Syriac alphabet


The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language since the 1st century. It is one of the Semitic abjads descending from the Aramaic alphabet through the Palmyrene alphabet, and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic and Sogdian, the precursor and a direct ancestor of the traditional Mongolian scripts.
Syriac is written from right to left in horizontal lines. It is a cursive script where most—but not all—letters connect within a word. There is no letter case distinction between upper and lower case letters, though some letters change their form depending on their position within a word. Spaces separate individual words.
All 22 letters are consonants. There are optional diacritic marks to indicate the vowel and [|other features]. In addition to the sounds of the language, the letters of the Syriac alphabet can be used to represent numbers in a system similar to Hebrew and Greek numerals.
Apart from Classical Syriac Aramaic, the alphabet has been used to write other dialects and languages. Several Christian Neo-Aramaic languages, from Turoyo to the Northeastern Neo-Aramaic language of Suret, once vernaculars, primarily began to be written in the 19th century. The variant has explicitly been adapted to write Western Neo-Aramaic, previously written in the square Maalouli script, developed by George Rizkalla, based on the Hebrew alphabet. Besides Aramaic, when Arabic began to be the dominant spoken language in the Fertile Crescent after the Islamic conquest, texts were often written in Arabic using the Syriac script as knowledge of the Arabic alphabet was not yet widespread; such writings are usually called Karshuni or Garshuni. In addition to Semitic languages, Sogdian was also written with Syriac script, as well as Malayalam, which form was called Suriyani Malayalam.

Alphabet forms

There are three major variants of the Syriac alphabet:, and.

Classical

The oldest and classical form of the alphabet is . The name of the script is thought to derive from the Greek adjective strongýlē, though it has also been suggested to derive from . Although ʾEsṭrangēlā is no longer used as the main script for writing Syriac, it has received some revival since the 10th century. It is often used in scholarly publications, in titles, and in inscriptions. In some older manuscripts and inscriptions, it is possible for any letter to join to the left, and older Aramaic letter forms are found. Vowel marks are usually not used with, because it is the oldest form of the script and arose before specialized diacritics were developed.

East Syriac

The East Syriac dialect is usually written in the form of the alphabet. Other names for the script include , , , and, inaccurately, "Nestorian". The Eastern script resembles ʾEsṭrangēlā somewhat more closely than the Western script.

Vowels

The Eastern script uses a system of dots above and/or [|below] letters, based on an older system, to indicate vowel sounds not found in the script:
  • A dot above and a dot below a letter represent, transliterated as a or ă,
  • Two diagonally-placed dots above a letter represent, transliterated as ā or â or å,
  • Two horizontally-placed dots below a letter represent, transliterated as e or ĕ,
  • Two diagonally-placed dots below a letter represent, transliterated as ē,
  • The letter waw with a dot below it represents, transliterated as ū or u,
  • The letter with a dot above it represents, transliterated as ō or o,
  • The letter yōḏ with a dot beneath it represents, transliterated as ī or i,
  • A combination of followed by a letter yōḏ represents , transliterated as ē or ê.
It is thought that the Eastern method for representing vowels influenced the development of the niqqud markings used for writing Hebrew.
In addition to the above vowel marks, transliteration of Syriac sometimes includes ə, e̊ or superscript e to represent an original Aramaic schwa that became lost later on at some point in the development of Syriac. Some transliteration schemes find its inclusion necessary for showing spirantization or for historical reasons. Whether because its distribution is mostly predictable or because its pronunciation was lost, both the East and the West variants of the alphabet traditionally have no sign to represent the schwa.

West Syriac

The West Syriac dialect is usually written in the or form of the alphabet, also known as the , 'Maronite'. Most of the letters are clearly derived from ʾEsṭrangēlā, but are simplified, flowing lines. A cursive chancery hand is evidenced in the earliest Syriac manuscripts, but important works were written in ʾEsṭrangēlā. From the 8th century, the simpler Serṭā style came into fashion, perhaps because of its more economical use of parchment.

Vowels

The Western script is usually vowel-pointed, with miniature Greek vowel letters above or below the letter which they follow:
  • Capital alpha represents, transliterated as a or ă,
  • Lowercase alpha represents, transliterated as ā or â or å,
  • Lowercase epsilon represents both, transliterated as e or ĕ, and, transliterated as ē,
  • Capital eta represents, transliterated as ī,
  • A combined symbol of capital upsilon and lowercase omicron represents, transliterated as ū or u,
  • Lowercase omega, used only in the vocative interjection .

    Summary table

The Syriac alphabet consists of the following letters, shown in their isolated forms. When isolated, the letters,, and are usually shown with their initial form connected to their final form. The letters,,,,,, and do not connect to a following letter within a word; these are marked with an asterisk.

