Garshuni

Garshuni came to be used from about the seventh century AD, when Arabic started to become the dominant spoken language in the Fertile Crescent, but Arabic script was not yet fully developed and widely read. In fact, there is evidence that writing Arabic in Garshuni influenced the style of modern Arabic script.

The Syriac alphabet has three principal varieties:

• The estrangelâ script (the classical Syriac script),
• The madnhâyâ script (the eastern Syriac script, often called 'Assyrian' or 'Nestorian'),
• The sertâ script (the western Syriac script, often called 'Jacobite' or 'Maronite').