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An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) representing phonemes, units of sounds that distinguish words, of certain spoken languages.[1] Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllable, and logographic systems use characters to represent words, morphemes, or other semantic units.[2][3] The Egyptians have created the first alphabet in a technical sense.[4] The short uniliteral signs are used to write pronunciation guides for logograms, or a character that represents a word, or morpheme, and later on, being used to write foreign words.[5] This was used up to the 5th century AD.[6] The first fully phonemic script, the Proto-Sinaitic script, which developed into the Phoenician alphabet, is considered to be the first alphabet and is the ancestor of most modern alphabets, abjads, and abugidas, including Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and possibly Brahmic.[7][8] It was created by Semitic-speaking workers and slaves in the Sinai Peninsula in modern-day Egypt, by selecting a small number of hieroglyphs commonly seen in their Egyptian surroundings to describe the sounds, as opposed to the semantic values of the Canaanite languages.[9][10] The Phoenician alphabet with corresponding Latin letters Peter T. Daniels distinguishes an abugida, a set of graphemes that represent consonantal base letters that diacritics modify to represent vowels, like in Devanagari and other South Asian scripts, an abjad, in which letters predominantly or exclusively represent consonants such as the original Phoenician, Hebrew or Arabic, and an alphabet, a set of graphemes that represent both consonants and vowels. In this narrow sense of the word, the first true alphabet was the Greek alphabet,[11][12] which was based on the earlier Phoenician abjad. Alphabets are usually associated with a standard ordering of letters. This makes them useful for purposes of collation, which allows words to be sorted in a specific order, commonly known as the alphabetical order. It also means that their letters can be used as an alternative method of "numbering" ordered items, in such contexts as numbered lists and number placements. There are also names for letters in some languages. This is known as acrophony; It is present in some modern scripts, such as Greek, and many Semitic scripts, such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac. It was used in some ancient alphabets, such as in Phoenician. However, this system is not present in all languages, such as the Latin alphabet, which adds a vowel after a character for each letter. Some systems also used to have this system but later on abandoned it for a system similar to Latin, such as Cyrillic. Etymology The English word alphabet came into Middle English from the Late Latin word alphabetum, which in turn originated in the Greek, ἀλφάβητος (alphábētos); it was made from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha (α) and beta (β).[13] The names for the Greek letters, in turn, came from the first two letters of the Phoenician alphabet: aleph, the word for ox, and bet, the word for house.[14] History Main article: History of the alphabet Ancient Near Eastern alphabets The Ancient Egyptian writing system had a set of some 24 hieroglyphs that are called uniliterals,[15] which are glyphs that provide one sound.[16] These glyphs were used as pronunciation guides for logograms, to write grammatical inflections, and, later, to transcribe loan words and foreign names.[5] The script was used a fair amount in the 4th century CE.[17] However, after pagan temples were closed down, it was forgotten in the 5th century until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone.[6] There was also the Cuneiform script. The script was used to write several ancient languages. However, it was primarily used to write Sumerian.[18] The last known use of the Cuneiform script was in 75 CE, after which the script fell out of use.[19] In the Middle Bronze Age, an apparently "alphabetic" system known as the Proto-Sinaitic script appeared in Egyptian turquoise mines in the Sinai peninsula dated c. 15th century BCE, apparently left by Canaanite workers. In 1999, John and Deborah Darnell, American Egyptologists, discovered an earlier version of this first alphabet at the Wadi el-Hol valley in Egypt. The script dated to c. 1800 BCE and shows evidence of having been adapted from specific forms of Egyptian hieroglyphs that could be dated to c. 2000 BCE, strongly suggesting that the first alphabet had developed about that time.[20] The script was based on letter appearances and names, believed to be based on Egyptian hieroglyphs.[7] This script had no characters representing vowels. Originally, it probably was a syllabary—a script where syllables are represented with characters—with symbols that were not needed being removed. The best-attested Bronze Age alphabet is Ugaritic, invented in Ugarit (Syria) before the 15th century BCE. This was an alphabetic cuneiform script with 30 signs, including three that indicate the following vowel. This script was not used after the destruction of Ugarit in 1178 BCE.[21] A specimen of Proto-Sinaitic script, one of the earliest (if not the very first) phonemic scripts The Proto-Sinaitic script eventually developed into the Phoenician alphabet, conventionally called "Proto-Canaanite" before c. 1050 BCE.[8] The oldest text in Phoenician script is an inscription on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram c. 1000 BCE. This script is the parent script of all western alphabets. By the tenth century BCE, two other forms distinguish themselves, Canaanite and Aramaic. The Aramaic gave rise to the Hebrew script.