why did we change?

[7ayruta]

i never understood... if the Estrangela font was the font used in the aramaic script... then what made us invent the eastern we know today with an allap looking like a 2 and a western looking like a curved line ?

why didnt we stick to the estrangelo so we had a universal script ?

 

[Carlo]

Haha, 7ayruta, they didn't wake up one day and decide to change the script slightly for no reason. The scripts slowly morphed and diverged into their present forms over centuries (as scribes' penmanship got sloppier ).

If you look at an Estrangela alaph by tilting your head to the right at a 45 degree angle, you'll see an Eastern alaph in its word-final form (i.e., with the little tick underneath). If you take an Eastern alaph and imagine it's compressed horizontally, you'll get a Western alaph, a curved line.  

If you take a look at this manuscript, the alaph is at a stage in its development roughly between the classic Estrangela alaph and the modern Eastern alaph.

 

[7ayruta]

Haha, 7ayruta, they didn't wake up one day and decide to change the script slightly for no reason.

that seriously made me feel dumb hahahaha 

but thanks a lot for the answer... made it very clear

 

[Cascade]

I agree. What daunts me is that we have three variations of the Syriac script (estrangela, madnkhaya and serto). We altered the system too much, no?

The Latin script, for the most part, still looks how it does for over 2000 years. The letter A, for example, not only looks like how it was in the Roman era, it still bares a resemblance to the Phoenician Aleph (which was "designed" after a bull's head). Whereas the Syriac aleph has been emended a few times. Lol.