Samaritan Samaritan (ࠔࠅࠌࠓࠅࠍࠉࠕ)

The Samaritan alphabet was derived from the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. According to the Bible, the Samaritans came originally from Mesopotamia, then moved to Palestine at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC and adopted the Jewish religion and culture. The Samaritans themselves claim descent from the northern tribes of Israel. Evidence from recent DNA tests supports this claim and shows they are related to the Israelites through the paternal line.

The Samaritan alphabet is still used by Samaritans in the city of Nablus and in the Samaritan quarter of Holon. There are currently just over 700 Samaritans.

Notable features

Used to write

Samaritan Hebrew, a descendant of Biblical Hebrew used by Samaritans as a liturgical language.

Samaritan Aramaic, a dialect of Aramaic used by the Samaritans in their sacred and scholarly literature.

Samaritan alphabet

Samaritan alphabet

Download an alphabet chart for Samaritan (Excel)

Sample texts in the Samaritan alphabet

Sample text in the Samaritan alphabet

Source: http://culmus.sourceforge.net/ancient/Samples/Hebrew-Samaritan.pdf

Sample text - Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Samaritan

Translation

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Links

Information about the Samaritan script and language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan_alphabet
http://www.mystae.com/reflections/messiah/scripts/alphabet.html
http://culmus.sourceforge.net/ancient/Samples/Hebrew-Samaritan.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan_Hebrew

Information about the Samaritan people
http://www.the-samaritans.com/
http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritan
https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Samaritan.html

Free Samaritan font
http://culmus.sourceforge.net/ancient/index.html

Consonant alphabets (Abjads)

Ancient Berber, Arabic, Aramaic, Chorasmian, Elymaic, Hatran, Hebrew, Manichaean, Nabataean, North Arabian, Pahlavi, Palmyrene, Parthian, Phoenician, Paleo-Hebrew, Proto-Sinaitic / Proto-Canaanite, Psalter, Punic, Sabaean, Samaritan, Sogdian, South Arabian, Syriac, Tifinagh, Ugaritic

Other writing systems

Page last modified: 28.09.23

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