Paleo-Hebrew alphabet Paleo-Hebrew alphabet The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet (Hebrew: ), also spelt Palaeo-Hebrew alphabet, is a variant of the Phoenician alphabet. Like the Phoenician alphabet, the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters, all of which are consonants, and is described as an abjad. The term was coined by Solomon Birnbaum in 1954; he wrote, "To apply the term Phoenician to the script of the Hebrews is hardly suitable". Still, the script is nearly identical to the Phoenician script. Archeological evidence of the use of the script by the Israelites for writing the Hebrew language dates to around the 10th century BCE. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
Syriac alphabet 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. Besides Syriac, the alphabet has been used to write other languages. When Arabic began to be the dominant spoken language in the Fertile Crescent after the Islamic conquest, texts were often written in Arabic with the Syriac script as knowledge of the Arabic alphabet was not yet widespread. Such writings are usually called "Karshuni" or "Garshuni" (). Garshuni is often used today in Neo-Aramaic writing, such as letters and fliers. Malayalam was