Old Hebrew Font: Daatz (v1.01)
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The first alphabet in the world was invented and primarily used in the area that is now Israel, Jordan
and Lebanon some forty hundred years ago.  There are many theories of who invented it and who
were the people who used it.  Some of these theories are heavily influenced by the political and/or
religious inclination of the theorists.  Other are more scientific and emphasize various aspects of
the known evidence.
If we summarize all the known evidence and theories, we find that indeed, some forty to twenty 
hundred years ago there were several nations, tribes and other such groups that spoke and wrote 
languages that could only be understood as dialects of Hebrew.  Most of these groups adopted and 
used the same basic alphabet of twenty two letters.  We may find variations based on locality and 
time, but all these variations may easily be understood and rendered by anybody who know the 
basic glyphs of that alphabet.
The Samaritans to these days, use a variation of that alphabet in their version of the scriptures.
The Unicode organization proposed a slate of code for that alphabet, calling it the Phoenician 
alphabet.  As far as I know this is still a proposal and there is no real world implementation.
The only major modern language of the Hebrew descent is Modern Hebrew, spoken in Israel and in
the Jewish Diaspora.  This language does not use the same glyphs anymore but one of this alphabet
derivatives.  However, since Hebrew originally used that alphabet it could easily be rendered in it. 
Modern Hebrew uses basically the same twenty two letters with different glyphs.
Based on the facts above, I implemented the Old Hebrew font as both a Modern Hebrew font with 
different glyphs and as what the Unicode organization calls Phoenician.  I accounted to the 
peculiarities of Modern Hebrew where some letters have two different glyphs by mapping to the same 
glyph.  The Hebrew vowels (Nikud) are included for compatibility but should not be used.  I accounted 
for composite letters (a letter with some vowel) for compatibility, again by mapping to the same basic 
glyph.  I did not account to the double letters (double Vav, etc.) because these are Yidish only features 
and Yiddish cannot really be written in this alphabet.  I could add them later if really necessary.
Again, all this was done by implementing the basic twenty two glyphs and mapping all the 
aforementioned combinations and the "Phoenician" letter to the one corresponding base glyph.
Thus this font is meant to be used as a direct replacement to any Modern Hebrew font in any word 
processor that may process Modern Hebrew.  It also could be used in a theoretical Phoenician 
capable word processor, should anybody ever bother to develop such one.
The name of the font is a traditional name of that alphabet in later Jewish sources.  The name is 
either Raatz or Daatz (R and D are very similar in that alphabet) and I just chose one of them.

The purpose of this font is to provide reseachers and students of old texts to type Old Hebrew in
rather simplified but reasonably rendered form.  I did not try too much to refine the font or to use any 
particular time/locality style.  This version 1.01 is sort of quick and dirty first cut that will allow me and 
other users to play with the font and suggest improvements.  Yet, once used, any Old hebrew text 
rendered in this font is easily recognized and read by anyone who know this alphabet.

As I intent o refine and fix this font, I actively ask for comments, suggestions and criticism.  All 
such polite reactions are wellcome and I would consider them.  Particularly, I ask for pictures and
tables of locality/time specific sets of the alphabet, so I may use either the most common features
or adopt a specific style as the best example.  My original intent was to create a composite version
that would represent the most common features but I am open to wheigh other opinions.
My email is zatlas1@yahoo.com
ZA
