During the same period, Aramaic was the lingua franca of the Near East. In fact, its influence was so strong that by the first century AD Aramaic had taken the place of Hebrew as the everyday language in Palestine. From then on, the Hebrew language was relegated to religious circles only. It became common practice to write both Hebrew and Aramaic documents in Square Hebrew script. Considered one of the North Semitic scripts, Hebrew script has 22 letters and is written from right to left.
All letters stand disjoint even in cursive style.
As in all other Semitic scripts, Hebrew writing was originally purely consonantal, however with the passing of time, several consonants began to double as long vowels. The demise of Hebrew as a colloquial tongue made it all the more necessary to preserve in writing the pronunciation of the Hebrew Scriptures which had been passed down as oral tradition. By around 600 AD, a notation had been developed for indicating short vowels, as well as other phonetic features, as an extension to Hebrew script. The introduction of these diacritics, better known as 'points' or nikkud , transformed Hebrew script into a true alphabet. Besides indicating vowels, some of the points serve in reducing other ambiguities of text.