Hebrew spelling its context. Also, some words are almost always written in the "missing" form ("ktiv haser") in everyday life: לא (, no), אמא (, mother), אם (, if), and כנרת (, Kinneret). Hebrew spelling Hebrew spelling ( , "Hebrew spelling") refers to the way words are spelled in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters, all of which are primarily consonants. This is because the Hebrew script is an abjad, that is, its letters indicate consonants, not vowels or syllables. An early system to overcome this, still used today, is "matres lectionis", where four of these letters, alef, he,
Paleo-Hebrew alphabet use the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. During the 3rd century BCE, Jews began to use a stylized, "square" form of the Aramaic alphabet that was used by the Persian Empire (which in turn was adopted from the Assyrians), while the Samaritans continued to use a form of the Paleo-Hebrew script, called the Samaritan script. After the fall of the Persian Empire, Jews used both scripts before settling on the Assyrian form. For a limited time thereafter, the use of the Paleo-Hebrew script among Jews was retained only to write the Tetragrammaton. The independent Hebrew script evolved by developing numerous cursive features, the