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Phoenician alphabet
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Contact us The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad)[3] known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. This article contains special characters.
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The Phoenician alphabet is also called the Early Linear script (in a Semitic context, not connected to Minoan writing systems), because it is an early development of the pictographic Proto- or Old Canaanite script, see question marks, boxes, or other symbols.
Contribute into a linear, alphabetic script, also marking the transfer from a multi-directional writing system, where a variety of writing directions occurred, to a regulated horizontal, right-to-left script.[4] Its immediate
Help predecessor, the Proto-Canaanite, Old Canaanite or early West Semitic alphabet,[5][4] used in the final stages of the Late Bronze Age first in Canaan and then in the Syro-Hittite kingdoms, is the oldest fully matured Phoenician script
Learn to edit alphabet, thought to be derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs.[6]
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The Phoenician alphabet was used to write the Early Iron Age Canaanite languages, subcategorized by historians as Phoenician, Hebrew, Moabite, Ammonite and Edomite, as well as Old Aramaic. Its use in
Recent changes
Phoenicia (coastal Levant) led to its wide dissemination outside of the Canaanite sphere, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it was adopted and modified by many other
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cultures. It became one of the most widely used writing systems. The Phoenician alphabet proper remained in use in Ancient Carthage until the 2nd century BC (known as the Punic alphabet), while elsewhere it
Tools diversified into numerous national alphabets, including the Aramaic and Samaritan, several Anatolian scripts, and the early Greek alphabets. In the Near East, the Aramaic alphabet became especially successful, Script type Abjad
What links here giving rise to the Jewish square script and Perso-Arabic scripts, among others. Time period c. 1050–150 BC[1]
Related changes
"Phoenician proper" consists of 22 consonant letters only, leaving vowel sounds implicit, although certain late varieties use matres lectionis for some vowels. As the letters were originally incised with a stylus, they Direction right-to-left script
Special pages
are mostly angular and straight, although cursive versions steadily gained popularity, culminating in the Neo-Punic alphabet of Roman-era North Africa. Phoenician was usually written right to left, though some texts Languages Phoenician, Punic
Permanent link
Page information alternate directions (boustrophedon). Related scripts
Cite this page Parent systems Egyptian hieroglyphs[2]
Wikidata item Contents [hide]
Proto-Sinaitic
1 History Phoenician script
Print/export
1.1 Origin
Child systems Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
Download as PDF
1.2 Spread and adaptations Aramaic alphabet
Printable version
1.3 Notable inscriptions Greek alphabet
In other projects 1.4 Modern rediscovery Paleohispanic script
Lybic-bereber
Wikimedia Commons 2 Table of letters
Sister systems South Arabian alphabet
3 Letter names
Languages Moabite alphabet
4 Numerals
Alemannisch
ISO 15924
5 Derived alphabets
Brezhoneg ISO 15924 Phnx, 115 , Phoenician
5.1 Early Semitic scripts
Català Unicode
5.2 Samaritan alphabet
Deutsch
Unicode alias Phoenician
Español 5.3 Aramaic-derived
Unicode range U+10900–U+1091F
Français 5.4 Brahmic scripts
Italiano This article contains phonetic transcriptions in
5.5 Greek-derived
Nederlands the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an
5.6 Paleohispanic scripts
Português introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
6 Unicode For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA
72 more 6.1 Block § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
6.2 History
Edit links
7 See also History of the alphabet [show]

8 References V·T·E

9 External links

History [ edit ]

Origin [ edit ]
Further information: Proto-Sinaitic script, Proto-Canaanite script, and Al-Khader

The earliest known alphabetic (or "proto-alphabetic") inscriptions are the so-called Proto-Sinaitic (or Proto-Canaanite) script sporadically attested in the Sinai and in Canaan in the late Middle and Late Bronze Age. The
script was not widely used until the rise of Syro-Hittite states in the 13th and 12th centuries BC.

The Phoenician alphabet is a direct continuation of the "Proto-Canaanite" script of the Bronze Age collapse period.[citation needed] The inscriptions found on arrowheads at al-Khader near Bethlehem and dated to c.1100
BCE offered the epigraphists the "missing link" between the two.[4][7] The so-called Ahiram epitaph, whose dating is controversial, engraved on the sarcophagus of king Ahiram in Byblos, Lebanon, one of five known
Byblian royal inscriptions, shows essentially the fully developed Phoenician script,[8][dubious – discuss] although the name "Phoenician" is by convention given to inscriptions beginning in the mid-11th century BC.[9]

The German philologist Max Müller believed that the Phoenician alphabet was derived from the Ancient South Arabian script during the rule of the Minaeans of parts of the Eastern Mediterranean.[10]
The Phoenician alphabet as used
Spread and adaptations [ edit ] on the Mesha Stele (the Moabite
Further information: History of the alphabet Stone)

Beginning in the 9th century BC, adaptations of the Phoenician alphabet thrived, including Greek, Old Italic and Anatolian scripts. The alphabet's attractive innovation was its
phonetic nature, in which one sound was represented by one symbol, which meant only a few dozen symbols to learn. The other scripts of the time, cuneiform and Egyptian
hieroglyphs, employed many complex characters and required long professional training to achieve proficiency;[11] which had restricted literacy to a small elite.

