Hebrew letters are written below the top guideline (as Ismar David described, “.Hanging like laundry from a clothesline.”).The Hebrew script is used for Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino.Traditionally Hebrew typefaces do not include typographic ‘tools’ such as italics or small caps.Hebrew is a single case alphabetic script consisting of 22 letters and 5 additional final forms.Hopefully this interest will generate additional academic resources and stimulate a discourse in search of accurate language that would support future practices. The need for a coherent description of Hebrew type anatomy is growing, paralleling the rising interest in type design for global scripts. Therefore, nomenclature is fairly inconsistent: a single term may be interchangeably described by several words that carry different meanings (for example, a character’s instroke is referred to as a sting, a thorn, a tag, or a serif) other terms are too specific as they apply only to a single character some terms are antiquated and therefore confusing some terms correlate with the human anatomy, but are used interchangeably in counterintuitive placements (for example, using the term “heel” to describe both bottom and top parts of a letter) some terms refer to construction: beam, pillar, roof some terms are directly translated from English and some are merely transliterated. The Hebrew type terms that are being used today are borrowed from different disciplines such as paleogeography, calligraphy, and religious scribal practice. While efforts to create a new professional Hebrew vocabulary were reflected in early 20th century articles, books, and dictionaries dedicated to printing and graphic arts glossaries, it seems none included typographic terms for the purposes of type design. ![]() Contrary to the Latin, Hebrew did not include the deliberate and calculated work of expert stone-cutters that led to the use of serifs, but rather kept their written form. When Hebrew was applied to stone carving, the characters did not undergo a mechanical adaptation to the material and tools as the Latin characters did. While visually resembling the shape of a Latin serif, it is constructed in a completely different manner: it is originally a stroke of a blunt reed pen traveling inward from left to right, creating a triangular shape at its beginning. For example, the Hebrew instroke is commonly called a serif. However, this terminology describes the specific structure of Latin characters and is inaccurate for describing Hebrew characters. Around that time Jewish-Israeli type designers of European descent who were deeply familiar with the Hebrew script and language introduced new and groundbreaking designs.Ĭonsidering the fact that Hebrew printing largely evolved in Europe, it is not surprising that Hebrew type has developed mostly using Latin terminology to describe its anatomy. The demand for new Hebrew typefaces grew stronger around the 1950s with the declaration of Israel as a state. Those printed items required new Hebrew typefaces, that would accommodate the scope of printing as well as reflect the secular nature of its content. ![]() With the Jewish punchcutters facing these social and political obstacles, it was the non-Jewish punchcutters who made significant contributions to the improvement of the Hebrew type. However, the Jewish communities suffered persecution repeatedly and were often forced to flee and relocate their presses, which prevented the continuous natural development needed for the refinement of type. As religious Hebrew manuscripts played a central role in their lives, printing them instead of copying them by hand increased the production and distribution of these texts and contributed to Hebrew readership. ![]() The invention of movable type in the 1440s was welcomed with relative enthusiasm by Jewish communities that were scattered in Europe among other nations. ![]() Since the second century BCE and for centuries to come, Hebrew was mostly confined to religious use and only qualified devout scribes were permitted to write religious manuscripts under strict rules. The Hebrew letterforms were considered to be divine and to carry a complex religious meaning. The development of the Hebrew script took a unique course largely due to the fact that Jewish tradition perceived its alphabet as sacred. One of its distinguishing features is its square-like forms, having very few ascending and descending strokes. Written from right to left it is used for Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino. It is a single case alphabetic script consisting of 22 letters and 5 additional final forms. Modern Hebrew developed from the Aramaic or Assyrian alphabet around 560 BCE.
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