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 indicated by the "dagesh". In Modern Hebrew the sounds ḏ and ḡ have reverted to and , respectively, and ṯ has become , so only the remaining three consonants show variation. "resh" may have also been a "doubled" letter, making the list "BeGeD KePoReT". (Sefer Yetzirah, 4:1) The following table contains the pronunciation of the Hebrew letters in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the . The apostrophe-looking symbol after some letters is not a yud but a geresh. It is used for loanwords with non-native Hebrew sounds. The dot in the middle of some of the letters, called a