ABSTRACT
The earliest texts written in Hebrew may be traced as far back as the 13th century BCE. Significant revisions and supplements to this pristine form of writing in Hebrew were introduced only about fifteen hundred years later, or some twelve or thirteen centuries ago. Interestingly, texts from even the earliest times can be read and comprehended by present-day readers of Hebrew. The complete Hebrew writing system is known as the Masoretic text or Tiberian Hebrew. It consists of 22 consonant letters and a set of diacritical marks comprising vowel signs and cantillation marks. Prior to the Masoretic contribution, Hebrew was constituted primarily of the set of the 22 consonant letters together with initial, not yet systematic, attempts to indicate vowels by assigning a second role to four consonant letters (see later on vowel letters). The contemporary Hebrew speaker in Israel generally reads orthography similar to the early writing system. It consists of the 22 consonant letters, and at times employs the vowel letters to mark some of the vowels (mostly /i/, /o/, and /u/, and occasionally /a/) in some of the words. On rare occasions this reader encounters a fully vowelized text, one that contains diacritic marks (e.g., poetry, religious texts, and children’s books). Apparently, as indicated in chapter 3, the contemporary Hebrew speaker is quite proficient in reading an elliptic alphabet in which not every vowel is represented. This chapter provides a short review of the evolution of the Hebrew alphabet. It is mainly focused on the inception of the alphabet and the contemporary writing in Hebrew.
