Romanization describes a specific form of writing reform whereby a Roman-based alphabet is provided for a speech community, which has traditionally employed either a non-alphabetic script or a non-Roman alphabet. The Hebrew alphabet, or the so-called square script, is a non-Roman alphabet and has been the traditional writing system for Jewish communities since the 6th century B.C.E. Romanization of the Hebrew script entails replacing the characters of the square alphabet with Roman characters and inventing new characters where necessary to meet the requirements of the phonemic repertoire of the Hebrew language.