Another reason for its success was the maritime trading culture of Phoenician merchants, which spread the alphabet into parts of North Africa and Southern Europe.[12]
Phoenician inscriptions have been found in archaeological sites at a number of former Phoenician cities and colonies around the Mediterranean, such as Byblos (in present-day
Lebanon) and Carthage in North Africa. Later finds indicate earlier use in Egypt.[13]

The alphabet had long-term effects on the social structures of the civilizations that came in contact with it. Its simplicity not only allowed its easy adaptation to multiple languages,
Seals inscribed in the Phoenician
but it also allowed the common people to learn how to write. This upset the long-standing status of literacy as an exclusive achievement of royal and religious elites, scribes who
script (also known as Paleo-Hebrew)
used their monopoly on information to control the common population.[14] The appearance of Phoenician disintegrated many of these class divisions, although many Middle
Eastern kingdoms, such as Assyria, Babylonia and Adiabene, would continue to use cuneiform for legal and liturgical matters well into the Common Era.

According to Herodotus,[15] the Phoenician prince Cadmus was accredited with the introduction of the Phoenician alphabet—phoinikeia grammata, "Phoenician letters"—to the
Greeks, who adapted it to form their Greek alphabet. Herodotus claims that the Greeks did not know of the Phoenician alphabet before Cadmus. He estimates that Cadmus lived
sixteen hundred years before his time (while the historical adoption of the alphabet by the Greeks was barely 350 years before Herodotus).[16]

The Phoenician alphabet was known to the Jewish sages of the Second Temple era, who called it the "Old Hebrew" (Paleo-Hebrew) script.[17][clarification needed]
Study of Phoenician medals, by
Jean-Jacques Barthélemy Notable inscriptions [ edit ]
Main article: Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions

The conventional date of 1050 BC for the emergence of the Phoenician script was chosen because there is a gap in the epigraphic record; there are not actually any Phoenician
inscriptions securely dated to the 11th century.[18] The oldest inscriptions are dated to the 10th century.

KAI 1: Ahiram sarcophagus, Byblos, c. 850 BC.

Photograph of section of the Zayit KAI 14: Eshmunazar II sarcophagus, 5th century BC.
Stone, 10th century BCE: (right-to-left)
KAI 15-16: Bodashtart inscriptions, 4th century BC.
the letters waw, he, het, zayin, tet
(𐤈𐤆𐤇𐤄𐤅) KAI 24: Kilamuwa Stela, 9th century BC.
The Pococke Kition inscriptions,
KAI 46: Nora Stone, c. 800 BC.
transcribed by Jean-Jacques
KAI 47: Cippi of Melqart inscription, 2nd century BC. Barthélemy. No. 1 is Pococke's No. 2
KAI 26: Karatepe bilingual, 8th century BC (KAI 35), and No. 3 is Pococke's No. 4.
The other two are Hebrew
KAI 277: Pyrgi Tablets, Phoenician-Etruscan bilingual, c. 500 BC. transliterations of the same
Çineköy inscription, Phoenician-Luwian bilingual, 8th century BC. inscriptions.

(Note: KAI = Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften)

Modern rediscovery [ edit ]

The Phoenician alphabet was deciphered in 1758 by Jean-Jacques Barthélemy, but its relation to the Phoenicians remained unknown until the 19th century. It was at first believed that the
script was a direct variation of Egyptian hieroglyphs,[19] which were deciphered by Champollion in the early 19th century.

However, scholars could not find any link between the two writing systems, nor to hieratic or cuneiform. The theories of independent creation ranged from the idea of a single individual
conceiving it, to the Hyksos people forming it from corrupt Egyptian.[20][clarification needed] It was eventually discovered [clarification needed] that the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet was inspired by the
model of hieroglyphs.

Table of letters [ edit ]

The chart shows the graphical evolution of Phoenician letter forms into other alphabets. The sound values also changed significantly, both at the initial creation of new alphabets and from
Gezer calendar
gradual pronunciation changes which did not immediately lead to spelling changes.[21] The Phoenician letter forms shown are idealized: actual Phoenician writing is less uniform, with
significant variations by era and region.

When alphabetic writing began, with the early Greek alphabet, the letter forms were similar but not identical to Phoenician, and vowels were added to the consonant-only Phoenician letters. There were also distinct
Phoenician alphabet, deciphered by variants of the writing system in different parts of Greece, primarily in how those Phoenician characters that did not have an exact match to Greek sounds were used. The Ionic variant evolved into the standard Greek
Jean-Jacques Barthélemy in 1758.
alphabet, and the Cumae variant into the Italic alphabets (including the Latin alphabet).
No.1 is from the Cippi of Melqart, No.2
is from the coins, and No. 3 is from the The Runic alphabet is derived from Italic, the Cyrillic alphabet from medieval Greek. The Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic scripts are derived from Aramaic (the latter as a medieval cursive variant of Nabataean). Ge'ez is from
Pococke Kition inscriptions.
South Arabian.

