Samaritan alphabet

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Samaritan alphabet
Type	Abjad
Spoken languages	Samaritan Hebrew, Samaritan Aramaic
Time period	600 BCE–present
Parent systems	Proto-Canaanite alphabet  → Phoenician alphabet   → Paleo-Hebrew alphabet    → Samaritan alphabet
Unicode range	U+0800 to U+083F
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

History of the alphabet Middle Bronze Age 19 c. BCE Ugaritic 15 c. BCE Proto-Canaanite 15 c. BCE Phoenician 12 c. BCE Paleo-Hebrew 10 c. BCE Samaritan 6 c. BCE Aramaic 8 c. BCE Kharoṣṭhī 6 c. BCE Brāhmī & Indic 6 c. BCE Brahmic abugidas Hebrew 3 c. BCE Pahlavi 3 c. BCE Avestan 4 c. CE Palmyrene 2 c. BCE Syriac 2 c. BCE Sogdian 2 c. BCE Orkhon (Old Turkic) 6 c. CE Old Hungarian ca. 650 Old Uyghur Mongolian 1204 Nabataean 2 c. BCE Arabic 4 c. CE Mandaic 2 c. CE Georgian (disputed) ca. 430 CE Greek 8 c. BCE Etruscan 8 c. BCE Latin 7 c. BCE Runic 2 c. CE Coptic 3 c. CE Gothic 3 c. CE Armenian 405 Glagolitic 862 Cyrillic ca. 940 Paleohispanic 7 c. BCE Epigraphic South Arabian 9 c. BCE Ge’ez 5–6 c. BCE Meroitic 3 c. BCE Ogham 4 c. CE Hangul 1443 Zhuyin (Bopomofo) 1913 Complete genealogy This box: view • talk • edit

The Samaritan alphabet 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.

Samaritan is a direct descendant of the paleo-Hebrew variety of the Phoenician alphabet, in which large parts of the Hebrew Bible were originally penned. The better known "square letter" form of the Hebrew alphabet was adopted by the Israelites from the Aramaic alphabet of the Persian Empire.

On 8 February 2008, the Samaritan alphabet was accepted for inclusion in Unicode at code points 0800–083F.[1]

[edit] External links

• Script - on the Samaritan alphabet and writings in it.
• Omniglot.com - Samaritan alphabet

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