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  • From: Berel Beyer <berelbeyer AT gmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Sofit Letters
  • Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:13:27 -0500

Hello all,

I was asked a question by a friend about the origin of the sofit
letters. I looked in Gesenius and he seems to be silent about the
matter. I'm a high school Latin teacher, with no expertise in Hebrew,
so I thought I'd check here for verification of my off-the-cuff guess:

1. This is a question of the development of the Aramaic alphabet,
since the Paleo-Hebrew script does not make a distinction in terminal
letters (as far as I can tell by glancing at the chart in Gesenius at
least!).

2. The sofit letters seem to be the ones to come directly from the old
script (so the non-terminal versions must have developed later).

3. My guess is that the distinctions developed for either or both of
the following reasons: to make writing quicker and simpler (like the
development of minuscule lettering with the Roman alphabet), or to
distinguish between orthographically similar letters (*something* like
the development of j, to distinguish between the consonant and the
vowel).

Does this sound about right?

Thanks in advance,

Berel Beyer
--
Al titen lamuglegim ledake otcha! ~ Ron Weasley




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