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|} The Hebrew alphabet (, '), known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as of other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two script forms in use; the original old Hebrew script is known as the paleo-Hebrew script (which has been largely preserved, in an altered form, in the Samaritan script), while the present "square" form of the Hebrew alphabet is a stylized form of the Aramaic script and was known by Israel's sages as the Ashuri script (Assyrian script), since its origins were alleged to be from Assyria.〔Babylonian Talmud (''Sanhedrin'' 21b–22a); Jerusalem Talmud (''Megillah'' 10a). Cf. Mishnah (''Megillah'' 1:8): "The Books (Scripture ) differ from phylacteries and ''Mezuzahs'' only in that the Books may be written in any language, while phylacteries and ''Mezuzahs'' may be written in the Assyrian writing only." See: ''The Mishnah'',(ed. Herbert Danby), Oxford University Press: London 1977, p. 202.〕 Various "styles" (in current terms, "fonts") of representation of the letters exist. There is also a cursive Hebrew script, which has also varied over time and place. The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters. It does not have case, but five letters have different forms when used at the end of a word. Hebrew is written from right to left. Originally, the alphabet was an ''abjad'' consisting only of consonants. As with other ''abjads'', such as the Arabic alphabet, scribes later devised means of indicating vowel sounds by separate vowel points, known in Hebrew as ''niqqud''. In rabbinic Hebrew, the letters are also used as ''matres lectionis'' (the use of certain consonants to indicate a vowel) to represent vowels. When used to write Yiddish, the writing system is a true alphabet (except for borrowed Hebrew words). In modern usage of the alphabet, as in the case of Yiddish (except that replaces ) and to some extent modern Israeli Hebrew, vowels may be indicated. Today, the trend is toward full spelling with these letters acting as true vowels. ==History== (詳細はPhoenician script, called by scholars the paleo-Hebrew alphabet, emerged by the 10th century BCE,〔(Ancient Scripts.com: ''Old Hebrew'' )〕 examples of which are represented in the Gezer calendar and the Siloam inscription. (The Phoenician script probably also gave rise to the use of Greek alphabetic writing in Ancient Greece). The paleo-Hebrew alphabet was commonly used in the ancient Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Following the exile of the Kingdom of Judah in the 6th century BCE, in the Babylonian exile, Jews began using a form of the Assyrian Aramaic script, which was another offshoot of the same family of scripts. The Samaritans, who remained in the Land of Israel, continued to use the paleo-Hebrew alphabet. During the 3rd century BCE, Jews began to use a stylized, "square" form of the Aramaic alphabet that was used by the Persian Empire (and which in turn had been adopted from the Assyrians), while the Samaritans continued to use a form of the paleo-Hebrew script, called the Samaritan script. After the fall of the Persian Empire in 330 BCE, Jews used both scripts before settling on the Assyrian form. For a limited time thereafter Jews retained the paleo-Hebrew script only to write the Tetragrammaton, but soon that custom was also abandoned. The square Hebrew alphabet was later adapted and used for writing languages of the Jewish diaspora – such as Karaim, Judeo-Arabic, Ladino, Yiddish, etc. The Hebrew alphabet continued in use for scholarly writing in Hebrew and came again into everyday use with the rebirth of the Hebrew language as a spoken language in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in Palestine. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hebrew alphabet」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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