Contextual forms of letters

Ligatures

Letter alterations

''Matres lectionis''

Three letters act as matres lectionis: rather than being a consonant, they indicate a vowel. Aleph |, the first letter, represents a glottal stop, but it can also indicate a vowel, especially at the beginning or the end of a word. The letter waw is the consonant w, but can also represent the vowels o and u. Likewise, the letter represents the consonant y, but it also stands for the vowels i and e.
In modern usage, some alterations can be made to represent phonemes not represented in classical phonology. A mark similar in appearance to a tilde, called majlīyānā, is placed above or below a letter in the Maḏnḥāyā variant of the alphabet to change its phonetic value :
  • Added below : to
  • Added below : to
  • Added above or below : to
  • Added above : to

    and

In addition to foreign sounds, a marking system is used to distinguish from . The letters,,,,, and, all stop consonants are able to be 'spirantized' into fricative consonants. The system involves placing a single dot underneath the letter to give its 'soft' variant and a dot above the letter to give its 'hard' variant :
The mnemonic is often used to remember the six letters that are able to be spirantized.
In the East Syriac variant of the alphabet, spirantization marks are usually omitted when they interfere with vowel marks. The degree to which letters can be spirantized varies from dialect to dialect as some dialects have lost the ability for certain letters to be spirantized. For native words, spirantization depends on the letter's position within a word or syllable, location relative to other consonants and vowels, gemination, etymology, and other factors. Foreign words do not always follow the rules for spirantization.
Syriac uses two horizontal dots above a letter within a word, similar in appearance to diaeresis, called , to indicate that the word is plural. These dots, having no sound value in themselves, arose before both eastern and western vowel systems as it became necessary to mark plural forms of words, which are indistinguishable from their singular counterparts in regularly-inflected nouns. For instance, the word is consonantally identical to its plural ; the above the word clarifies its grammatical number and pronunciation. Irregular plurals also receive even though their forms are clearly plural: e.g. and its irregular plural . Because of redundancy, some modern usage forgoes points when vowel markings are present.
There are no firm rules for which letter receives ; the writer has full discretion to place them over any letter. Typically, if a word has at least one, then are placed over the that is nearest the end of a word. Other letters that often receive are low-rising letters—such as and —or letters that appear near the middle or end of a word.
Besides plural nouns, are also placed on:
  • plural adjectives, including participles ;
  • the cardinal numbers 'two' and the feminine forms of 11–19, though inconsistently;
  • and certain feminine plural verbs: the 3rd person feminine plural perfect and the 2nd and 3rd person feminine plural imperfect.
Syriac uses a diacritic line, called , to indicate a silent letter that can occur at the beginning or middle of a word. In Eastern Syriac, this line is diagonal and only occurs above the silent letter. The line can only occur above a letter,,,,,,, or . In Western Syriac, this line is horizontal and can be placed above or below the letter.
Classically, was not used for silent letters that occurred at the end of a word. In modern Turoyo, however, this is not always the case.

Latin alphabet and romanization

In 1930, a Latin alphabet for Syriac was developed with some material promulgated. It was used until around 1938, when it was replaced by a Cyrillic script. Although they did not supplant the Syriac script, the usage of the Latin script in the Syriac community has still become widespread because most of the Assyrian diaspora is in Europe and the Anglosphere, where the Latin alphabet is predominant.
In Syriac romanization, some letters are altered and would feature diacritics and macrons to indicate long vowels, schwas and diphthongs. The letters with diacritics and macrons are mostly upheld in educational or formal writing.
ABCÇDEƏFGHIJKLMNOPQRSŞTŢUVXZƵЬIJ/ЬJ

The Latin letters below are commonly used when it comes to transliteration from the Syriac script to Latin:
AĀBḆCDḎEĒĔFGHḤIJKḴLMNOŌPQRSŠṢTṬṮUŪVWXYZ

  • Ā is used to denote a long "a" sound or as heard in "car".
  • Ḏ is used to represent a voiced dental fricative , the "th" sound as heard in "that".
  • Ē is used to denote a long close-mid unrounded vowel, .
  • Ĕ is to represent an "eh" sound or , as heard in Ninwĕ
  • Ḥ represents a voiceless pharyngeal fricative, only upheld by Turoyo and Chaldean speakers.
  • Ō represents a long "o" sound or .
  • Š is a voiceless postalveolar fricative, the English digraph "sh".
  • Ṣ denotes an emphatic "s" or "thick s", .
  • Ṭ is an emphatic "t", , as heard in the word ṭla.
  • Ū is used to represent an "oo" sound or the close back rounded vowel .
Sometimes additional letters may be used and they tend to be: