Samaritan alphabet
| History of the alphabet |
|---|
|
Middle Bronze Age 18–15th c. BC
|
| Meroitic 3rd c. BC |
| Hangul 1443 |
| Zhuyin 1913 |
| complete genealogy |
The Samaritan alphabet is a direct descendant of the paleo-Hebrew variety of the Phoenician alphabet. The more commonly known "square letter" form of the Hebrew alphabet was adapted from the Aramaic alphabet which the Israelites absorbed from the Persian Empire.
Large parts of the Hebrew Bible were originally penned in script similar to Samaritan. Among the Jews it saw a short revival during the Hasmonean Kingdom. The Tetragrammaton was often still written in this script for some time after the current Hebrew alphabet was adopted among the Jews.
Today, it is used by the Samaritans for religious writings, including their (slightly different) version of the Pentateuch. It is used by them for writings in their dialect of Hebrew (Samaritan Hebrew) and also for commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and even Arabic.
External links
- Script - on the Samaritan alphabet and writings in it.
- Omniglot.com - Samaritan alphabet
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