The Schonfieldian Script Page
being the internet's first resource on Hugh J. Schonfield's reformed Hebrew script


A comparison of Hebrew/Assyrian and Schonfieldian letters in regular and oblique/italic forms. Top: Hebrew/Assyrian (New Peninim); center and bottom: Schonfieldian capitals and small letters (original font by the author).

• What is the Schonfieldian script?
  
  In his 1932 book The New Hebrew Typography (London: Denis Archer), Hugh J. Schonfield ranted about his dissatisfaction with the Hebrew writing system. His complaints included a limited selection of typefaces, the lack of a captial-lowercase distinction, and finding Hebrew type ugly. His solution was to revise how Hebrew was written. Here I will refer to his script as "Schonfieldian," as opposed to the traditional Hebrew (Assyrian) script. (He just called it "Hebrew.")



• Is Schonfieldian the same as traditional Hebrew writing?
  
  No. Although both are used to write Hebrew, they have several important differences:
  
  
  • Schonfieldian script has capital and small letters; Hebrew script letters do not have this distinction.
  • Five Hebrew letters have special forms for when they occur at the ends of words; Schonfieldian does not have any final forms.
  • Hebrew letters forms usually are emphasized horizontally; Schonfieldian letters are emphasized vertically like Latin letters.
  • Punctuation and numerals are horizontally flipped versions of the usual Western forms; in Hebrew script, they are not flipped.
  
  
  Additionally, some differences have arisen since The New Hebrew Typography was published. There are bold and italic versions of Schonfieldian letters, whereas there were apparently none of Hebrew typefaces that he was aware of. (There are now; interestingly, oblique Hebrew letters lean to the right, same as italic Latin, but italic Schonfieldian leans to the left.) There are also a greater variety of Hebrew typefaces than Schonfield's work suggests.

Contrary to Schonfield's assertion, many Hebrew typefaces exist (at least today) to match various moods. From top to bottom: the traditional style for writing the Torah (five books of Moses), RaShI (a handwritten form used in printing some commentaries), Stam (a traditional calligraphic form), and from the paltry selection available for Macintosh, Arial Hebrew, Raanana Bold, FreeMono, Corsiva Hebrew, and Ezra SIL's version of a font commonly used in prayer books.

• Was the Schonfieldian script adopted?
  
  No. Hebrew is still written in the traditional Hebrew/Assyrian script. There are many reasons why this was so. Among them are:
  
  
  • A large part of Schonfield's arguments is aesthetic and irrational. He throught Hebrew/Assyrian was ugly, an opinion many people do not share. He also thought Latin script had "logic" and was wonderful, an opinion which is also open to challenge. One of the typefaces he shows as an example of Hebrew ugliness is Frank-Rühl (of which New Peninim is a clone), which is still in common use (sort of the Hebrew equivalent of Times New Roman).
  • Changes in the letter forms, especially in lowercase letters, make Schonfieldian difficult to read without learning a whole new alphabet.
  • Schonfield's letters are often ugly (or may seem so judged as Hebrew/Assyrian letters). He overuses a few basic forms and has a tendency to use forms which resemble Latin letters. Many of his letters look so similar that, unless one has abnormally neat handwriting, they would be almost impossible to reliably distinguish when written by hand. The same problem could cause confusion in reading low-quality texts, such as bad photocopies, smudged printing, or text with a small point size.
  • The Hebrew/Assyrian script is used to write the TaNaKh, the Hebrew Scriptures, what is called the "Old Testament" in Christianity. Jewish scribes have been extremely careful about preserving the original text down to the individual letter. The Tiberian pointing system in current use, with diacritical marks above, in, and below the consonants, arose as a way of indicating pronounciation without altering the original text. Schonfield's proposal did not include the daghesh or vowel points, though he claims they "may be provided if found necessary." However, his lowercase forms are not well adapted for the traditional Tiberian pointing, often lacking a space inside for the daghesh or a space underneath for most vowels. How he intended the diacritical marks to be written is thus open to speculation. (In contrast, most attempts at reforming Hebrew orthography deal specifically with alternatives to using diacriticals, usually by having specific letters for vowels as well as consonants. See Michael Avinor's Karmeli script for an example of this approach.)
  • Schonfield himself might have been seen as a kook. In another book, The Passover Plot, he claimed Jesus faked his own death and resurrection.

