The ancient Aramaic alphabet was adapted from the Phoenician alphabet and became a distinct script by the 8th century BC. It was used to write the Aramaic language and had displaced the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, itself a derivative of the Phoenician alphabet, for the writing of Hebrew; the letters all represent consonants, some of which are used as matres lectionis to indicate long vowels. The Aramaic alphabet is significant since all modern Middle Eastern writing systems can be traced back to it as well as numerous non-Chinese writing systems of Central and East Asia; that is from the widespread usage of the Aramaic language as both a lingua franca and the official language of the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires, their successor, the Achaemenid Empire. Among the scripts in modern use, the Hebrew alphabet bears the closest relation to the Imperial Aramaic script of the 5th century BC, with an identical letter inventory and, for the most part, nearly identical letter shapes; the Aramaic alphabet was an ancestor to the Nabataean alphabet and the Arabic alphabet.

Writing systems that indicate consonants but do not indicate most vowels other than by means of matres lectionis or added diacritical signs, have been called abjads by Peter T. Daniels to distinguish them from alphabets, such as the Greek alphabet, which represent vowels more systematically; the term was coined to avoid the notion that a writing system that represents sounds must be either a syllabary or an alphabet, which would imply that a system like Aramaic must be either a syllabary or an incomplete or deficient alphabet. Rather, it is a different type; the earliest inscriptions in the Aramaic language use the Phoenician alphabet. Over time, the alphabet developed into the form shown below. Aramaic became the lingua franca throughout the Middle East, with the script at first complementing and displacing Assyrian cuneiform, as the predominant writing system. Around 500 BC, following the Achaemenid conquest of Mesopotamia under Darius I, Old Aramaic was adopted by the Persians as the "vehicle for written communication between the different regions of the vast Persian empire with its different peoples and languages.

The use of a single official language, which modern scholarship has dubbed as Official Aramaic, Imperial Aramaic or Achaemenid Aramaic, can be assumed to have contributed to the astonishing success of the Achaemenid Persians in holding their far-flung empire together for as long as they did."Imperial Aramaic was standardised. The Aramaic glyph forms of the period are divided into two main styles, the "lapidary" form inscribed on hard surfaces like stone monuments, a cursive form whose lapidary form tended to be more conservative by remaining more visually similar to Phoenician and early Aramaic. Both were in use through the Achaemenid Persian period, but the cursive form gained ground over the lapidary, which had disappeared by the 3rd century BC. For centuries after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire in 331 BC, Imperial Aramaic, or something near enough to it to be recognisable, would remain an influence on the various native Iranian languages; the Aramaic script would survive as the essential characteristics of the Iranian Pahlavi writing system.30 Aramaic documents from Bactria have been discovered, an analysis of, published in November 2006.

The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the 4th century BC in the Persian Achaemenid administration of Bactria and Sogdiana. The widespread usage of Achaemenid Aramaic in the Middle East led to the gradual adoption of the Aramaic alphabet for writing Hebrew. Hebrew had been written using an alphabet closer in form to that of Phoenician, the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. Since the evolution of the Aramaic alphabet out of the Phoenician one was a gradual process, the division of the world's alphabets into the ones derived from the Phoenician one directly and the ones derived from Phoenician via Aramaic is somewhat artificial. In general, the alphabets of the Mediterranean region are classified as Phoenician-derived, adapted from around the 8th century BC, those of the East are considered Aramaic-derived, adapted from around the 6th century BC from the Imperial Aramaic script of the Achaemenid Empire. After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the unity of the Imperial Aramaic script was lost, diversifying into a number of descendant cursives.

The Hebrew and Nabataean alphabets, as they stood by the Roman era, were little changed in style from the Imperial Aramaic alphabet. Ibn Khaldun alleges that not only the old Nabataean writing was influenced by the "Syrian script", but the old Chaldean script. A cursive Hebrew variant developed from the early centuries AD, but it remained restricted to the status of a variant used alongside the noncursive. By contrast, the cursive developed out of the Nabataean alphabet in the same period soon became the standard for writing Arabic, evolving into the Arabic alphabet as it stood by the time of the early spread of Islam; the development of cursive versions of Aramaic led to the creation of the Syriac and Mandaic alphabets, which formed the basis of the historical scripts of Central Asia, such as the Sogdian and Mongolian alphabets. The Old Turkic script is considered to have its ultimate origins in Aramaic, in particular via the Pahlavi or Sogdian alphabets, as suggested by V. Thomsen, or via Kharosthi.

