Syriac alphabet

Forms of the Syriac alphabet

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

Classical ʾEsṭrangēlā

The oldest and classical form of the alphabet is ʾEsṭrangēlā (ܐܣܛܪܢܓܠܐ‎; the name is thought to derive from the Greek adjective στρογγύλη (strongylē, 'rounded'), though it has also been suggested to derive from ܣܪܛܐ ܐܘܢܓܠܝܐ‎ (serṭā ʾewwangēlāyā, 'gospel character')). 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 (for instance, the Leiden University version of the Peshitta), in titles and inscriptions. In some older manuscripts and inscriptions it is possible for any letter to join to the left, and older Aramaic letter forms (especially of Ḥeth and the lunate Mem) are found. Vowel marks are usually not used with ʾEsṭrangēlā.

East Syriac Maḏnḥāyā

The East Syriac dialect is usually written in the Maḏnḥāyā (ܡܲܕ݂ܢܚܵܝܵܐ‎, 'Eastern') form of the alphabet. Other names for the script include Swāḏāyā (ܣܘܵܕ݂ܵܝܵܐ‎, 'conversational', often translated as 'contemporary', reflecting its use in writing modern Neo-Aramaic), ʾĀṯūrāyā (ܐܵܬ݂ܘܼܪܵܝܵܐ‎, 'Assyrian', not to be confused with the traditional name for the Hebrew alphabet), Kaldāyā (ܟܲܠܕܵܝܵܐ‎, 'Chaldean'), and, inaccurately, "Nestorian" (a term that was originally used to refer to the Church of the East in the Sasanian Empire). The Eastern script resembles ʾEsṭrangēlā more closely than the Western script, being somewhat a midway point between the two.

Vowels

The Eastern script uses a system of dots above or below letters, based on an older system, to indicate vowel sounds which are not found in the script:

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 (or often nothing at all) 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 (usually inside a syllable-initial two-consonant cluster) or because its pronunciation was lost, neither the East nor West variants of the alphabet have a sign to represent the schwa.

West Syriac Serṭā

The West Syriac dialect is usually written in the Serṭā (ܣܶܪܛܳܐ‎, 'line') form of the alphabet, also known as the Pšīṭā (ܦܫܺܝܛܳܐ‎, 'simple'), 'Maronite', or the 'Jacobite' script (although the term Jacobite is considered derogatory). 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. The Nabataean alphabet (which gave rise to the Arabic alphabet) was based on this form of Syriac handwriting.

Vowels

The Western script is usually vowel-pointed with miniature Greek vowel letters above or below the letter which they follow:

Summary table

The Syriac alphabet consists of the following letters, shown in their isolated (non-connected) forms. When isolated, the letters Kāp̄, Mīm, and Nūn are usually shown with their initial form connected to their final form (see below). The letters ʾĀlap̄, Dālaṯ, Hē, Waw, Zayn, Ṣāḏē, Rēš, and Taw (and, in early ʾEsṭrangēlā manuscripts, the letter Semkaṯ) do not connect to a following letter within a word. These are marked with an asterisk (*).

Contextual forms of letters

¹ In the final position following Dālaṯ or Rēš, ʾĀlap̄ takes the normal form rather than the final form.

Matres lectionis

Three letters act as matres lectionis: rather than being a consonant, they indicate a vowel. ʾĀlap̄ (ܐ), the first letter, represents a glottal stop, but it can also indicate a vowel at the beginning or the end of a word. The letter Waw (ܘ) is the consonant w, but can also represent the vowels o and u. Likewise, the letter Yōḏ (ܝ) represents the consonant y, but it also stands for the vowels i and e.

Majlīyānā

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 (ܡܓ̰ܠܝܢܐ‎), is placed below a letter in the Maḏnḥāyā variant of the alphabet to change its phonetic value (see also: Geresh):

Rūkkāḵā and qūššāyā

In addition to foreign sounds, a marking system is used to distinguish qūššāyā (ܩܘܫܝܐ, 'hard' letters) from rūkkāḵā (ܪܘܟܟܐ, 'soft' letters). The letters Bēṯ, Gāmal, Dālaṯ, Kāp̄, Pē, and Taw, all stop consonants ('hard') are able to be 'spirantized' (lenited) into fricative consonants ('soft'). 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 (though, in modern usage, no mark at all is usually used to indicate the 'hard' value):

The mnemonic bḡaḏkp̄āṯ (ܒܓܕܟܦܬ) is often used to remember the six letters that are able to be spirantized (see also: Begadkefat).

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.

Unicode

The Syriac alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in September, 1999 with the release of version 3.0.

Block

The Unicode block for Syriac is U+0700–U+074F:

The Syriac Abbreviation (a type of overline) can be represented with a special control character called the Syriac Abbreviation Mark (U+070F).

HTML code table

Note: HTML numeric character references can be in decimal format (&#DDDD;) or hexadecimal format (&#xHHHH;). For example, ܕ and ܕ (1813 in decimal) both represent U+0715 SYRIAC LETTER DALATH.

Latin alphabet and romanization

In the 1930s, following the state policy for minority languages of the Soviet Union, a Latin alphabet for Syriac was developed with some material promulgated. Although this conception did not supplant the Syriac script, the usage of the Latin script in the Syriac community has still become widespread due to the fact that most of the Assyrian diaspora is in Europe and the anglophone, where Latin script is predominant. As a result of the westernization, the Latin alphabet has been incorporated within Syriac writing.