Editing Samaritan script (section)

{{Short description|Writing system used by the Samaritans for religious writings}}
{{refimprove|date=September 2021}}
{{Infobox Writing system
 |sample=Samaritan Leviticus.jpg
 |name=Samaritan
 |type=[[Abjad]]
 |languages=[[Samaritan Hebrew]], [[Samaritan Aramaic language|Samaritan Aramaic]]
 |time=600 BCE&nbsp;– present
 |fam1= [[Egyptian hieroglyphs]]<ref>Himelfarb, Elizabeth J. "First Alphabet Found in Egypt", Archaeology 53, Issue 1 (Jan./Feb. 2000): 21.</ref>
 |fam2=[[Proto-Sinaitic alphabet]]
 |fam3=[[Phoenician alphabet]]
 |fam4=[[Paleo-Hebrew alphabet]]
 |iso15924=Samr
 |unicode=[https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0800.pdf U+0800–U+083F]
}}
{{SpecialChars}}
The '''Samaritan Hebrew script''', or simply '''Samaritan script''' is used by the [[Samaritans]] for religious writings, including the [[Samaritan Pentateuch]], writings in [[Samaritan Hebrew]], and for commentaries and translations in [[Samaritan Aramaic language|Samaritan Aramaic]] and occasionally [[Arabic language|Arabic]].

{{alphabet}}
Samaritan is a direct descendant of the [[Paleo-Hebrew alphabet]], which was a variety of the [[Phoenician alphabet]]. Paleo-Hebrew is the alphabet in which large parts of the [[Hebrew Bible]] were originally penned according to the consensus of most scholars, who also believe that these scripts are descendants of the [[Proto-Sinaitic script]]. Paleo-Hebrew script was used by the ancient [[Israelites]], both [[Jews]] and Samaritans.

The better-known "square script" [[Hebrew alphabet]] which has been traditionally used by Jews since the Babylonian exile is a stylized version of the [[Aramaic alphabet]] called Ashurit (כתב אשורי).

Historically, the Aramaic alphabet became distinct from Phoenician/Paleo-Hebrew in the 8th century BCE. After the fall of the Persian Empire, Judaism used both scripts before settling on the Aramaic form, henceforth de facto becoming the "Hebrew alphabet" since it was repurposed to write Hebrew. For a limited time thereafter, the use of paleo-Hebrew (proto-Samaritan) among Jews was retained only to write the [[Tetragrammaton]], but soon that custom was also abandoned.

A [[Cursive Hebrew#Samaritan Hebrew|cursive]] style of the alphabet also exists.

The Samaritan alphabet first became known to the Western world with the publication of a manuscript of the [[Samaritan Pentateuch]] in 1631 by [[Jean Morin (theologian)|Jean Morin]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=IOAtAAAAYAAJ Exercitationes ecclesiasticae in utrumque Samaritanorum Pentateuchum], 1631</ref> In 1616 the traveler [[Pietro della Valle]] had purchased a copy of the text in [[Damascus]], and this manuscript, now known as Codex B, was deposited in a [[Paris]]ian library.{{sfn| Flôrenṭîn|2005|p=1|ps=: "When the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch was revealed to the Western world early in the 17th century... [footnote: 'In 1632 the Frenchman Jean Morin published the Samaritan Pentateuch in the Parisian Biblia Polyglotta based on a manuscript that the traveler Pietro Della Valle had bought from Damascus sixteen years previously.]"}}