Biblical Hebrew and occasionally other literary works, distinct from the calligraphic styles used mainly for private purposes. The Mizrahi and Ashkenazi book-hand styles were later adapted to printed fonts after the invention of the printing press. The modern Hebrew alphabet, also known as the Assyrian or Square script, is a descendant of the Aramaic alphabet. The Phoenician script had dropped five characters by the 12th century BCE, reflecting the language's twenty-two consonantal phonemes. As a result, the 22 letters of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet numbered less than the consonant phonemes of ancient Biblical Hebrew; in particular, the letters could each mark two different
Hebrew alphabet with a niqqud symbol – a vowel diacritic (whether or not the diacritic is marked), whereas and ע are considered to be mute, their role being purely indicative of the non-marked vowel. "Niqqud" is the system of dots that help determine vowels and consonants. In Hebrew, all forms of "niqqud" are often omitted in writing, except for children's books, prayer books, poetry, foreign words, and words which would be ambiguous to pronounce. Israeli Hebrew has five vowel phonemes, , but many more written symbols for them: By adding a vertical line (called "Meteg") underneath the letter and to the left