Writing system used by the Samaritans for religious writings
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Samaritan
Script type
Abjad
Time period
600 BCE – present
Direction
Right-to-left script, top-to-bottom
Languages
Samaritan Hebrew, Samaritan Aramaic
Related scripts
Parent systems
Egyptian hieroglyphs[1]
Proto-Sinaitic alphabet
Phoenician alphabet
Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
Samaritan
ISO 15924
ISO 15924
Samr(123), Samaritan
Unicode
Unicode alias
Samaritan
Unicode range
U+0800–U+083F
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.
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The Samaritan script is used by the Samaritans for religious writings, including the Samaritan Pentateuch, writings in Samaritan Hebrew, and for commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic.
History of the alphabet
Egyptian hieroglyphs 32nd c. BCE
Hieratic 32nd c. BCE
Demotic 7th c. BCE
Meroitic 3rd c. BCE
Proto-Sinaitic 19th c. BCE
Ugaritic 15th c. BCE
Ancient South Arabian 9th c. BCE
Geʽez c. 5th c. BCE
Phoenician 12th c. BCE
Hangul 1443
Thaana c. 1601
Adlam 1989
Phoenician 12th c. BCE
Paleo-Hebrew 10th c. BCE
Samaritan 6th c. BCE
Aramaic 8th c. BCE
Kharosthi 3rd c. BCE
Brahmi 3rd c. BCE
Brahmic family
Pallava 4th century
Cham 4th century
Dhives Akuru 6th century
Khmer 611
Tibetan 7th century
ʼPhags-pa 1269
Devanagari 10th century
Canadian Aboriginal 1840
Hebrew 3rd c. BCE
Square Aramaic 2007
Pahlavi 3rd c. BCE
Avestan 4th century
Palmyrene 2nd c. BCE
Nabataean 2nd c. BCE
Arabic 4th century
N'Ko 1949
Syriac 2nd c. BCE
Sogdian 2nd c. BCE
Old Turkic 6th century
Old Hungarian c. 650
Old Uyghur
Mongolian 1204
Mandaic 2nd century
Greek 8th c. BCE
Etruscan 8th c. BCE
Latin 7th c. BCE
Deseret 1854
Great Lakes Algonquian 19th century
Blackfoot 1888
Fraser 1915
Saanich 1978
Osage 2006
Runic 2nd century
Ogham 4th century
Lycian 5th c. BCE
Coptic 3rd century
Gothic 3rd century
Armenian 405
Caucasian Albanian c. 420
Georgian c. 430
Glagolitic 862
Cyrillic c. 940
Old Permic 1372
Libyco-Berber 10th c. BCE
Tifinagh 4th century
Neo-Tifinagh 1970
Paleohispanic 7th c. BCE
Samaritan is a direct descendant of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, which was a variety of the Phoenician alphabet. Paleo-Hebrew is the alphabet in which large parts of the Hebrew Bible were originally penned according to the consensus of most scholars, who also believe that these scripts are descendants of the Proto-Sinaitic script. Paleo-Hebrew script was used by the ancient Israelites, both Jews and Samaritans.
The better-known "square script" Hebrew alphabet which has been traditionally used by Jews since the Babylonian exile is a stylized version of the Aramaic alphabet called Ashurit (כתב אשורי), though religious literalist interpretations of Exodus 32:16 assume that the text asserts that it was received on Sinai from the Finger of God and that it has been in continuous and unchanged use since then.[citation needed]
Historically, the Aramaic alphabet became distinct from Phoenician/Paleo-Hebrew in the 8th century BCE. After the fall of the Persian Empire, Judaism used both scripts before settling on the Aramaic form, henceforth de facto becoming the "Hebrew alphabet" since it was repurposed to write Hebrew. For a limited time thereafter, the use of paleo-Hebrew (proto-Samaritan) among Jews was retained only to write the Tetragrammaton, but soon that custom was also abandoned.
A cursive style of the alphabet also exists.
The Samaritan alphabet first became known to the Western world with the publication of a manuscript of the Samaritan Pentateuch in 1631 by Jean Morin.[2] In 1616 the traveler Pietro della Valle had purchased a copy of the text in Damascus, and this manuscript, now known as Codex B, was deposited in a Parisian library.[3]
^Himelfarb, Elizabeth J. "First Alphabet Found in Egypt", Archaeology 53, Issue 1 (Jan./Feb. 2000): 21.
^Exercitationes ecclesiasticae in utrumque Samaritanorum Pentateuchum, 1631
^Flôrenṭîn 2005, p. 1: "When the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch was revealed to the Western world early in the 17th century... [footnote: 'In 1632 the Frenchman Jean Morin published the Samaritan Pentateuch in the Parisian Biblia Polyglotta based on a manuscript that the traveler Pietro Della Valle had bought from Damascus sixteen years previously.]"
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