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Aramaic 101: Where Did All These Scripts Come From?

Does It Really Matter?

When it comes to Aramaic scripts, most of us are impressed by the variety, but it’s all Greek to us after that point. Since most people are uninformed about scripts, it’s easy to think of them as simply interchangeable fonts. This isn’t the case. Each script above represents the written hand of a specific place, time, culture and Aramaic dialect. Just as different Aramaic dialects are mutually unintelligible, different Aramaic scripts would perplex the native reader/writer of one script. For example, the writer/speaker of proto-Hebrew/Old Aramaic would probably not recognize Estrangela as the same language at all. Think of it this way: you can spell out English in Cyrillic or even Kanji, but that doesn’t make the result unqualified English (or Japanese for that matter). Scripts belong to a dialect and vice versa.

Don’t be disheartened, this is one of the most fascinating aspects of Aramaic and the Aramaic enthusiasts opportunity to try literary archeology!

Old Aramaic, Paleo-Hebrew & Phoenician The Oldest Aramaic Scripts

What, all three at once? Yes! Old Aramaic goes back to the point where the three writing systems diverged, way back in the 14th Century BC! This is the script dating back to the days of Moses and Abraham.

Samaritan Liturgical Script of the Samaritan People

Forming in approximately the 6th century BCE, Samaritan script came from old Aramaic. It is also the script that ancient copies of the Samaritan Pentateuch were penned and are preserved in today.

Imperial Aramaic Lingua Franca Of The Neo-Assyrian Empire

As Aramaic progressed into the Imperial language of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the script used to write it underwent a change into something more cursive. Our best examples of this script come from documents written on papyrus from Egypt. This script was also used during the reign of King Ashoka in his eddicts to spread early Buddhism.

Herodian The Script of Jesus

Herodian script is a type of handwriting that became prominent during the reign of Herod. Many of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written in this script, and this form would have been what was prominent in Judea during the lifetime of Jesus of Nazareth. NOTE: This is the script that was used on the authentic portions of the James Ossuary, and all of the Aramaic inscriptions in the Lost Tomb of Jesus.

“Hebrew” The Script of Later Judaism

The script that most of us know as “Hebrew” today is actually a script that was adopted during the Jewish exile to Babylon. Since the lingua franca of the Babylonian Empire was Aramaic, the Jewish people adopted it as a matter of survival. As a result, parts of the books of Daniel and Ezra were authored in Aramaic rather than Hebrew. The script came about from approximately the 6th to 3rd centuries BC from Old Aramaic.

Rashi The Script Of The Talmud

From Wikipedia: The semi-cursive typeface in which Rashi’s (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki) commentaries are printed both in the Talmud and Tanakh is often referred to as “Rashi script.” This does not mean that Rashi himself used such a script: the typface is based on a 15th century Sephardic semi-cursive hand. What would be called “Rashi script” was employed by early Hebrew typographers such as the Soncino family and Daniel Bomberg, a Christian printer in Venice, in their editions of commented texts (such as the Mikraot Gedolot and the Talmud, in which Rashi’s commentaries prominently figure) to distinguish the rabbinic commentary from the text proper, for which a square typeface was used.

Estrangela The Script of Syriac Christianity

The name “Estrangela” comes from the Greek word strongylé which means “rounded” (in contrast to the square nature of the non-cursive Hebrew/Assyrian scripts). It was used as early as 200 BCE to write Syriac, a prominent dialect of Aramaic that, in several forms, survives to this very day. The oldest copies of the Syriac Peshitta are found in this script.

Madnhaya The Scropt Of The Eastern Syriac Church

As Estrangela progressed eastward it took on a slightly different form. Called Madnhaya (sometimes spelled “Madinkhaya” or “Madnh%u0323aya”) or “Swadaya” (both of which mean “Eastern”), this is what modern Eastern Neo-Aramaic is written in.

Serto The Script Of The Western Syriac Church

As Estrangela progressed westward and came to be written upon wax tablets it slowly evolved into “Serto” (which literally means “line” or “scratch”). Western Syriac, including modern dialects, are written in this form.

Beware of Free Fonts

For the student of Aramaic, who is much like any other student in one respect: broke, free fonts seem like a Godsend! Unfortunately, while pretty, a number of them are profoundly flawed, to the point that a translation written in them might be altered or become gibberish. For example, the popular Rashi font is missing the tau, the Imperial hand, in some places called Elephantine, where you would expect the tau to be is instead the teyt. In either case, a translator that knows their stuff can work around the error in the font, or, like Steve did, edit the font, but the student who is learning and the individual who’s not sure of their translator’s prowess, should be wary. We know of one translator using an uncorrected font at this time.