The original pictographic script of the Children of Israel. Every letter was once a picture — and that picture still lives in every word.
Before the Babylonian exile, the Hebrews wrote in Paleo-Hebrew (Ktav Ivri) — a pictographic script descended from the earliest Semitic alphabets. Each of the 22 letters has a name, and that name is the original picture. The meaning of the picture is encoded into every word it enters.
Tap any letter to reveal its full pictographic profile.
About Paleo-Hebrew
The Dead Sea Scrolls (2nd–1st c. BCE) used Ktav Ivri for the divine name יהוה even when surrounding text was in Aramaic square script. The Gezer Calendar (~950 BCE) and Siloam Inscription (~700 BCE) are among the oldest surviving Hebrew inscriptions in Paleo script. Modern Ktav Ashurit (square block letters) was adopted after the Babylonian exile — same 22 letters, same meanings, new forms.
