Samaritan Alphabet Table
| Letter | Unicode name | Sound | Hebrew | Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ࠀ | Letter Alaf | ∅ ~ ʔ | א | silent or glottal; vowel-carrier for open vowels |
| ࠁ | Letter Bit | b | ב | b |
| ࠂ | Letter Gaman | g | ג | g |
| ࠃ | Letter Dalat | d | ד | d |
| ࠄ | Letter Iy | ∅ ~ ʔ ~ h | ה | silent or breathy h |
| ࠅ | Letter Baa | b, w | ו | b; w; vowel-carrier for back vowels |
| ࠆ | Letter Zen | z | ז | z |
| ࠇ | Letter It | ∅ ~ ʔ, ʔ~ɧ | ח | pharyngeal, often silent |
| ࠈ | Letter Tit | t̰ | ט | emphatic t |
| ࠉ | Letter Yut | j | י | y |
| ࠊ | Letter Kaaf | k | כ | k |
| ࠋ | Letter Labat | l | ל | l |
| ࠌ | Letter Mim | m | מ | m |
| ࠍ | Letter Nun | n | ן | n |
| ࠎ | Letter Singaat | s | ס | s |
| ࠏ | Letter In | ʔ~ɧ, ∅ | ע | voiced pharyngeal, often silent |
| ࠐ | Letter Fi | f, bː | ף | f; doubled b |
| ࠑ | Letter Tsaadiy | s̰ | צ | emphatic s |
| ࠒ | Letter Quf | q | ק | uvular q |
| ࠓ | Letter Rish | r | ר | trilled r |
| ࠔ | Letter Shan | ʃ | ש | sh |
| ࠕ | Letter Taaf | t | ת | t |
| ࠖ | Mark In | mark | – | liturgical marking (gemination, occlusion, epenthetic vowels) |
| ࠗ | Mark In-Alaf | mark | – | liturgical marking (gemination, occlusion, epenthetic vowels) |
| ࠘ | Mark Occlusion | mark | – | liturgical marking (gemination, occlusion, epenthetic vowels) |
| ࠙ | Mark Dagesh | mark | – | liturgical marking (gemination, occlusion, epenthetic vowels) |
| ࠛ | Mark Epenthetic Yut | mark | – | liturgical marking (gemination, occlusion, epenthetic vowels) |
| ࠭ | Mark Nequdaa | mark | – | liturgical marking (gemination, occlusion, epenthetic vowels) |
| ࠚ | Modifier Letter Epenthetic Yut | mark | – | liturgical marking (gemination, occlusion, epenthetic vowels) |
| ࠜ | Vowel Sign Long E | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠝ | Vowel Sign E | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠞ | Vowel Sign Overlong Aa | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠟ | Vowel Sign Long Aa | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠠ | Vowel Sign Aa | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠡ | Vowel Sign Overlong A | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠢ | Vowel Sign Long A | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠣ | Vowel Sign A | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠤ | Modifier Letter Short A | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠥ | Vowel Sign Short A | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠦ | Vowel Sign Long U | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠧ | Vowel Sign U | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠨ | Modifier Letter I | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠩ | Vowel Sign Long I | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠪ | Vowel Sign I | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠫ | Vowel Sign O | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠬ | Vowel Sign Sukun | vowel sign | – | vowel notation for the liturgical reading tradition |
| ࠰ | Punctuation Nequdaa | punctuation | – | variant reading sign |
| ࠱ | Punctuation Afsaaq | punctuation | – | interruption |
| ࠲ | Punctuation Anged | punctuation | – | restraint |
| ࠳ | Punctuation Bau | punctuation | – | prayer |
| ࠴ | Punctuation Atmaau | punctuation | – | surprise |
| ࠵ | Punctuation Shiyyaalaa | punctuation | – | question |
| ࠷ | Punctuation Melodic Qitsa | punctuation | – | melodic pause |
| ࠸ | Punctuation Ziqaa | punctuation | – | shouting |
| ࠹ | Punctuation Qitsa | punctuation | – | end of section |
| ࠺ | Punctuation Zaef | punctuation | – | outburst |
| ࠻ | Punctuation Turu | punctuation | – | teaching |
| ࠼ | Punctuation Arkaanu | punctuation | – | submissiveness |
| ࠽ | Punctuation Sof Mashfaat | punctuation | – | full stop |
| ࠾ | Punctuation Annaau | punctuation | – | rest |
| ࠶ | Abbreviation Mark | punctuation | – | marks a shortened sacred name |
The Samaritan alphabet is a 2,600-year thread that has never broken: Wikipedia describes it as “a direct descendant of the paleo-Hebrew alphabet, the script in which much of the Hebrew Bible was originally written,” preserved in continuous liturgical use by the Samaritan community of Mount Gerizim while the rest of the Jewish world moved to the square Aramaic script after the Babylonian exile. Its Infobox ranges from the 4th century CE to the present - one of the very few scripts on this site that is not a revival.
