 2020
Dalet ( dāleth , also spelled Daleth or Daled ) is the fourth letter of the Semitic abjads , including Phoenician Dālet , Hebrew 'Dālet ד , Aramaic Dālath , Syriac Dālaṯ ܕ , and Arabic Dāl د (in abjadi order ; 8th in modern order). Its sound value is a voiced alveolar plosive ( [d] ). The letter is based on a glyph of the Middle Bronze Age alphabets , probably called dalt "door" ( door in Modern Hebrew is delet ), ultimately based on a hieroglyph depicting a door: The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek delta (Δ), Latin D , and the Cyrillic letter Д .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 957050583.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 1 passage from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Fourth letter of many Semitic alphabets This article is about the Semitic letter. Dalet ( dāleth , also spelled Daleth or Daled ) is the fourth letter of the Semitic abjads , including Phoenician dālt 𐤃, Hebrew dālet ד, Aramaic dālaṯ 𐡃, Syriac dālaṯ ܕ, and Arabic dāl د (in abjadi order ; 8th in modern order). Its sound value is the voiced alveolar plosive ( [d] ). The letter is based on a glyph of the Proto-Sinaitic script , probably called dalt "door" ( door in Modern Hebrew is delet ), ultimately based on a hieroglyph depicting a door:
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1177906965.
The opening as it stood in 2025
Fourth letter of many Semitic alphabets This article is about the Semitic letter. Dalet ( dāleth , also spelled Daleth or Daled ) is the fourth letter of the Semitic abjads , including Phoenician dālt 𐤃, Hebrew dālet ד , Aramaic dālaṯ 𐡃, Syriac dālaṯ ܕ, and Arabic dāl د (in abjadi order ; 8th in modern order). Its sound value is the voiced alveolar plosive ( [d] ). It is also related to the Ancient North Arabian 𐪕, South Arabian 𐩵 , and Ge'ez ደ . The letter is based on a glyph of the Proto-Sinaitic script , probably called dalt ' door ' ( door in Modern Hebrew is delet ), ultimately based on a hieroglyph depicting a door:
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1298126804. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “fourth letter of many abjad alphabets”. Today it says “fourth letter of the semitic abjads”. Read the current article and compare.
2005
2010
2015
2020
Oct '23
2025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2005, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
fourth letter of many abjad alphabets
Now
fourth letter of the semitic abjads
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.