Letter Origin Corresponding letter in

Canadian
Name[22] Meaning Transliteration Phoneme Egyptian Proto- South
Image Text Samaritan Aramaic Hebrew Syriac Parthian Arabic Ge'ez Greek Latin Cyrillic Brahmi Devanagari Aboriginal Mongolian
hieroglyphs Sinaitic Arabian
syllabics
ox, head of
𐤀 ʾālep ʾ ʾ [ʔ] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫א‬ ‫ܐ‬ ฀ ‫ ء‬,‫ا‬ ฀ አ Αα Aa Аа ฀ /a/ अ /a/ — ,
฀
฀

cattle

𐤁 bēt house b b [b] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫ב‬ ‫ܒ‬ ฀ ‫ب‬ ฀ በ Ββ Bb Бб, Вв ฀ /b/ ब /b/ — ,

฀
฀

throwing stick (or Cc,

𐤂 gīml g g [ɡ] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫ג‬ ‫ܓ‬ ฀ ‫ج‬ ฀ ገ Γγ Гг, Ґґ ฀ /g/ ग /g/ ᑯ /ko/ ,
฀
฀

camel[23]) Gg

𐤃 dālet door (or fish[23]) d d [d] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫ד‬ ‫ܕ‬ ฀ ‫ ذ‬,‫د‬ ฀ ደ Δδ Dd Дд ฀ /dʰ/ ध /dʰ/ — —

window (or Ее, Єє,

𐤄 he
jubilation[23])
h hʾ [h] ฀? ฀ ฀ ‫ה‬ ‫ܗ‬ ฀ ‫ه‬ ฀ ሀ Εε Ee
Ээ
฀ /ɦ/ ह /ɦ/ — —

Ff,
Uu,
(Ϝϝ), Ѵѵ, Уу, , ,
𐤅
฀ ฀
฀ ฀

wāw hook w w [w] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫ו‬ ‫ܘ‬ ฀ ‫و‬ ฀ ወ Vv, ฀ /v/ व /v/ ᐤ /-w/
Υυ Ўў ,
Yy,
Ww
zajin, weapon (or
𐤆 z z [z] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫ז‬ ‫ܙ‬ ฀ ‫ز‬ ฀ ዘ Ζζ Zz Зз ฀ /ɟ/ ज /dʒ/ ᒐ /tʃa/ —
฀

zayin manacle[23])
courtyard/wall[24]
𐤇 hēt ḥ ḥ [ħ] ฀/฀? ฀ ฀ ‫ח‬ ‫ܚ‬ ฀ ‫ خ‬,‫ح‬ ฀ ,฀ ሐ, ኀ Ηη Hh Ии, Йй ฀ /gʰ/ घ /gʰ/ — ,
฀
฀

(?)

𐤈 t ̣ēt wheel[25] ṭ t ̣ [tˤ] ฀? ฀ ฀ ‫ט‬ ‫ܛ‬ ฀ ‫ ظ‬,‫ط‬ ฀ ጠ Θθ Ѳѳ ฀ /tʰ/ थ /tʰ/ — —

, ,
𐤉
฀ ฀ ฀
฀

yod arm, hand j y [j] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫י‬ ‫ܝ‬ ฀ ‫ي‬ ฀ የ Ιι Ιi, Jj Іі, Її, Јј ฀ /j/ य /j/ ᔪ /jo/

𐤊 kāp palm of a hand k k [k] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫כך‬ ‫ܟ‬ ฀ ‫ك‬ ฀ ከ Κκ Kk Кк ฀ /k/ क /k/ — ,

฀

𐤋 lāmed goad[26] l l [l] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫ל‬ ‫ܠ‬ ฀ ‫ل‬ ฀ ለ Λλ Ll Лл ฀ /l/ ल /l/ ᓗ /lo/ ,

฀
฀

𐤌 mēm water m m [m] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫מם‬ ‫ܡ‬ ฀ ‫م‬ ฀ መ Μμ Mm Мм ฀ /m/ म /m/ ᒪ /ma/

฀

serpent (or fish

𐤍 nūn n n [n] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫נן‬ ‫ܢ‬ ฀ ‫ن‬ ฀ ነ Νν Nn Нн ฀ /n/ न /n/ ᓂ /na/
฀

[23][27])

𐤎 śāmek pillar(?) s ś [s] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫ס‬ ‫ܣܤ‬ ฀ ฀ ሰ Ξξ Ѯѯ, ฀ /ʂ/ ष /ʂ/ — ,

