The last one day workshop for 2015.
It was a sunny Saturday and 6 seasoned scribes, 1 novice
calligrapher together with a wise and erudite tutor (Valerie Keevers) came
together to learn the ancient script of Jerusalem Hand.
The Hebrew alphabet
has 22 letters. It does not have case, but five letters have different forms when used at the end of a word.
Hebrew is written from right
to left. Originally, the alphabet
was an abjad consisting only of consonants. As with other abjads,
such as the Arabic alphabet, scribes later devised means of indicating vowel sounds by separate
vowel points, known in Hebrew as niqqud. In rabbinic Hebrew, the letters א ה ו י
are also used as matres lectionis (the use of certain consonants to indicate a vowel) to represent
vowels. When used to write Yiddish, the writing system is a true alphabet (except for borrowed Hebrew
words). In modern usage of the alphabet, as in the case of Yiddish (except that
ע
replaces ה) and to some extent modern Israeli Hebrew, vowels may be indicated. Today, the trend is toward full spelling with these letters acting as true vowels. (This
paragraph was taken from Wikipaedia by way of historic value only)
Under the tutelage of Valerie, we endeavoured to
master this most wonderous and ancient text to best of our abilities…..writing
from left to right some managed and some floundered but a most enjoyable day
was had by all. It was wonderful to learn of the history surrounding this interesting script and by end of day the
challenge was set to then start scribing from right to left just to make it
interesting…..as if writing left to right wasn’t difficult enough…..however most rose to the
challenge others …well…just gave it their best shot!!......Thank you Valerie,
Dorothy, Patricia, Penny, Linda, Cathy and Karina for an enlightening
workshop…….Zita Percival (novice calligrapher).
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