A sample of text in both Hebrew/Assyrian and Schonfieldian scripts (from Psalm 102:19, "It will be written for a future generation").

• Should we be using the Schonfieldian script to write Hebrew?
  
  Generally speaking, no. Among the reasons not to use Schonfieldian include:
  
  
  • For reasons detailed above, Schonfieldian is a faulty writing system. Hebrew/Assyrian is probably not found as terribly unreadable or ugly by most of its regular users as Schonfield found it and lacks the actual problems of Schonfieldian. Furthermore, Schonfieldian does nothing to correct the actual weaknesses of Hebrew/Assyrian.
  • The Hebrew-speaking population (mostly Israelis, educated Jews, and scholars) is largely literate, and there are significant historical works (the TaNaKh and the Mishnah), not to mention a large body of literature which has sprung up since then, which are written in this language. Changing the writing system necessitates either teaching both writing systems (defeating the purpose of reform) or reprinting all important texts in the new script; otherwise, children growing up using only the new script will be cut off from their literature. Successful changeovers in writing systems, such as the switch from Arabic to Latin script for Turkish under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, generally occur when the population is largely illiterate.
  
  
  
• How can I use Schonfieldian on my computer?
  
  There is currently no Unicode standard for Schonfieldian, nor would it be accepted, simply because it is unused. However, there exists the ConScript registry for scripts which are unsuitable for inclusion in Unicode, mostly science-fiction languages and historical oddities, including Klingon, Solrésol, Unifon, and the silly letters from Dr. Seuss's On Beyond Zebra. The scripts are mapped into the private-use areas of Unicode and are generally specified with Unicode-like proposals. I have made my own proposal for Schonfieldian, which will hopefully be included.
  
  I am making available here what is probably the first Schonfield font in regular, bold, italic, and bold-italic styles. (Scroll down a little for the download section.) The character encoding is the same as that in my Schonfieldian ConScript proposal; should the encoding change when the script is reviewed, I will issue a revised font. I apologize if my fonts are less than perfect; my skills in the area of making them are mediocre. If you have suggestions for improving them or are excessively bored and care to submit additional Schonfieldian fonts of your own, I will be glad to make them available here. Schonfield intended his script to be amenable to be rendered in styles which matched existing styles of Latin text; The New Hebrew Typography shows glyphs to match Caslon Old Face, Nicholas Cochin, Cable, and Ultra Bodoni. I would be curious to see what the Schonfieldian versions of Helvetica, Bauhaus, Eurostile, and Zapf Chancery would look like.
  
  Although I labeled the characters as belonging to the Hebrew script, they still go from left-to-right on my computer, so you will have to use the right-to-left override code to make them go in the correct direction. You may use the Character Map in Windows or the Character Palette on Macintosh (select the Glyph Catalog tab and the Schonfield font) to input characters. My brother, who created a Hebrew keyboard based on the same principles as the Dvorak keyboard, is working on a Schonfieldian keyboard, which will be made available here.




U+E830 SCHONFIELD EXCLAMATION MARK U+E831 SCHONFIELD PUNCTUATION GERSHAYIM U+E832 SCHONFIELD PUNCTUATION GERESH U+E833 SCHONFIELD RIGHT PARENTHESIS U+E834 SCHONFIELD LEFT PARENTHESIS U+E835 SCHONFIELD COMMA U+E836 SCHONFIELD PUNCTATION MAQAF U+E837 SCHONFIELD PERIOD U+E838 SCHONFIELD SOLIDUS U+E839 SCHONFIELD DIGIT ZERO U+E83A SCHONFIELD DIGIT ONE U+E83B SCHONFIELD DIGIT TWO U+E83C SCHONFIELD DIGIT THREE U+E83D SCHONFIELD DIGIT FOUR U+E83E SCHONFIELD DIGIT FIVE U+E83F SCHONFIELD DIGIT SIX U+E840 SCHONFIELD DIGIT SEVEN U+E841 SCHONFIELD DIGIT EIGHT U+E842 SCHONFIELD DIGIT NINE U+E843 SCHONFIELD COLON U+E844 SCHONFIELD SEMICOLON U+E845 SCHONFIELD QUESTION MARK U+E846 SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER ALEF U+E847 SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER BET U+E848 SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER GIMEL U+E849 SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER DALET U+E84A SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER HE U+E84B SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER VAV U+E84C SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER ZAYIN U+E84D SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER HET U+E84E SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER TET U+E84F SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER YOD U+E850 SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER KAF U+E851 SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER LAMED U+E852 SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER MEM U+E853 SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER NUN U+E854 SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER SAMEKH U+E855 SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER AYIN U+E856 SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER PE

