THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
445
the case with the text of the Holy proven by testimony of Men. 2il(» ("Any letter not entirely sunoundeii by elear pareliTliis injunenient on all four siiics is unlawful"). for. cicspile the tion lias not been barren of i-lfcit various nioditications tlirouirli whiehthe Hebrew Al pliabel has passed, of all the .Semitic systems of letters it has departed least from its fundanu'iital form. Nothing alters the indi viiluality of the letters so much as the u.seof ligature, becau.se the little stroke which .serves to unite the letters is often made too imjiortaut a factor, so that the letter sometimes is merged entirely in it. This is most clearly e.xemplilicd in modern Arabic. As has already been remarked, specimens of writing fnim the oldest periods are alTorded only by inscriptiiins; there are no manuscripts. And yet it may be safely a.sserted that toward the end of tiie anperiodtheholy books were written substantially cient as now. A i)assage in the Talmud even declares that those small "ornaments." as they are called, the three pIT or pj"t placed over the seven letters J> J fj £DVE^. were at the time not only customary but nbligatory (.Men. 'iWi). Whether" written wit"h 1 <ir V these signs were originally iKitbing more than nrnaments which accidentally took the form oi Znyin, and the letters which received them were simply all those at least was Scripture, as
is
'
SVNA(»1CUK IXSrRM'TlllN
KKKl!
.*T
Alphabet
his explanation of the term kektb An/mri na the name for the modern script; according to him "lltJ'X is equivalent to Aaav/un, Ivpia, and n'llt'X therefore meant Syriac. Aramaic. Of interest also is an expression of liiibbi Judah which shows that the contrast
between the straight lines and stiffness of the Aramaic, as compared with the angular irregularity of the Samaritan,
was considered quite
striking.
Much more dlfflcult to understand are the other names for the Hebrew script Vy and ^NPa-^ for vy the reading IV most
often ooeiirs, deiiotlnir the "brolieii" script.
for
Names Hebrew Script.
Ainiin. in Stade's "Zeltsclirift," I. :fsr>. (i. Hoflmann. referring u> tln> :ipi»'llation, says tliut in Kplphanius ("]>»> lirrjiTiiis." .ll. icii this same s«-ript Is calli>d " (ifcssloii," "dee.ssenon," conseiiuciitly Y*"^ would be the c<>rrc<-l readintr and a-Tording t*)
HolTrimnn afterward I"
also, ki tuli .script iiiscd
Melanges de
iM'af meant
coins). Both Critique et d'Histoiri-," p.
nize In n.Nj>3 un adjective from
former, with
It.
Ilrst
on
Hananecl
ttie
sivlif..
nu
sirlpt,
and
Holtuiann and HaK-vy 4;i'>,
Pari.s, 18SS)
rceog-
name of some locality. The
In the Tosafot.
adopts the reading njia^
for the place (north of .N'eapolls), while the latter reads hn'^ij-j
Since II. HIsda was a Ilabylonian It is quite conceivable tlittt he wius unuc(|iminled with the Samaritan alphabet, and that he regarded the ani'ietii fonns a.s identical with those found (.N'eapolisl.
upon the clay tablets "iNrD"' 3r'3. Tliis opinion of li. HIsda strengilicned by theexistencc of il]4' name 'N,"'i3. Aci'ording to K. Niiilian. who was likewise a lialivlonian, the theory might be held that keiab Da'az stinid for sivliform. Incisive, or cuneiform te.xt. Though this' form of writliig may not
may have been
lilRl'.M.
(
Krolll "('.
1.
11." p. 17.1
p
-v:';--3 nj-ia nd.i nin t^vc-i ni-y 'i 'i^n nov n^S" nicv2 331 ^t^ Bipr3 Bi(" May peace al)ide within this [holyl place and In all [lioly] places of Israel " Jose ha-Levl. son of Levi, erected this lintel blessing atteiid his works (V) ) I
which ended that they
perpendicular stroke: for the heads possess are of a later origin. At
in a
now
tirst
they
may have
been nothing
l)Ul
Omamenta-
thicker points, such as were made to termiiiati' the strokesof the Samaritan tion of ornamental writing (eompaie I'late 1., Letters. col. 10), and since the great majority of the letters begin with a horizontal stroke, haliit may have led the writer to add a small horizontal stroke to the others. 1 and ' are not included in the letters ^"'J JJ C3VK', because the stroke at the top is a
part of their original form (see I'late III., col. 2); lience these two letters did not receive any of thepJI'T. (For further information concerning the pjn and the I'Vlp of the letters
compare
.1.
Derenbnuig's work
cited ill IJibliography ^ 1». end of this article. ) There is this further possibility, that these marks are iliacrilical. It may readily be supposed that t reei'ived such a mark in order todistingiiisli it fnim 1 ami '; 3. to avoid cimfusion with 3; still this hypothesis is not tenable for all the letters. It would be just as dilli cull to determine w liy p. n. T. 3. and in many manuscripts the letters 'and n. should receive a ;'/'//». iKor the form (pf the letters with these tnijiiiin in modern Oennan iniinuseripts, see I'late IV., col. 7.) It is cerroof" (Men, 29(/ compiuc tain llmt lilt received its al.so col. 2-i) solely in order to dilTerentiat<' it from n. As regards the names given to the Ili'brew alphabets al the time of the .^Iishnah anil the (ieinara. the name Av7ii/) '/Ar/ (Hebrew writing) needs no further explanation. Perhaps liabbi Jose may be correct in ,
have
pnictlseil at this time, yet, both then and later, the nibblsh of v olil ruins supplied In numbers clay tablets covered with rlie^c .hanicteis. sultlcient to perpetuate the knowledge that this was ihf f.irni (»f thejuicieut s<"ript. A nieniion of tluM-lay tablet in.seriptions may be found even In the Kitirist of the AnNadim, compowd In the year98T (compare M. Jostrow, Jr., in "Zelt. f. Assyr." x. SI9I. Im'cii
Owing to the intlexible rules governing the writing of the Tonili I'olls there could not bi' any material variation in the form of their letters. The great importance, however, which was attached to these manuscripts led to great care in thec.xecuInfluenceof tionof thcclijiraelers: the scribes strove Ligature, to produce the most beautiful effect so far as could be done within the prescribed limitations. In the case of alphabets having a highly develoiied system of ligature, like the Arabic, the w ritir might obtain good results by artistic grou]iing of letters, but in a block text, such as the Hebrew, in which every letter must w strictly separate<l. elTorts in the direction of ornamentation were conlined to the individual lettiT. Hence the Hebrew script followi'd the .same development undergone previously by till' Palmyrene. Even at the early periiwl wlii'ii the Animaie alphabet bninehed out into the Hebniic, Palmy line, and .rablc. Ilu' syinliols had an form (corn pari- I.idzbarski." Handcol. 41, and developed until the characters became almost perfect squares, and thus formed the kitnli iiiirutilxi' ("square writing"!. Kiom the earliest days, throughout West Asia writing was done with the calamus, imported in most cases from Egypt. Since this reed was cosily
almost
reel angular
bucli," Table
XXVI
.