฀
฀

Οο, Оо,
𐤏 ʿayin eye ʿ ʿ [ʕ] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫ע‬ ‫ܥ‬ ฀ ‫ غ‬,‫ع‬ ฀ ዐ
Ωω
Oo
Ѡѡ
฀ /e/ ए /e/ ᐁ /e/ —

mouth (or
𐤐 pē p p [p] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫פף‬ ‫ܦ‬ ฀ ‫ف‬ ฀ ፐ, ፈ Ππ Pp Пп ฀ /p/ प /p/ ᐸ /pa/
฀

corner[23])
papyrus ጸ, ጰ, Цц, Чч,
𐤑 ṩādē ṣ ṣ [sˤ] ฀ ?[28] ฀ ฀ ‫צץ‬ ‫ܨ‬ ฀ ‫ ض‬,‫ص‬ ฀ (Ϻϻ) ฀ /c/ च /tʃ/ — ,
฀
฀

plant/fish hook? ፀ Џџ
(Ϙϙ),
𐤒 qōp needle eye q q [q] ฀? ฀ ฀ ‫ק‬ ‫ܩ‬ ฀ ‫ق‬ ฀ ቀ
Φφ
Qq Ҁҁ ฀ /kʰ/ ख /kʰ/ — —

𐤓 rēs, resh head r r [r] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫ר‬ ‫ܪ‬ ฀ ‫ر‬ ฀ ረ Ρρ Rr Рр ฀ /r/ र /r/ ᕈ /ro/ ,
฀
฀

Сс,
𐤔 šīn tooth (or sun[23]) š š [ʃ] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫ש‬ ‫ܫ‬ ฀ ‫ س‬,‫ش‬ ฀ ሠ Σσς Ss Шш, ฀ /ɕ/ श /ɕ/ — ,
฀
฀

Щщ

𐤕 tāw mark t t [t] ฀ ฀ ฀ ‫ת‬ ‫ܬ‬ ฀ ‫ ث‬,‫ت‬ ฀ ተ Ττ Tt Тт ฀ /t/ त /t/ ᑕ /ta/ ,

฀
฀

Letter names [ edit ]

Phoenician used a system of acrophony to name letters: a word was chosen with each initial consonant sound, and became the name of the letter for that sound. These names were not arbitrary: each Phoenician letter was based on an Egyptian hieroglyph
representing an Egyptian word; this word was translated into Phoenician (or a closely related Semitic language), then the initial sound of the translated word became the letter's Phoenician value.[29] For example, the second letter of the Phoenician alphabet
was based on the Egyptian hieroglyph for "house" (a sketch of a house); the Semitic word for "house" was bet; hence the Phoenician letter was called bet and had the sound value b.

According to a 1904 theory by Theodor Nöldeke, some of the letter names were changed in Phoenician from the Proto-Canaanite script.[dubious – discuss] This includes:

gaml "throwing stick" to gimel "camel"

digg "fish" to dalet "door"
hll "jubilation" to he "window"
ziqq "manacle" to zayin "weapon"
nah ̣š "snake" to nun "fish"
piʾt "corner" to pe "mouth"
šimš "sun" to šin "tooth"

Yigael Yadin (1963) went to great lengths to prove that there was actual battle equipment similar to some of the original letter forms named for weapons (samek, zayin).[30]

Numerals [ edit ]

The Phoenician numeral system consisted of separate symbols for 1, 10, 20, and 100. The sign for 1 was a simple vertical stroke (𐤖). Other numerals up to 9 were formed by adding the appropriate number of such strokes, arranged in groups of three. The
symbol for 10 was a horizontal line or tack (𐤗). The sign for 20 (𐤘) could come in different glyph variants, one of them being a combination of two 10-tacks, approximately Z-shaped. Larger multiples of ten were formed by grouping the appropriate number of 20s
and 10s. There existed several glyph variants for 100 (𐤙). The 100 symbol could be multiplied by a preceding numeral, e.g. the combination of "4" and "100" yielded 400.[31] The system did not contain a numeral zero.[32]

Derived alphabets [ edit ]

Main article: History of the alphabet

Many writing systems in use today can ultimately trace their descent to the Phoenician alphabet, and consequently Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian and Georgian scripts are derived from the Greek
alphabet, which evolved from Phoenician; the Aramaic alphabet, also descended from Phoenician, evolved into the Arabic and Hebrew scripts. It has also been theorised that the Brahmi and subsequent Brahmic scripts
of the Indian cultural sphere also descended from Aramaic, effectively uniting most of the world's writing systems under one family, although the theory is disputed.

Early Semitic scripts [ edit ]

The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet is a regional variant of the Phoenician alphabet, so called when used to write early Hebrew. The Samaritan alphabet is a development of Paleo-Hebrew, emerging in the 6th century BC. The
South Arabian script may be derived from a stage of the Proto-Sinaitic script predating the mature development of the Phoenician alphabet proper. The Geʽez script developed from South Arabian.

Samaritan alphabet [ edit ]

Main article: Samaritan alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet continued to be used by the Samaritans and developed into the Samaritan alphabet, that is an immediate continuation of the Phoenician script without
intermediate non-Israelite evolutionary stages. The Samaritans have continued to use the script for writing both Hebrew and Aramaic texts until the present day. A comparison of
the earliest Samaritan inscriptions and the medieval and modern Samaritan manuscripts clearly indicates that the Samaritan script is a static script which was used mainly as a
book hand.

