Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 1.pdf/494

446 — THE JEWISH ENfVfLOPEUlA

Alphabet broken

was

not found practical to nmlic too sliarp circumstance resulted in producing an instrument analoirous to tlie modern stub pen, which gave the chanicters in all texts of West Asia the form of a "round hand." The heavy and light strokes in the letters alternate in such a Iniluenceof manner that grjidually the horizontal strokes become heavy, while the perWriting' material, pendicular ones naturally diminisli in thickness. .Such a modilication took place in the Hebrew, and all the hori/nntnl strokes were made thick. As has been remarked above, the scribes, probably from force of habit, ailded even to the letters bcgiiuiing with upright stems a short thin stroke (juite similar to the little ornaments on the letters y'i TJ'tjyC*- The reed pen (" habilis calamus ") it

a point, auil

tliis

C'onse(|Uently. wherglided easily over the stirface. ever it was used asnii instrument forwriting that is. the cliai-.icters. in spite of being in in Saracen lands the square form, show a tendency to roundness, the verticivl strokes at the same time becoming more or less inclined at an angle. In th<' Occident, however, the uill was used, which offered a similar obstacle to sharp iioiiiting. and as a consc(|uence it a.ssumed in its results much the character of the calamus. On the other han<l. the walls of the (luill are much thinner than those of the ri'ed; and this gave rise to an appreciable difrcrence between the pen stroke and one made by the calamus. The ability of the quill to retain a sharper nib adapted it especially to the

—

—

finer strokes of the lelters. but its comparative flexibility led more easily to the breaking of the lines. Again, since the nibs of the ipiill pen ])arted very easily, in fact spread so far asunder that the ink failed to till out the space between them, distinct

scratches would sometimes make their appmrance at the beginning, or sometimes at the end. of a thick stroke. In the Saracenic, or, as they were called, Sephardic (Spanish) lands the Hebrew Alphabet is distinguished for its roundness, for the small difference between the thickness of the hori/.onlal and upright strokes as well as for the inclined jiositiou of the letters. The script of the Christian Occident called Ashkeuazic from the Hebrew name f<ir Germany, where the Jews were the most ])opulous shows sharper corners, thinner tipright stems, broken and pointed lines. Several minor peculiarities arose also in the letters J. V. p. Within the range of these distinct features, in different countries various gradations and tran.sitions occur; thus the characters used by the Jews of Southem France and Italy, owing to their proximity to the Jews of Spain, and those used by the Greek Jews, owing to their relations with their Oriental corelig ionists, assumed a rounder form than the strictly

Ashkenazic.

The Ashkenazic alphabets may be

di-

vided, therefore, into a G<'rman, a northern and a

southern French (^NVJ'31"»a 303); an Italian (2ri3 t'Pyil).

and a Greek branch. Among there are fewer varia

Local Vari- the SciJhardim ations of

tions noticeabh'. yet it is i)ossible to distinguish in the Sephardic alphabet variations due to North African, Palestinian, and Babylonian-Persian Jews. Th<' sjime script used for the Torah rolls is employed for the rest of the Biblical books or other important works, only in this case the pvt. and the roof of theV/i?

Script.

pD

are omitted.

ments and

In other works, however, embellish-

flourishes occur

which were

strictly jiro-

hibitcd in the preparation of the Torah. These ornamentations were influenced by the miniature illuminations used by Christians, and sometimes even artists of that faith were employed. Two works,

446

freely used among the people, were thus especially illuminated, the Niegillah (Book of Esther) and the

Haggadah

for Pas.sover.

Petersburg Imperial Public Library be found the oldest Hebrew Bible maiui.script

In the

may

St.

extant. It dates from lIKi-'JlT. and the letters are in general the siune as thosit made now. though several slight moditications appear. Thus in T atiil n the horizontal line projects to the right over the upright, besides in n and in p the left stem hangs from the cro.ss beam. ' is coniiiarativelv long, but 1 not longer than the other letters (see I'late IV.. col. 1). One or two centuries earlier is the manuscript of K.cclesia.sticus discovered in Egypt, in which all these characteristics are wanting, but 'he very peculiar width of the lower part in L" may be noted (i/i. col. 'i). Columns 3, 4, and .5 in I'late IV. exhibit other Oriental alphabets; those of the Ashkena/.im may be illustrated by specimens from illumiuated German manuscripts. For the former, coiupare cols. !-•') col. (!. in which thccusped letters ])redoniinatc, is taken from a German Seliliot maiuiscript of the thirteenth or fourteenth century (Steinschneider, " Vcrzciclmiss der llcbr. Han<lschriftcn." Berlin, i. 4. !l; Tab. ii. :^), The more secular the The work, the less importance wasatlached " Ketibah to it. and the less care was taken that Taniinah." the execution of its letters should confortti to the rules set down for the w riling of the Holy Scriptures, and he. as it was called,

a non nyr (see Sifreon Dent, xxxvi. D^C'3n3)- In the Talmud (Shab. Wii/i) kitihnh iiiiDiiinh means simplj' "correct" script, but later it was applied to the s((uare as opposed to the cursive alphabet; thus Mainionides' statement (compare Steinschneider. " Vorlesungen i'lber Hebrilische Handschriftcn." p. 29), that the ketab titin designates the (Jerman square script as compared with the Oriental, seems to rest

on an

error.

Still less

care

was taken

in the

execution of the

where the text transcribed was not even Hebrew. For though it is true that w ithin their own coimtry the .lews, in exchanging their language for that of another nation, adopted also the alphabet of that nation, yet. throughout the DiTranslit- aspora. the vernacular of the country, eration of which was invariably ado|)te<l by the Foreig-n .Jews, was written by them with lleLanguag'es. brew characters. So that, whether the vernacular be German. French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Persian, or even Tatar, as is the case with the Karaites of Southern Russia, the Hebrew was th<' alphiibet used. Accordingly there grew letters in cases

up in coexistence with thesi|uarca cursive script, the tendency of which was to give the letters such forms as would pennit their being more easily and rapidly made. But the mandate against the use of the ligature in connection with the writing of the sacred texts was powerful enough to influence the development of this system of writing also; for the ligature occurs comiiaiatively seldom even in the cursive script. Thus a most potent factor in he transformation of the alphabet was held in restr-aint. The primal dilTerence between the two alphabets, square and cursive, was size. In unimportant works the lettering, for economy's sake, was small; such wasalso the case with marginal or explanatory notes. The former was called htihuli r/iiniinJi, or "large I

script '

the smaller characters were known as /v/jor kiUiiinnh. "small script" (compare Steinschneider, I.e.. note 1, and Low, "Graphische Heqtiisiten," p. 73, where .still other names for the various styles of script may be found). Through greater carelessness and haste in writing, the corners >i(i/i



ihikkiili