Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
Writing system found in Canaanite inscriptions / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Paleo-Hebrew script (Hebrew: הכתב העברי הקדום), also Palaeo-Hebrew, Proto-Hebrew or Old Hebrew, is the writing system found in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, including pre-Biblical and Biblical Hebrew, from southern Canaan, also known as the biblical kingdoms of Israel (Samaria) and Judah. It is considered to be the script used to record the original texts of the Bible due to its similarity to the Samaritan script; the Talmud states that the Samaritans still used this script.[1] The Talmud described it as the "Livonaʾa script" (Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: לִיבּוֹנָאָה, romanized: Lībōnāʾā), translated by some as "Lebanon script".[1] However, it has also been suggested that the name is a corrupted form of "Neapolitan", i.e. of Nablus.[2] Use of the term "Paleo-Hebrew alphabet" is due to a 1954 suggestion by Solomon Birnbaum, who argued that "[t]o apply the term Phoenician [from Northern Canaan, today's Lebanon] to the script of the Hebrews [from Southern Canaan, today's Israel-Palestine] is hardly suitable".[3] The Paleo-Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets are two slight regional variants of the same script.
Paleo-Hebrew | |
---|---|
Script type | |
Time period | c. 1000 BCE – 135 CE |
Direction | Right-to-left script |
Language | Biblical Hebrew |
Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
Child systems | |
Sister systems | |
ISO 15924 | |
ISO 15924 | Phnx (115), Phoenician |
Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Phoenician |
U+10900–U+1091F | |
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. |
The first Paleo-Hebrew inscription identified in modern times was the Royal Steward inscription (KAI 191), found in 1870, and then referred to as "two large ancient Hebrew inscriptions in Phoenician letters".[4][5] Fewer than 2,000 inscriptions are known today, of which the vast majority comprise just a single letter or word.[6][7] The earliest known examples of Paleo-Hebrew writing date to the 10th century BCE.[8][9][10]
Like the Phoenician alphabet, it is a slight regional variant and an immediate continuation of the Proto-Canaanite script, which was used throughout Canaan in the Late Bronze Age.[11] Phoenician, Hebrew, and all of their sister Canaanite languages were largely indistinguishable dialects before that time.[12][13] The Paleo-Hebrew script is an abjad of 22 consonantal letters, exactly as the other Canaanite scripts from the period.
By the 5th century BCE, among Judeans the alphabet had been mostly replaced by the Aramaic alphabet as used officially by the Achaemenid Empire. The "Square" variant now known simply as the Hebrew alphabet evolved directly out of this by about the 3rd century BCE, although some letter shapes did not become standard until the 1st century. By contrast, the Samaritan script is an immediate continuation of the Proto-Hebrew script without intermediate non-Israelite evolutionary stages. There is also some continued use of the old Hebrew script in Jewish religious contexts down to the 1st century BCE, notably in the Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.