Aramaic-derived [ edit ]
Further information: Aramaic alphabet
See also: Languages currently written with the Arabic alphabet

The Aramaic alphabet, used to write Aramaic, is an early descendant of Phoenician. Aramaic, being the lingua franca of the Middle East, was widely adopted. It later split off (due
to political divisions) into a number of related alphabets, including Hebrew, Syriac, and Nabataean, the latter of which, in its cursive form, became an ancestor of the Arabic
alphabet. The Hebrew alphabet emerges in the Second Temple period, from around 300 BC, out of the Aramaic alphabet used in the Persian empire. There was, however, a
revival of the Phoenician mode of writing later in the Second Temple period, with some instances from the Qumran Caves, such as the "Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus scroll" dated to the
2nd or 1st century BC.

By the 5th century BCE, among Jews the Phoenician alphabet had been mostly replaced by the Aramaic alphabet as officially used in the Persian empire (which, like all
A page from the Samaritan version alphabetical writing systems, was itself ultimately a descendant of the Proto-Canaanite script, though through intermediary non-Israelite stages of evolution). The "Jewish square-
of Leviticus script" variant now known simply as the Hebrew alphabet evolved directly out of the Aramaic script by about the 3rd century BCE (although some letter shapes did not become
standard until the 1st century CE).

The Kharosthi script is an Arabic-derived alphasyllabary used in the Indo-Greek Kingdom in the 3rd century BC. The Syriac alphabet is the derived form of Aramaic used in the early Christian period. The Sogdian
alphabet is derived from Syriac. It is in turn an ancestor of the Old Uyghur.[citation needed] The Manichaean alphabet is a further derivation from Sogdian.

The Arabic script is a medieval cursive variant of Nabataean, itself an offshoot of Aramaic. Each letter of Phoenician gave way
to a new form in its daughter scripts.
Brahmic scripts [ edit ] Left to right: Latin, Greek, Phoenician,
Hebrew, Arabic
See also: Aramaic hypothesis

It has been proposed, notably by Georg Bühler (1898), that the Brahmi script of India (and by extension the derived Indic alphabets) was ultimately derived from the Aramaic script, which would make Phoenician the
ancestor of virtually every alphabetic writing system in use today,[33][34] with the notable exception of written Korean (whose influence from the Brahmi-derived 'Phags-pa script has been theorized but acknowledged to be limited at best, and cannot be said to
have derived from 'Phags-pa as 'Phags-pa derived from Tibetan and Tibetan from Brahmi).[35][36]

It is certain that the Aramaic-derived Kharosthi script was present in northern India by the 4th century BC, so that the Aramaic model of alphabetic writing would have been known in the region, but the link from Kharosthi to the slightly younger Brahmi is
tenuous. Bühler's suggestion is still entertained in mainstream scholarship, but it has never been proven conclusively, and no definitive scholarly consensus exists.

Greek-derived [ edit ]
Further information: History of the Greek alphabet and History of the Latin alphabet

The Greek alphabet is derived from the Phoenician.[37] With a different phonology, the Greeks adapted the Phoenician script to represent their own sounds, including the vowels absent in Phoenician. It was possibly more important in Greek to write out vowel
sounds: Phoenician being a Semitic language, words were based on consonantal roots that permitted extensive removal of vowels without loss of meaning, a feature absent in the Indo-European Greek. However, Akkadian cuneiform, which wrote a related
Semitic language, did indicate vowels, which suggests the Phoenicians simply accepted the model of the Egyptians, who never wrote vowels. In any case, the Greeks repurposed the Phoenician letters of consonant sounds not present in Greek; each such
letter had its name shorn of its leading consonant, and the letter took the value of the now-leading vowel. For example, ʾāleph, which designated a glottal stop in Phoenician, was repurposed to represent the vowel /a/; he became /e/, h ̣et became /eː/ (a long
vowel), ʿayin became /o/ (because the pharyngeality altered the following vowel), while the two semi-consonants wau and yod became the corresponding high vowels, /u/ and /i/. (Some dialects of Greek, which did possess /h/ and /w/, continued to use the
Phoenician letters for those consonants as well.)

The Alphabets of Asia Minor are generally assumed to be offshoots of archaic versions of the Greek alphabet.x

The Latin alphabet was derived from Old Italic (originally a form of the Greek alphabet), used for Etruscan and other languages. The origin of the Runic alphabet is disputed: the main theories are that it evolved either from the Latin alphabet itself, some early
Old Italic alphabet via the Alpine scripts, or the Greek alphabet. Despite this debate, the Runic alphabet is clearly derived from one or more scripts that ultimately trace their roots back to the Phoenician alphabet.[37][38]

The Coptic alphabet is mostly based on the mature Greek alphabet of the Hellenistic period, with a few additional letters for sounds not in Greek at the time. Those additional letters are based on the Demotic script.

The Cyrillic script was derived from the late (medieval) Greek alphabet. Some Cyrillic letters (generally for sounds not in medieval Greek) are based on Glagolitic forms.

