Unicode Demystified

The Hebrew Alphabet

What we now know as the Hebrew alphabet dates back to about the second century B.C., and has come down through the years more or less unchanged.^[3] It evolved from the Aramaic alphabet, which in turn grew out of the Phoenician alphabet. An earlier Hebrew alphabet dated back to about the ninth century B.C., but it gradually died out as the ancient Israelites were dominated by a succession of Aramaic-speaking groups, including the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians. When the Holy Land was conquered by the Greeks, the Hebrew language made a comeback and a new alphabet for it was developed from the Aramaic alphabet. The modern Hebrew alphabet is often called “square Hebrew” to distinguish it from the more rounded form of the ...