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The Paleo-Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets are two slight regional variants of the same script. 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".
Unlike the Paleo-Hebrew writing script, the modern Hebrew script has five letters that have special final forms, called sofit (Hebrew: סופית, meaning in this context "final" or "ending") form, used only at the end of a word, somewhat as in the Greek or in the Arabic and Mandaic alphabets.
Ancient Hebrew writings are texts written in Biblical Hebrew using the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.. The earliest known precursor to Hebrew, an inscription in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, is the Khirbet Qeiyafa Inscription (11th–10th century BCE), [1] if it can be considered Hebrew at that early a stage.
The history of the Hebrew alphabet is not to be confused with the history of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, so called not because it is ancestral to the Hebrew alphabet but because it was used to write the earliest form of the Hebrew language. "Paleo-Hebrew alphabet" is the modern term (coined by Solomon Birnbaum in 1954 [1]) used for the script ...
The Samaritan alphabet is a development of Paleo-Hebrew, emerging in the 6th century BC. The South Arabian script may be derived from a stage of the Proto-Sinaitic script predating the mature development of the Phoenician alphabet proper.
As a result, the 22 letters of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet numbered less than the consonant phonemes of ancient Biblical Hebrew; in particular, the letters ח, ע, ש could each mark two different phonemes. [28] After a sound shift the letters ח ,ע became homophones, but (except in Samaritan Hebrew) ש remained multiphonic.
The 22 letters of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet numbered less than the consonant phonemes of ancient Biblical Hebrew; in particular, the letters ח, ע, ש could each mark two different phonemes. [69] After a sound shift the letters ח, ע could only mark one phoneme, but (except in Samaritan Hebrew) ש still marked two.
Proto-Canaanite, also referred to as Proto-Canaan, Old Canaanite, or Canaanite, [5] is the name given to either a script ancestral to the Phoenician or Paleo-Hebrew script with undefined affinity to Proto-Sinaitic, [7] or to the Proto-Sinaitic script (c. 16th century BC), when found in Canaan. [8] [9] [10] [11]