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Flipping Out is an American reality television series that debuted on July 31, 2007, on Bravo. The show is centered on designer Jeff Lewis in Los Angeles, his project manager Jenni, his housekeeper Zoila, his business manager and boyfriend Gage, his other assistant and helper. In 2014, Flipping Out was nominated for an Emmy award in the Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program category. For the first season the show revolved around Lewis' flip projects as he renovated homes and re-sold them for a profit; as the housing bubble popped in 2007, Lewis started to focus more on his home decorating consulting business and less on flipping houses, although in season 4 he considered moving back into flipping small projects on the side. Flipping Out was renewed for a seventh season that premiered on March 5, 2014. On January 15, 2015, Bravo renewed the show for an eighth season; the show was subsequently renewed for a ninth season, which premiered on July 13, 2016. Bravo renewed the series for a tenth season which premiered on August 17, 2017.

In April 2018, the show was renewed for an eleventh season. Jeff Lewis Jenni Pulos Nassos Gage Edward Megan Weaver Tyler Meyerkorth Zoila Chavez Stephen Bowman Chris Elwood Ryan Brown Chris Keslar Jett Pink Sarah Berkman Trace James Lehnhoff Andrew Coleman Katrina Stagg Joe Potts Matthew Ryan Vanina Alfaro Internationally, the series airs in Canada on Slice, in Australia on Arena, in New Zealand on Bravo and in the Netherlands on RTL 5. Official website Flipping Out at TV Guide

Leonard Knyff or Leendert Knijff was a Dutch draughtsman and painter. He was the son of landscape painter Wouter Knijff and the brother of Jacob Knijff and left around 1681 from Holland to England. Knyff collaborated with Kip to produce views of country houses and gardens for Britannia Illustrata and Le Nouveau Théâtre; the topographical images of Kip and Knyff are significant for providing reliable illustrations of the development of the formal English garden in the Dutch-French style. Their documentary information for this period in British architecture and landscape design is valued because, within a generation, the formal gardens seen in these views would be swept away in favor of the pastoral compositions, derived from idealized landscapes of painters such as Claude Lorrain, that characterize the "naturalistic" English landscape gardens. In the 20th century many of the Kip and Knyff views were hand-coloured, as monochrome landscapes proved harder to sell in the market, he was born in Haarlem as the son of the painter Wouter Knijff, where he received his training as an artist.

He moved to London around 1681 and though he returned to the Netherlands on trips, he stayed in London until he died. He is known for paintings and art auctions, he collaborated with Jan Kip on a series of engravings of English country houses. His brother Jacob Knijff was a marine painter; the inexorably linked careers of Leonard Knijff and Jan Kip trace a specialty of engraved views of English country houses, represented in minute detail from the bird's-eye view, a long-established pictorial convention for topography. Their major work was Britannia Illustrata: Or Views of Several of the Queens Palaces, as Also of the Principal seats of the Nobility and Gentry of Great Britain, Curiously Engraven on 80 Copper Plates, London; the volume is among the most important English topographical publications of the 18th century. Architecture is rendered with great care and detail, the settings of parterres and radiating avenues driven through woods or planted across fields, garden paths gates and toolsheds are illustrated with meticulous detail, amusingly staffed with figures and horses, coaches pulling into forecourts, water-craft on rivers, filled with the delight native to the Low Countries' traditions.

Some of the plates are maps, in the Siennese "map perspective," a feat of imagination in a world that had not conceived of a balloon ascension. 6 paintings by or after Leonard Knijff at the Art UK site Leonard Knijff on Artnet Prints from Britannia Illustrata SG-CHEM Antique Prints