Otiyot

The word for “letters” in Hebrew, otiyot, shares the same root (ot/אות) as the word for “signs,” otot. This linkage reflects the glyphic nature of letters themselves. Letters signify more than just sounds; they can also represent concepts, numbers, and shapes—sometimes lucid and singular, other times paradoxical and multivalent, always pointing to and from the ineffable. From its inception, writing was considered a form of magic—and mythologized as such.

It is said that the universe was constructed from the twenty-two letters of the Aleph-Bet, and that their endlessly iterative capacity continues to mirror the dynamic process of creation itself. On a fundamental level, a literary text in any language is a tapestry of signs—both pictographic and phonetic—that allows us to imagine beyond the borders of the world as we know it, and reveal connections between subjects, objects, and ideas we previously thought separate. Thus, every work of literature is a site within which the world is reframed and renewed.

In the spirit of exploring the alphabet’s creative potential, we decided to name this literary column Otiyot—a new forum for poetry, fiction, plays, creative nonfiction, hybrid works, and translations.