It writes the Samaritan Pentateuch - the community’s version of the Torah, different in hundreds of readings from the Masoretic text - plus prayer books and commentaries in Samaritan Hebrew and Samaritan Aramaic. When the Samaritans speak Arabic, the script has occasionally been borrowed for that too. Today the community numbers under a thousand people in Holon and Nablus, and every Torah scroll they copy is written in these letters.
The table below lists all 61 named codepoints of Unicode block U+0800: 22 consonantal letters with their Hebrew cognates, the gemination/occlusion/epenthetic marks of the liturgical tradition, a complete vowel-sign set, fourteen punctuation signs named for their reading functions, and an abbreviation mark - with three codepoints left unassigned and, uniquely for this site’s Aramaic-family charts, no digit signs at all.
How to use
- Use the Hebrew column as your map: the 22 letters sit in the same order as the Hebrew alphabet (ALAF, BIT, GAMAN, DALAT...), so if you know Hebrew letter names the Samaritan names follow at once - the shapes, however, are the old paleo-Hebrew ones, closer to inscriptions of the Iron Age than to today’s square Hebrew.
- Read the sound column with the tradition in mind: several letters (ALAF, IY, IT, IN) are silent or glottal in modern reading but carry the vowel notation - the vowel signs are a medieval liturgical overlay, not part of the consonantal skeleton, much as the Hebrew niqqud works.
- Treat the punctuation rows as a liturgical score: Wikipedia’s own labels read like conducting marks - prayer, surprise, question, shouting, teaching, submissiveness, end of section, full stop, rest - because in Samaritan practice punctuation marks how a passage is chanted, not merely where sentences stop.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Samaritan script still used today?
Yes - continuously. The Infobox range runs from the 4th century CE to the present, and the surviving Samaritan community (Holon and Nablus, under a thousand people) still copies the Pentateuch and prays in it. It entered the digital age with Unicode 5.2 in October 2009 - the same release that admitted Avestan, Inscriptional Pahlavi and the other Sasanian scripts on this site.
How is it related to the Hebrew alphabet?
They are siblings with different parents, sort of: both descend from paleo-Hebrew, but Jewish practice switched to the square Aramaic (Ashurit) script during and after the Babylonian exile, while the Samaritans kept the old forms. Wikipedia notes paleo-Hebrew letterforms also survived on the coinage of the Jewish revolts of 66–70 and 132–135 CE - a brief reappearance - but the Samaritan line never broke.
Why are there no numerals in the block?
The Samaritan tradition writes numbers as words in religious texts, so the Unicode block (U+0800–U+083F) encodes no digit signs at all - 61 codepoints cover letters, marks, vowels and punctuation only. It is the exception among the Aramaic-family charts on this site, whose siblings carry non-positional numeral blocks.
What does the punctuation actually do?
It conducts the reader: Wikipedia’s table names each mark by function - nequdaa (variant reading), afsaaq (interruption), bau (prayer), atmaau (surprise), shiyyaalaa (question), ziqaa (shouting), qitsa (end of section), turu (teaching), arkaanu (submissiveness), sof mashfaat (full stop), annaau (rest). The set doubles as the chant notation for the liturgy.
What is the Samaritan Pentateuch?
The Samaritan community’s Torah, written in this script and preserving readings that differ from the Jewish Masoretic text - for Samaritans, Mount Gerizim (not Jerusalem) is the chosen sanctuary, and their version says so. It is the principal reason this alphabet mattered enough to keep alive for two and a half millennia.