Paleohispanic scripts [ edit ]

These were an indigenous set of genetically related semisyllabaries, which suited the phonological characteristics of the Tartessian, Iberian and Celtiberian languages. They were decyphered in 1922 by Manuel Gómez-
Moreno but their content is almost impossible to understand because they are not related to any living languages. While Gómez-Moreno first pointed to a joined Phoenician-Greek origin, following authors consider that
their genesis has no relation to Greek.[39]

The most remote script of the group is the Tartessian or Southwest script which could be one or several different scripts. The main bulk of PH inscriptions use, by far, the Northeastern Iberian script, which serves to write
Iberian in the levantine coast North of Contestania and in the valle of the river Ebro (Hiber). The Iberic language is also recorded using two other scripts: the Southeastern Iberian script, which is more similar to the
Southwest script than to Northeastern Iberian; and a variant of the Ionic Greek Alphabet called the Greco-Iberian alphabet. Finally, the Celtiberian script registers the language of the Celtiberians with a script derived from
Northeastern Iberian, an interesting feature is that it was used and developed in times of the Roman conquest, in opposition to the Latin alphabet.

Among the distintive features of Palehispanic scripts are:

Semi-syllabism. Half of the signs represent syllabes made of occlusive consonants (k,g,b,d,t) and the other half represent simple phonemes such as vowels (a,e,i,o,u) and continuous consonants (l,n,r,ŕ,s,ś).
Duality. Appears on the earliest Iberian and Celtiberian inscriptions and refers to how the signs can serve a double use by being modified with an extra stroke that transforms, for example ge with a stroke becomes
ke . In later stages the scripts were simplified and duality vanishes from inscriptions.
Redundancy. A feature that appears only in the script of the Southwest, vowels are repeated after each syllabic signs.

Unicode [ edit ]
Southwest stele of Fonte Velha
The Phoenician alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in July 2006 with the release of version 5.0. An alternative proposal to handle it as a font variation of Hebrew was turned down. (See PDF summary.)

The Unicode block for Phoenician is U+10900–U+1091F. It is intended for the representation of text in Paleo-Hebrew, Archaic Phoenician, Phoenician, Early Aramaic, Late Phoenician cursive, Phoenician papyri,
Phoenician
Siloam Hebrew, Hebrew seals, Ammonite, Moabite and Punic.[42]
Range U+10900..U+1091F
The letters are encoded U+10900 𐤀 aleph through to U+10915 𐤕 taw, U+10916 𐤖, U+10917 𐤗, U+10918 𐤘 and U+10919 𐤙 encode the numerals 1,10,20 and 100 respectively and U+1091F 𐤟 is the word separator. (32 code points)
Plane SMP
Block [ edit ]
Scripts Phoenician
Assigned 29 code points
Phoenician[1][2]
Unused 3 reserved code points
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
Unicode version history
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
5.0 (2006) 27 (+27)
U+1090x 𐤀 𐤁 𐤂 𐤃 𐤄 𐤅 𐤆 𐤇 𐤈 𐤉 𐤊 𐤋 𐤌 𐤍 𐤎 𐤏
5.2 (2009) 29 (+2)
U+1091x 𐤐 𐤑 𐤒 𐤓 𐤔 𐤕 𐤖 𐤗 𐤘 𐤙 𐤚 𐤛 𐤟 Note: [40][41]

Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 14.0
2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

History [ edit ]

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Phoenician block:

[hide]
Final code points[a] Count L2 ID WG2 ID Document
Version
N1579 Everson, Michael (1997-05-27), Proposal for encoding the Phoenician script
L2/97-288 N1603 Umamaheswaran, V. S. (1997-10-24), "8.24.1", Unconfirmed Meeting Minutes, WG 2 Meeting # 33, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, 20 June – 4 July 1997
L2/99-013 N1932 Everson, Michael (1998-11-23), Revised proposal for encoding the Phoenician script in the UCS
N2097 ,
L2/99-224 Röllig, W. (1999-07-23), Comments on proposals for the Universal Multiple-Octed Coded Character Set
N2025-2
N2133 Response to comments on the question of encoding Old Semitic scripts in the UCS (N2097), 1999-10-04
L2/00-010 N2103 Umamaheswaran, V. S. (2000-01-05), "10.4", Minutes of WG 2 meeting 37, Copenhagen, Denmark: 1999-09-13—16
Kass, James; Anderson, Deborah W.; Snyder, Dean; Lehmann, Reinhard G.; Cowie, Paul James; Kirk, Peter; Cowan, John; Khalaf, S. George; Richmond, Bob (2004-05-25),
L2/04-149
Miscellaneous Input on Phoenician Encoding Proposal
L2/04-141R2 N2746R2 Everson, Michael (2004-05-29), Final proposal for encoding the Phoenician script in the UCS
U+10900..10919, L2/04-177 Anderson, Deborah (2004-05-31), Expert Feedback on Phoenician
5.0 27
1091F
L2/04-178 N2772 Anderson, Deborah (2004-06-04), Additional Support for Phoenician
L2/04-181 Keown, Elaine (2004-06-04), REBUTTAL to "Final proposal for encoding the Phoenician script in the UCS"
L2/04-190 N2787 Everson, Michael (2004-06-06), Additional examples of the Phoenician script in use
L2/04-187 McGowan, Rick (2004-06-07), Phoenician Recommendation
L2/04-206 N2793 Kirk, Peter (2004-06-07), Response to the revised "Final proposal for encoding the Phoenician script" (L2/04-141R2)
L2/04-213 Rosenne, Jony (2004-06-07), Responses to Several Hebrew Related Items
L2/04-217R Keown, Elaine (2004-06-07), Proposal to add Archaic Mediterranean Script block to ISO 10646
L2/04-226 Durusau, Patrick (2004-06-07), Statement of the Society of Biblical Literature on WG2 N2746R2
L2/04-218 N2792 Snyder, Dean (2004-06-08), Response to the Proposal to Encode Phoenician in Unicode
L2/05-009 N2909 Anderson, Deborah (2005-01-19), Letters in support of Phoenician
N3353 (pdf ,
Umamaheswaran, V. S. (2007-10-10), "M51.14", Unconfirmed minutes of WG 2 meeting 51 Hanzhou, China; 2007-04-24/27
doc )
5.2 U+1091A..1091B 2
L2/07-206 N3284 Everson, Michael (2007-07-25), Proposal to add two numbers for the Phoenician script
L2/07-225 Moore, Lisa (2007-08-21), "Phoenician", UTC #112 Minutes
a. ^ Proposed code points and characters names may differ from final code points and names