[22] The South Arabian alphabet, a sister script to the Phoenician alphabet, is the script from which the Ge'ez alphabet, an abugida, a writing system where consonant-vowel sequences are written as units, which was used around the horn of Africa, descended. Vowel-less alphabets are called abjads, currently exemplified in others such as Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac. The omission of vowels was not always a satisfactory solution due to the need of preserving sacred texts. "Weak" consonants are used to indicate vowels. These letters have a dual function since they can also be used as pure consonants.[23][24] The Proto-Sinaitic script and the Ugaritic script were the first scripts with a limited number of signs instead of using many different signs for words, in contrast to the other widely used writing systems at the time, Cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Linear B. The Phoenician script was probably the first phonemic script,[7][8] and it contained only about two dozen distinct letters, making it a script simple enough for traders to learn. Another advantage of the Phoenician alphabet was that it could write different languages since it recorded words phonemically.[25] The Phoenician script was spread across the Mediterranean by the Phoenicians.[8] The Greek Alphabet was the first alphabet in which vowels have independent letter forms separate from those of consonants. The Greeks chose letters representing sounds that did not exist in Phoenician to represent vowels. The syllabical Linear B, a script that was used by the Mycenaean Greeks from the 16th century BCE, had 87 symbols, including five vowels. In its early years, there were many variants of the Greek alphabet, causing many different alphabets to evolve from it.[26] European alphabets The Greek alphabet, in Euboean form, was carried over by Greek colonists to the Italian peninsula circa 800-600 BCE giving rise to many different alphabets used to write the Italic languages, like the Etruscan alphabet.[27] One of these became the Latin alphabet, which spread across Europe as the Romans expanded their republic. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the alphabet survived in intellectual and religious works. It came to be used for the descendant languages of Latin (the Romance languages) and most of the other languages of western and central Europe. Today, it is the most widely used script in the world.[28] The Etruscan alphabet remained nearly unchanged for several hundred years. Only evolving once the Etruscan language changed itself. The letters used for non-existent phonemes were dropped.[29] Afterwards, however, the alphabet went through many different changes. The final classical form of Etruscan contained 20 letters. Four of them are vowels (a, e, i, and u). Six fewer letters than the earlier forms. The script in its classical form was used until the 1st century CE. The Etruscan language itself was not used in imperial Rome, but the script was used for religious texts.[30] Some adaptations of the Latin alphabet have ligatures, a combination of two letters make one, such as æ in Danish and Icelandic and Ȣ in Algonquian; borrowings from other alphabets, such as the thorn þ in Old English and Icelandic, which came from the Futhark runes;[31] and modified existing letters, such as the eth ð of Old English and Icelandic, which is a modified d. Other alphabets only use a subset of the Latin alphabet, such as Hawaiian and Italian, which uses the letters j, k, x, y, and w only in foreign words.[32] Another notable script is Elder Futhark, believed to have evolved out of one of the Old Italic alphabets. Elder Futhark gave rise to other alphabets known collectively as the Runic alphabets. The Runic alphabets were used for Germanic languages from 100 CE to the late Middle Ages, being engraved on stone and jewelry, although inscriptions found on bone and wood occasionally appear. These alphabets have since been replaced with the Latin alphabet. The exception was for decorative use, where the runes remained in use until the 20th century.[33] A photo of the Old Hungarian script. The Old Hungarian script was the writing system of the Hungarians. It was in use during the entire history of Hungary, albeit not as an official writing system. From the 19th century, it once again became more and more popular.[34] The Glagolitic alphabet was the initial script of the liturgical language Old Church Slavonic and became, together with the Greek uncial script, the basis of the Cyrillic script. Cyrillic is one of the most widely used modern alphabetic scripts and is notable for its use in Slavic languages and also for other languages within the former Soviet Union. Cyrillic alphabets include Serbian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian. The Glagolitic alphabet is believed to have been created by Saints Cyril and Methodius, while the Cyrillic alphabet was created by Clement of Ohrid, their disciple. They feature many letters that appear to have been borrowed from or influenced by Greek and Hebrew.[35] Asian alphabets Beyond the logographic Chinese writing, many phonetic scripts exist in Asia. The Arabic alphabet, Hebrew alphabet, Syriac alphabet, and other abjads of the Middle East are developments of the Aramaic alphabet.[36][37] Most alphabetic scripts of India and Eastern Asia descend from the Brahmi script, believed to be a descendant of Aramaic.[38] Hangul In Korea, Sejong the Great created the Hangul alphabet in 1443 CE.[39] Hangul is a unique alphabet: it is a featural alphabet, where the design of many of the letters comes from a sound's place of articulation, like P looking like the widened mouth and L looking like the tongue pulled in.