I inherited a book that is written in another language and seems to have been handwritten probably hundreds of years ago.

by itch-bay

How could I go about getting it translated or even seeing if it is worth something? Should I contact a historian or someone? It looks like it could be written in Hebrew or another middle eastern language.

Edit: here is an image of a page in the book

cguess

Contact the nearest university’s linguistics or middle-eastern studies department and ask if they have time for you to email them an image of something that they could perhaps help identify. They’ll almost certainly be willing to help (though it’s summer break, and COVID has messed up a lot of stuff).

From there they could probably recommend a translation service. Just know that, depending on the length of material that can get very costly as translators are professionals.

SweatyKoalas

If you want help here you would be wise to post images of the item. Alternatively and/or additionally,

https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/

Is an incredibly helpful resource for identifying things. That would be a really useful starting point to figure out the language, and potentiality for whether it is something that was produced on a scale.

0MNIR0N

I suggest you photograph a page and post it on r/AskHistorians and r/jewish as a start.