See also [ edit ]

History of writing
Phoenicia portal
Writing system
Ugaritic alphabet Writing portal

References [ edit ]

1. ^ The date of 1050 BC is conventional, the oldest known 4. ^ a b c Cross, Frank Moore (1980). "Newly Found Inscriptions 5. ^ Beyond Babel: A Handbook for Biblical Hebrew and Related 8. ^ Coulmas (1989) p. 141.
inscriptions are from the 10th century BC; the predecessor in Old Canaanite and Early Phoenician Scripts". Bulletin of the Languages, article by Charles R. Krahmalkov (ed. John 9. ^ Markoe (2000) p. 111
scripts used in the Syro-Hittite kingdoms of the 13th to 12th American Schools of Oriental Research. The University of Kaltner, Steven L. McKenzie, 2002). "This alphabet was not, as 10. ^ https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
centuries BC is classified as "Proto-Canaanite". Use of the Chicago Press on behalf of The American Schools of Oriental often mistakenly asserted, invented by the Phoenicians but, article=1048&context=bb_pubs
Phoenician script declined during the Hellenistic period as its Research. 238 (238 (Spring, 1980)): 1–20. rather, was an adaptation of the early West Semitic alphabet to 11. ^ Hock and Joseph (1996) p. 85.
evolved forms replaced it; it became obsolete with the doi:10.2307/1356511 . JSTOR 1356511 . the needs of their own language". 12. ^ Daniels (1996) p. 94-95.
destruction of Carthage in 149 BC. S2CID 222445150 . 6. ^ Michael C. Howard (2012). Transnationalism in Ancient and 13. ^ "Discovery of Egyptian Inscriptions Indicates an Earlier Date
2. ^ Himelfarb, Elizabeth J. "First Alphabet Found in Egypt", Medieval Societies. P. 23. for Origin of the Alphabet" . Retrieved 20 April 2017.
Archaeology 53, Issue 1 (January/February 2000): 21. 7. ^ Cross, Frank Moore (1991). Senner, Wayne M. (ed.). The 14. ^ Fischer (2003) p. 68-69.
3. ^ Fischer, Steven Roger (2004). A history of writing. Reaktion Invention and Development of the Alphabet . The Origins of
15. ^ Herodotus, Histories, Book V, 58 .
Books. p. 90. Writing. Bison books. U of Nebraska Press. pp. 77–90 [81].
16. ^ Herodotus. Histories, Book II, 145
ISBN 978-0-8032-9167-6. Retrieved 30 June 2020.
 17. ^ The Mishnah, ed. Herbert Danby, Oxford University Press: 24. ^ The letters he and ḥēt continue three Proto-Sinaitic letters, 30. ^ Yigael Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands. McGraw- 37. ^ a b Humphrey, John William (2006). Ancient technology .
Oxford 1933, p. 784, s.v. Yadayim 4:5-6, note 6 ) (ISBN 0-19- h ̣asir "courtyard", hillul "jubilation" and ḫayt "thread". The Hill, 1963. The samek – a quick war ladder, later to become Greenwood guides to historic events of the ancient world
815402-X); Babylonian Talmud Zevahim 62a; Sanhedrin 22a shape of h ̣ēt continues h ̣asir "courtyard", but the name the '$' dollar sign drawing the three internal lines quickly. The (illustrated ed.). Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 219.
18. ^ Hoffman, Joel M. (2004). In the beginning : a short history of continues ḫayt "thread". The shape of he continues hillul 'Z' shaped zayin – an ancient boomerang used for hunting. ISBN 9780313327636. Retrieved 2009-10-18.
the Hebrew language . New York, NY [u.a.]: New York Univ. "jubilation" but the name means "window".[citation needed] see: The 'H' shaped ḥet – mammoth tusks. 38. ^ Spurkland, Terje (2005): Norwegian Runes and Runic
Press. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-8147-3654-8. Retrieved 23 May He (letter)#Origins. 31. ^ "Phoenician numerals in Unicode" (PDF). Retrieved Inscriptions, translated by Betsy van der Hoek, Boydell Press,
2017. "By 1000 B.C.E., however, we see Phoenician writings 25. ^ The glyph was taken to represent a wheel, but it possibly 20 April 2017. Woodbridge, pp. 3–4
[..]" derives from the hieroglyph nefer hieroglyph ฀ and would 32. ^ "Number Systems" . Retrieved 20 April 2017. 39. ^ de Hoz, Javier (31 December 2010). Historia lingüística de la
19. ^ Jensen (1969), p. 256. originally have been called tab ‫" טוב‬good". 33. ^ Richard Salomon, "Brahmi and Kharoshthi", in The World's Península Ibérica en la antigüedad. Vol I . Madrid: CSIC.
20. ^ Jensen (1969), pp. 256–258. 26. ^ The root l-m-d mainly means "to teach", from an original Writing Systems pp. 495–499. ISBN 978-84-00-09260-3.
21. ^ Krahmalkov, Charles R. (2001). A Phoenician Punic meaning "to goad". H3925 in Strong’s Exhaustive 34. ^ Daniélou, Alain (2003). A Brief History of India . Simon and 40. ^ "Unicode character database" . The Unicode Standard.
grammar. Brill. pp. 20–27. ISBN 9004117717. Concordance to the Bible, 1979. Schuster. pp. 52–53. ISBN 9781594777943. Retrieved 2016-07-09.
OCLC 237631007 . 27. ^ the letter name nūn is a word for "fish", but the glyph is 35. ^ The Korean language reform of 1446: the origin, 41. ^ "Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard" . The
22. ^ after Fischer, Steven R. (2001). A History of Writing. London: presumably from the depiction of a snake, which would point to background, and Early History of the Korean Alphabet, Gari Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2016-07-09.
Reaction Books. p. 126. an original name ‫" נחש‬snake". Keith Ledyard. University of California, 1966, p. 367–368. 42. ^ "Middle-East scripts II: Ancient Scripts" (PDF). The
23. ^ abcdefg Theodor Nöldeke (1904)[page needed] 28. ^ the letter name may be from ‫" צד‬to hunt". 36. ^ Peter T. Daniels and William Bright, The World's Writing Unicode Standard: Version 13.0 – Core Specification. The
29. ^ Jensen (1969) p. 262-263. Systems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 219- Unicode Consortium. 2020. Retrieved 2021-01-28.
220

