The Rashi script or Sephardic script () is a

typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...

for the

Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is a unicase, unicameral abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably ...

based on 15th-century Sephardic semi-cursive handwriting. It is named for the rabbinic commentator

Rashi Shlomo Yitzchaki (; ; ; 13 July 1105) was a French rabbi who authored comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and Hebrew Bible. He is commonly known by the List of rabbis known by acronyms, Rabbinic acronym Rashi (). Born in Troyes, Rashi stud ...

, whose works are customarily printed in the typeface (though Rashi himself died several hundred years before the script came into use). It was taken as a model by early Hebrew typographers such as Abraham Garton, the Soncino family and Daniel Bomberg in their editions of commented texts (such as the '' Mikraot Gedolot'' and the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

, in which Rashi's commentaries prominently figure).

History

The initial development of typefaces for the

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in whi ...

was often anchored in a pre-existing manuscript culture. In the case of the Hebrew press, the tradition of using square or block letters were

cast Cast may refer to: Music * Cast (band), an English alternative rock band * Cast (Mexican band), a progressive Mexican rock band * The Cast, a Scottish musical duo: Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis * ''Cast'', a 2012 album by Trespassers William ...

for

Biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

and other important works prevailed. However, secondary religious texts such as rabbinic commentaries, were commonly set with a semi-cursive form of Sephardic origin, ultimately normalised as the Rashi typeface. A corresponding but distinctive semi-cursive typeface was used for printing

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

. It was termed ''mashket'' or '' vaybertaytsh'', the Yiddish word ''vayber'' meaning "women" (Weiber) and ''taytsh'' being an archaic word for "German" (Deutsch), since works printed in ''mashket'' were often intended for a female readership.

Comparison with square Hebrew

Ladino usage

Besides usage for the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language unti ...

, an adapted form of Rashi script alphabet is commonly used for writing Ladino language texts in the Hebrew alphabet. To express additional fricative sounds found in Ladino, the alphabet is expanded by adding diacritic marks to existing letters. Whereas in block print a Hebrew letter is typically modified by an adjacent geresh, in the Rashi script, new letters are formed by adding a breve-shaped ''varrica'' ("little crossbar") rafe diacritic ⟨ﬞ◌⟩ directly onto a letter. Historically, a cursive script known as " solitreo" served as the standard handwritten form of Ladino in the Balkans and Turkey, which complemented the Rashi script character set used for printing.

References

External links

* /upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/RashiAlphabetVector.svg Complete Rashi script {{list of writing systems Abjad writing systems Hebrew typefaces Judaeo-Spanish