Palmyrene alphabet

Palmyrene alphabet
Palmyrene alphabet;
	Palmyrene inscribed tablet in the Musée du Louvre
Script type	Abjad
Time period	100 BCE to 300 CE
Direction	Right-to-left script
Languages	Palmyrene Aramaic
Related scripts
Parent systems	Proto-Sinaitic alphabet Phoenician alphabet Aramaic alphabet Palmyrene alphabet; ; ;
Sister systems	Ammonite; Brāhmī [a]; Edessan; Elymaic; Hatran; Hebrew; Mandaic; Nabataean; Pahlavi; Parthian
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Palm (126), Palmyrene
Unicode
Unicode alias	Palmyrene
Unicode range	U+10860–U+1087F; Final Accepted Script Proposal
	[a] The Semitic origin of the Brahmic scripts is not universally agreed upon.

The Palmyrene alphabet was a historical Semitic alphabet used to write Palmyrene Aramaic. It was used between 100 BCE and 300 CE in Palmyra in the Syrian desert. The oldest surviving Palmyrene inscription dates to 44 BCE.^[2] The last surviving inscription dates to 274 CE, two years after Palmyra was sacked by Roman Emperor Aurelian, ending the Palmyrene Empire. Use of the Palmyrene language and script declined, being replaced with Greek and Latin.

The Palmyrene alphabet was derived from cursive versions of the Aramaic alphabet and shares many of its characteristics:^[3]^[4]

Twenty-two letters with only consonants represented
Written horizontally from right-to-left
Numbers written right-to-left using a non-decimal system

Palmyrene was normally written without spaces or punctuation between words and sentences (scriptio continua style).

Two forms of the Palmyrene alphabet were developed: The rounded, cursive form derived from the Aramaic alphabet and later a decorative, monumental form developed from the cursive Palmyrene.^[2] Both the cursive and monumental forms commonly used orthographic ligatures.^[4]

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William, eds. (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, Inc. pp. 89. ISBN 978-0195079937.
^ ^a ^b "Palmyrenian alphabet". Encyclopædia Britannica.
^ Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William, eds. (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, Inc. ISBN 978-0195079937.
^ ^a ^b Everson, Michael (17 August 2010). "N3867R2: Proposal for encoding the Palmyrene script in the SMP of the UCS" (PDF). Retrieved 20 August 2016.

[WWS-1] Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William, eds. (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, Inc. pp. 89. ISBN 978-0195079937.

[Britannica-2] "Palmyrenian alphabet". Encyclopædia Britannica.

[WorldsWritingSystems-3] Daniels, Peter T.; Bright, William, eds. (1996). The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press, Inc. ISBN 978-0195079937.

[N3867R2-4] Everson, Michael (17 August 2010). "N3867R2: Proposal for encoding the Palmyrene script in the SMP of the UCS" (PDF). Retrieved 20 August 2016.

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