U+E857 SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER TSADI U+E858 SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER QOF U+E859 SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER RESH U+E85A SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER SHIN U+E85B SCHONFIELD CAPITAL LETTER TAV U+E85C SCHONFIELD RIGHT SQUARE BRACKET U+E85D SCHONFIELD REVERSE SOLIDUS U+E85E SCHONFIELD LEFT SQUARE BRACKET U+E85F SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER ALEF U+E860 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER BET U+E861 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER GIMEL U+E862 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER DALET U+E863 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER HE U+E864 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER VAV U+E865 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER ZAYIN U+E866 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER HET U+E867 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER TET U+E868 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER YOD U+E869 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER KAF U+E86A SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER LAMED U+E86B SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER MEM U+E86C SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER NUN U+E86D SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER SAMEKH U+E86E SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER AYIN U+E86F SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER PE U+E870 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER TSADI U+E871 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER QOF U+E872 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER RESH U+E873 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER SHIN U+E874 SCHONFIELD SMALL LETTER TAV U+E875 SCHONFIELD RIGHT CURLY BRACKET U+E876 SCHONFIELD VERTICAL LINE U+E877 SCHONFIELD LEFT CURLY BRACKET U+E878 SCHONFIELD RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK U+E879 SCHONFIELD LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK U+E87A SCHONFIELD RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK U+E87B SCHONFIELD LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK U+E87C SCHONFIELD HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS




• Why should I use the Schonfieldian script?
  
  
  • You can impress your linguistics professor with an example of how not to design a writing system.
  • It is wierd and creepy enough to be good for writing gothic poetry in Hebrew.
  • Writing sensitive files in Schonfieldian will drive industrial spies crazy.
  • Hebrew/Assyrian has too many holy associations for writing profane and vulgar loanwords.
  • Whenever they need a sign printed for a linguistics convention, people will think of you first.
  • You can punish your children by making them write long essays on type design in Schonfieldian.
  • It will make you very popular among Hebrew-speaking geeks.
  • Schonfieldian will scare your parents.
  • You can make a lot of money by creating and selling documents allegedly from a parallel universe.
  • Because all the glyphs have no seperated pieces, they work better as noodles in alphabet soup.
  • You know you want to.
  • All the cool kids are doing it.
  • Chicks dig it, dude!
  
  
  
• Why did you bother making these fonts anyway?
  
  I've been working on a Schonfieldian-inspired quasi-Latin Hebrew font, and it seemed to make sense to include Schonfield's characters for comparison. The Hebrew font was held up by Apple taking its jolly time getting the rendering engine right, so I just released the Schonfieldian stuff seperately. The Hebrew font will come out at some point depending on Apple and how much time real life allows me to spend on it.



• Where can I get a copy of The New Hebrew Typography?
  
  I had to get a copy by interlibrary loan (ILL) to have a peek. (It had been referred to obliquely in a book on Hebrew calligraphy, which sent me looking for the original source.) To my knowledge, it was never reprinted. Try a rare-book dealer or eBay, or also use ILL.


DOWNLOADS

Truetype fonts (binhexed):

Schonfield (serif font, my first try):

• Schonfield.ttf
• SchonfieldBold.ttf
• SchonfieldBoldItalic.ttf
• SchonfieldItalic.ttf
• Schonfield.suit, all four styles in one file (Macintosh only)

These fonts may be considered freeware and can be used free of charge for any purpose which is not illegal, immoral, or fattening. If you use the fonts for something more than wasting disk space, please let me know. One person has already written to ask if they can be used for a deck of tarot cards, of which I will post more of here in the future. I am curious as to what other uses these fonts will be put to.


Links

• The Hugh & Helene Schonfield World Service Trust, an organization dedicated to promoting the works and ideals of Hugh J. Schonfield.
• Serebella's Graphemics and Orthography directory

Send your comments, fonts, praise, insults, death threats, etc., to: snortar@yahoo.com.







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