Syriac alphabet
| Syriac alphabet |
|
|---|---|
Estrangela styled alphabet
|
|
| Type |
Impure Abjad
|
| Languages | Aramaic (Classical Syriac, Western Neo-Aramaic, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, Turoyo, Christian Palestinian Aramaic), Arabic (Garshuni) |
|
Time period
|
c. 200 BC – present |
|
Parent systems
|
Egyptian hieroglyphs
|
|
Child systems
|
|
| Direction | Right-to-left |
| ISO 15924 |
Syrc, 135
|
|
Unicode alias
|
Syriac |
| U+0700–U+074F | |
The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from the 1st century AD. It is one of the Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet, and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, and the traditional Mongolian scripts.
Syriac is written from right to left. It is a cursive script where some, but not all, letters connect within a word. The alphabet consists of 22 letters, all of which are consonants. The vowel sounds are supplied either by the reader's memory or by optional diacritic marks. In addition to the sounds of the language, the letters of the Syriac alphabet can be used to represent numbers in a system similar to Hebrew and Greek numerals.
When Arabic began to be the dominant spoken language in the Fertile Crescent, texts were often written in Arabic with the Syriac script. Malayalam was also written with Syriac script and was called Suriyani Malayalam. These writings are usually called Karshuni or Garshuni (ܓܪܫܘܢܝ). Garshuni is often used today by Neo-Aramaic speakers in written communication such as letters and fliers.
There are three major variants of the Syriac alphabet: ʾEsṭrangēlā, Maḏnḥāyā, and Serṭā.
The oldest and classical form of the alphabet is ʾEsṭrangēlā (ܐܣܛܪܢܓܠܐ; the name is thought to derive from the Greek adjective στρογγύλη (strongylē, 'rounded'), though it has also been suggested to derive from ܣܪܛܐ ܐܘܢܓܠܝܐ (serṭā ʾewwangēlāyā, 'gospel character')). Although ʾEsṭrangēlā is no longer used as the main script for writing Syriac, it has received some revival since the 10th century. It is often used in scholarly publications (for instance, the Leiden University version of the Peshitta), in titles and inscriptions. In some older manuscripts and inscriptions it is possible for any letter to join to the left, and older Aramaic letter forms (especially of Ḥeth and the lunate Mem) are found. Vowel marks are usually not used with ʾEsṭrangēlā.
...
Wikipedia