THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
AlphatMt
B.C. The texts are |)artly in Aramiiie and partly in the local dialect, which was a compromise between Animaicand Hebrew (see BibAramaic liograi)hyT). Several hiimlred monuOrigia of ments of smaller dimensions represent the succeeding centuries, amnnij; which Hebrew those worthy of special mention are two tombstones found in the the Letters. mound of Xerab. near Alepiio. which date from the sevcnlh century ii.c. (see note 8). larger number of inscriptions came from the archives of Nineveh and Uabylon. As a rule, these arc cuneiform inscriptions relating toconuiierce.and giving short Aramaic legends somewhat in the fashion It is obvious from this that the oflicial of a label. scribes of Nineveh and IJabylon were not |)erfectly familiar with the complicated cuneiform alphabet, and therefore, in order to facilitate futuri' reference to these archives, inscribed ui)on the talilets a brief explanatory synopsis of their contents in Aramaic
century
Modem
A
(compare "Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum." ii. No. 15 et seg.). These dockets, written entirely in cursive characters, are of special scientific value, because they allow us to follow up, step by step, the transition of
Aramaic alphabet fmm the oriixiiial rorni to that which it became known to the Jews in Babylonia, and even throiigh some later developments (see plate During that period the alphabet had 11., col. 3). undergone material changes, and at its close scarcely a sj'mbol retained the form of three centuries before. The letters 3. T, T exemplify this evolution in a characteristic manner. Originally they were written with the
in
closed heads ( less
and
^
,
4, ^)though, in
less attention
was paid
But what was
the lines.
writing rapidly,
to the juncture of at first only negligence be-
came later a fi.xed custom. The heads were opened more and more, and the former convergent strokes developed into parallel ters
lines, so that these three let-
took on the following forms:
P,
'^, *^.
In
opened more and more until the became an angle open at the top: V. In
'Ayiti (0) the circle
curve
j
Aleph
(
Mem
of
442
and Shin the broken
y first becomes
line
"Jf
for the latter of these two letters the middle stroke is then made parallel with the right one, so
and
that a
new
becomes
"f
sign results.
- H or *H.
^,
while in the case of
Mtm
In this latter form the straight
extends above the curved line and soon becomes greatly lengthened. Sinularly the head of
stroke
^ (D)
1
is
becomes head
transformed into a zigzag
2j-,
^
2i.
which
was
in Kitph
P, and
is
simplified to
at first not closed:
it
and gradually
The
circular
l)ecomes
then by the addition of a hook to the
first
left is
forms an changed to p. In Tnr, the cross-line angle, the right side of which is lengthened until it reaches the base
A,
T-
The
particular form given to these Aramaic letters with ink upon papyrus, at the close of this {volutionary period that is. abou' the fifth or fourth century li.c. is shown by a series of Aramaic i)apyri from Egypt collected in the "Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum," ii., table xv. Imitations of these cursive forms were also executed upon stone. glance at the text in the "Corpus Inscriptionum Semitica rum." ii., table xvi., revealsthe astonishing fact that not only the general features of the script are much like the cursive Hebrew of the Middle Ages, but that many of the signs taken by themselves are almost identical. It is scarcely probable that any material differences in the mode of writing existed in western Asia at the time when the use of the Aramaic alphaliet became general among the Jews. The Jews in exile were certainly very (juick to abandon their tongue for the Aramaic in word and script. mother When release came, the exiles returned in numbers to their native land, and it was among them that the art of writing as a profession was most i)revalent. Meanwhile, masses of other nationalities had settled in Palestine, either from choice or from comjiulsion. and these people for the most part also spoke Aramaic but the most important factor was the circumstance that the government functionaries both spoke
—
—
A
and wrote Aramaic. dl
)
the sides of the angle separated, the
Chang-es in upper one moving more and more to Letters. the right and becomingunrecognizably So also in Kaph "T
small.
angle
is
the upper side of the
moved
larly at the
to the left and placed perpendicuend of the other leg; thus 3 became u,
and therewith came to resemble closely T and ^. In He the lower horizontal lines were detached from the perpendicular, one of them was gradually omitted, and the other attached to the horizontal crossbar, as ^, ^,
/I,
71.
The metamorphosis
of "^
=
1
took
place by the reduction of the head until it became entirely flat and 1 is curved to a 1. Again in Znyin and Ttxi the double curved line is gradually straight-
A/
ened, the former becoming |, while Yud develops into /^, which sign is gradually made smaller until it In Ikt. is reduced to scarcely more than a mere dot. the central horizontal stroke only was retained, and
was moved more and more
to the top: H,
H. n. In was omitted and the
Tet, too, one line of the cross other fastened to the now open circle so that the letter could be made with one stroke: Q. In the case
An
extended
iirivate epistolary correspondence of Palestine at that time could hardly have existed nearly all writing was Causes of limited probably to literary producAdoption lions, or to commercial and official of Aramaic, documents. For the former, the indigenous script could very well be retained, and since literature was mostly confined to the priests, it is also tolerably certain that they at lea.st remained faithful to the ancient mode of writing. On the contrary, all oflicial or semi -official
among the Jews
documents had
to be written in Aramaic. It became, therefore, necessarj- for business people to learn two alphabets, one for their social needs and the other to enable them to read the Holy Scriptures. Naturally .lews who lived in foreign lands, and who.se numbers continually grew, were especially compelled to do this, which circumstance no doubt furnished a reason for writing even the holy books in the Aramaic character: and these established themselves so firmly, that they were regarded at the time of the Mishnah
as the only sacred ones (compare iv.
Mishnah Yadayim,
.5).
The opinion, therefore, has been expressed that the Hebrew Alphabet slowlj' developed into the Aramaic (compare Blcek-Wellhausen, "Einleitungin das Alte p. 5.51), but this view can hardly be up-
Te.st. " .5th ed.
held.
,
Among
the
Jews the two alphabets co-existed
