Samaritan script

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The Samaritan Hebrew script, or simply Samaritan script, is the alphabet used by the Samaritans for their religious and liturgical writings. It serves as the script of the Samaritan Pentateuch, of texts in Samaritan Hebrew, and of commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic. Historically, the Samaritan script is a direct descendant of the paleo-Hebrew alphabet, the script in which much of the Hebrew Bible was originally written and which was used by the people of Israel and Judah during the Iron Age. In classical antiquity, the better-known "square" Hebrew alphabet—a stylized form of the Aramaic script known as Ashurit (אשורי, “Assyrian”)—came into use and, from the period of the Babylonian exile onward, became the standard script of Jewish writing. Paleo-Hebrew letter forms, however, continued to appear on Jewish coinage and in certain sacred contexts, while both paleo-Hebrew and Aramaic scripts are attested among the Samaritans in this period. The precise...

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