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264
THE ALPHABET
The local Hebrew scripts were strongly influenced by the non-Jewish script and art of their regions. As a result, there appear, for instance, the elegant forms of the Italian-Hebrew scripts, and the Hispano-Moresque influence on the Spanish-Hebrew writings. Hebrew-oriental scripts have a particular style of their own.
Modern Hebrew Alphabet
The modern Hebrew script (Fig. 128, col. 6 and 7)-in which copies of the Holy Scriptures in Hebrew are printed, and the scrolls of the Law are inscribed is essentially the ancient "square-Hebrew" script, which must, as mentioned, be distinguished from the early Hebrew writing.
The Hebrew alphabet consists of the ancient twenty-two Semitic letters, which are all consonants. The script is read from right to left. The letters are bold and well proportioned, although there exist certain, but superficial, resemblances between b and k, g and n, w and 2, kh and h or t, and so forth. The letters k, m, n, p and ts have two forms; one, when initial or medial; the other, when final. The letters are also used as numerical signs; the first nine, representing the units (1-9); the next nine, the tens (10-90); and the last four, the numbers 100, 200, 300, and 400.
Vowel Marks
The Hebrew alphabet, as already mentioned, is purely consonantal, although four of the letters (aleph, he, teaw and yod) are also employed to represent long vowels. Professor Chomsky points out that these four letters, which were originally employed consistently as consonants, but gradually began to lose their weak consonantal value in some instances, and became silent, eventually were utilized as the so-called long vowels. These letters have sometimes been called vowel letters, or vocalic consonants, also matres lectionis.
The absence of vowel-letters was not strongly felt, because Hebrew, like other Semitic languages, is essentially consonantal, and, unlike the Indo-European languages, the vowels serve principally to denote the terminations of inflection in nouns and the moods of verbs, or other grammatical variations.
However, as Hebrew speech passed out of daily use, and familiarity with biblical Hebrew steadily dwindled, it became necessary to introduce some form of vocalic distinction in order to read and explain the Holy Scripture correctly. On the other hand, no change in spelling nor addition of letters was permitted; "the omission or the addition of one letter might mean the destruction of the whole world," says the Talmud.
Until about a century ago, only the Tiberias vocalization system was known. Since then, some other systems have come to light, and it is thought that they are the records of different schools, and preserve variations in pronunciation in different countries or localities.
The three main vowel systems now extant are the "Babylonian," the "Palestinian" and the "Tiberiadic." The Babylonian is a "superlinear" system of both vocalization and accentuation; its main characteristic feature is the representation of vowel-sounds by small vowel-letters,' for long a, for short a, w for u, and y for i; double y for long e, and double