Jean-Pierre Thiollet, Je m'appelle Byblos, H & D, Paris, 2005. ISBN 2-914266-04-9

Maria Eugenia Aubet, The Phoenicians and the West Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, London, 2001.
Daniels, Peter T., et al. eds. The World's Writing Systems Oxford. (1996).
Jensen, Hans, Sign, Symbol, and Script, G.P. Putman's Sons, New York, 1969.
Coulmas, Florian, Writing Systems of the World, Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Oxford, 1989.
Hock, Hans H. and Joseph, Brian D., Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship, Mouton de Gruyter, New York, 1996.
Fischer, Steven R., A History of Writing, Reaktion Books, 1999.
Markoe, Glenn E., Phoenicians. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22613-5 (2000) (hardback)
"Alphabet, Hebrew". Encyclopaedia Judaica (CD-ROM Edition Version 1.0). Ed. Cecil Roth. Keter Publishing House. ISBN 965-07-0665-8
Feldman, Rachel (2010). "Most ancient Hebrew biblical inscription deciphered" . Archived from the original on 7 June 2011. Retrieved 15 June 2011.
Shanks, Hershel (2010). "Oldest Hebrew Inscription Discovered in Israelite Fort on Philistine Border" . Biblical Archaeology Review. 36 (2): 51–6.

External links [ edit ]

Ancient Scripts.com (Phoenician)

Phoenician alphabet
Omniglot.com (Phoenician alphabet) at Wikipedia's sister projects
official Unicode standards document for Phoenician (PDF file)
[1] Free-Libre GPL2 Licensed Unicode Phoenician Font Definitions from Wiktionary

GNU FreeFont Unicode font family with Phoenician range in its serif face. Media from Wikimedia Commons
[2] Phönizisch TTF-Font.
Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic on Coins, reading and transliterating Proto-Hebrew, online edition . (Judaea Coin Archive)
Paleo-Hebrew Abjad font—also allows writing in Phoenician (the current version of the font is 1.1.0)

V·T·E Types of writing systems [show]

V·T·E The Northwest Semitic abjad [hide]

ʾ b g d h w z ḥ ṭ y k l m n s ʿ p ṣ q r š t
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 200 300 400

History (Inscriptions) · Phoenician · Paleo-Hebrew · Hebrew · Aramaic · Syriac

Categories: Phoenician alphabet 11th-century BC establishments Typography Memory of the World Register Obsolete writing systems Phoenician language Canaanite writing systems Unicode blocks Proto-Sinaitic script
Right-to-left writing systems

This page was last edited on 10 November 2021, at 13:27 (UTC).

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