The Yisrelit script has 22 letters and is an impure abjad - which means it has no written vowels but only consonants, even though some consonants are used to represent vowels, just like in Hebrew and Arabic. It is a Semitic language, but unlike the majority of them it's written left-to-right (early Hebrew was written right-to-left). Some of them were actually the same letter and were divided in two different letters (such as ba and va), while in other cases two different letters merged into a single one (such as ta, which derives from the Hebrew letters tet and tav).
Yisrelit script went through a similar process that Arabic faced, and current day script is based on a cursive version that emerged early in Yisrelit's history. There is an ancient script that resembles a lot the one used by early Israelites, Phoenicians, Ekroneans and Moabites.
Below there is a table with all 22 letters. The pronounciation is marked using the IPA. Note that even though ba and va, pe and fe, shin and sin look almost the same, they are separate letters.
Table 1: Yisrelit letters
The letter ala is completely mute if at the beginning or at the end of a word, but between vowels it is a glottal stop, pretty much like Hebrew's and Arabic's alef. It can receive the vowels a or e, be a glottal stop or none.
The "bakesh sechav" (lit.: "ask for a chair", actually an acronym made of the letters it's made of) group of letters weren't always separated letters. The letters ba and va originated from Hebrew letter bet; ka and kha originated from a merge between Hebrew's kaf and kof, while shin and sin originated from a merge between samech and shin.
The letter ksadi derives directly from Ancient Hebrew's sadi with the s phoneme, but later came to be pronounced as ks due to influence from the Ekronites' language.
There are also diacritical sings that mark vowels, but they are used solely to avoid double meaning. They only appear if associated with these letters, in a way you will not use the diacritical for o associated with the letter ala, for example. See them above. Note they aren't named.
The letter waw is pronounced as o or u most of the time, but when we need to say a syllable like wo, a double waw appears, in which the first acts as a consonant and the second as a vowel. The syllable wu does not appear in Yisrelit. This is the closest one gets to see a vowel in Yisrelit.
Due to religious reasons (they follow a very basic version of Judaism, since most of the knowledge and books got lost after their capture and with the pass of time), the Yisrelies avoid writting the letters ala and lamad either at the beginning or at the end of a word in order to avoid writting down the G-d's initials in vain, thus making use of the alamad ligature as a substitute. The same doesn't happen with yad and ha because it is a common prefix for verbs and they don't consider anyone capable to mistake it for G-d's Name.
There is also the wala ligature, that is a combination of the letters waw and ala, that means simply "and". It can also be written with the regular letters.
All the letters have initial, intermediate and final forms. The "bakaf" (in the palm of the hand) letters can only be pronounced and written as va, kha and fe. See below (with letters to be used for typing).
The vocalic diacritics were invented in the modern era, and they were created ex nihilo, so there is no evolution to be shown about them.
Below there is a table with all 22 letters. The pronounciation is marked using the IPA. Note that even though ba and va, pe and fe, shin and sin look almost the same, they are separate letters.
Table 1: Yisrelit letters
The letter ala is completely mute if at the beginning or at the end of a word, but between vowels it is a glottal stop, pretty much like Hebrew's and Arabic's alef. It can receive the vowels a or e, be a glottal stop or none.
The "bakesh sechav" (lit.: "ask for a chair", actually an acronym made of the letters it's made of) group of letters weren't always separated letters. The letters ba and va originated from Hebrew letter bet; ka and kha originated from a merge between Hebrew's kaf and kof, while shin and sin originated from a merge between samech and shin.
The letter ksadi derives directly from Ancient Hebrew's sadi with the s phoneme, but later came to be pronounced as ks due to influence from the Ekronites' language.
There are also diacritical sings that mark vowels, but they are used solely to avoid double meaning. They only appear if associated with these letters, in a way you will not use the diacritical for o associated with the letter ala, for example. See them above. Note they aren't named.
The letter waw is pronounced as o or u most of the time, but when we need to say a syllable like wo, a double waw appears, in which the first acts as a consonant and the second as a vowel. The syllable wu does not appear in Yisrelit. This is the closest one gets to see a vowel in Yisrelit.
Due to religious reasons (they follow a very basic version of Judaism, since most of the knowledge and books got lost after their capture and with the pass of time), the Yisrelies avoid writting the letters ala and lamad either at the beginning or at the end of a word in order to avoid writting down the G-d's initials in vain, thus making use of the alamad ligature as a substitute. The same doesn't happen with yad and ha because it is a common prefix for verbs and they don't consider anyone capable to mistake it for G-d's Name.
There is also the wala ligature, that is a combination of the letters waw and ala, that means simply "and". It can also be written with the regular letters.
All the letters have initial, intermediate and final forms. The "bakaf" (in the palm of the hand) letters can only be pronounced and written as va, kha and fe. See below (with letters to be used for typing).
YISRELIT SCRIPT HISTORY
In the table below we can see how the Yisrelit script evolved from Ancient Hebrew/Ancient Phoenician. The columns show the age they were used. In the first age (Ancient Age), the script was written right-to-left (1st), and sometimes left-to-right (2nd, due to Ekronean influence). After the return from the first exile, the Israelites were already using the 2nd/3rd script, losing a letter due to further Ekronean influence. During the beginning Dark Age, after the second exile, the script had significantly evolved to match the loss of consonantal phonemes in the language (3rd/4th) and, before the end of the era, the modern cursive script arose, and both scripts were being commonly used. It was only during the Modern Age that the 3rd/4th script died out, leaving only the modern cursive script.
The Saphonean dialect of Yisrelit is written using the Kina'nit script. Both the Yisrelit and the Kina'nit script share the same origin and they had similar evolution, but the Kina'nit never changed direction of writting due to little Ekronean influence.