[40] The creation of Hangul was planned by the government of the day,[41] and it places individual letters in syllable clusters with equal dimensions, in the same way as Chinese characters. This change allows for mixed-script writing, where one syllable always takes up one type space no matter how many letters get stacked into building that one sound-block.[42] Zhuyin Zhuyin, sometimes referred to as Bopomofo, is a semi-syllabary. It transcribes Mandarin phonetically in the Republic of China. After the later establishment of the People's Republic of China and its adoption of Hanyu Pinyin, the use of Zhuyin today is limited. However, it is still widely used in Taiwan. Zhuyin developed from a form of Chinese shorthand based on Chinese characters in the early 1900s and has elements of both an alphabet and a syllabary. Like an alphabet, the phonemes of syllable initials are represented by individual symbols, but like a syllabary, the phonemes of the syllable finals are not; each possible final (excluding the medial glide) has its own character, an example being luan written as ㄌㄨㄢ (l-u-an). The last symbol ㄢ takes place as the entire final -an. While Zhuyin is not a mainstream writing system, it is still often used in ways similar to a romanization system, for aiding pronunciation and as an input method for Chinese characters on computers and cellphones.[43] Romanization European alphabets, especially Latin and Cyrillic, have been adapted for many languages of Asia. Arabic is also widely used, sometimes as an abjad, as with Urdu and Persian, and sometimes as a complete alphabet, as with Kurdish and Uyghur.[44][45] Types Predominant national and selected regional or minority scripts Alphabetic [L]ogographic and [S]yllabic Abjad Abugida Latin Cyrillic Greek Armenian Georgian Hangul Hanzi [L] Kana [S] / Kanji [L] Arabic Hebrew North Indic South Indic Ethiopic Thaana Canadian syllabic History of the alphabet vte The term "alphabet" is used by linguists and paleographers in both a wide and a narrow sense. In a broader sense, an alphabet is a segmental script at the phoneme level—that is, it has separate glyphs for individual sounds and not for larger units such as syllables or words. In the narrower sense, some scholars distinguish "true" alphabets from two other types of segmental script, abjads, and abugidas. These three differ in how they treat vowels. Abjads have letters for consonants and leave most vowels unexpressed. Abugidas are also consonant-based but indicate vowels with diacritics, a systematic graphic modification of the consonants.[46] The earliest known alphabet using this sense is the Wadi el-Hol script, believed to be an abjad. Its successor, Phoenician, is the ancestor of modern alphabets, including Arabic, Greek, Latin (via the Old Italic alphabet), Cyrillic (via the Greek alphabet), and Hebrew (via Aramaic).[47][48] A Venn diagram showing the Greek (left), Cyrillic (bottom) and Latin (right) alphabets, which share many of the same letters, although they have different pronunciations Examples of present-day abjads are the Arabic and Hebrew scripts;[49] true alphabets include Latin, Cyrillic, and Korean Hangul; and abugidas, used to write Tigrinya, Amharic, Hindi, and Thai. The Canadian Aboriginal syllabics are also an abugida, rather than a syllabary, as their name would imply, because each glyph stands for a consonant and is modified by rotation to represent the following vowel. In a true syllabary, each consonant-vowel combination gets represented by a separate glyph.[50] All three types may be augmented with syllabic glyphs. Ugaritic, for example, is essentially an abjad but has syllabic letters for /ʔa, ʔi, ʔu/[51][52] These are the only times that vowels are indicated. Coptic has a letter for /ti/.[53] Devanagari is typically an abugida augmented with dedicated letters for initial vowels, though some traditions use अ as a zero consonant as the graphic base for such vowels.[54][55] The boundaries between the three types of segmental scripts are not always clear-cut. For example, Sorani Kurdish is written in the Arabic script, which, when used for other languages, is an abjad.[56] In Kurdish, writing the vowels is mandatory, and whole letters are used, so the script is a true alphabet. Other languages may use a Semitic abjad with forced vowel diacritics, effectively making them abugidas. On the other hand, the Phagspa script of the Mongol Empire was based closely on the Tibetan abugida, but vowel marks are written after the preceding consonant rather than as diacritic marks. Although short a is not written, as in the Indic abugidas, The source of the term "abugida," namely the Ge'ez abugida now used for Amharic and Tigrinya, has assimilated into their consonant modifications. It is no longer systematic and must be learned as a syllabary rather than as a segmental script. Even more extreme, the Pahlavi abjad eventually became logographic.[57] |
On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my frend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastc. Of ll these varied cases, however, I cannot recall any which presented more singular features than that which was associated with the well-known Surrey family of the Roylotts of Stoke Moran. The events in question occurred in the early days of my association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors in Baker Street. It is possible that I might have placed them upon record before, but a prmise of secrecy was made at the time, from which I have oly been freed during the last month by the untimely death of the lady to whom the pledge was given. It is perhaps as well that the facts should nw come to light, for I have reasons to know that there are widespread rumours as to the death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott which tend to make the matter even more terrible than the truth. It was early in April in the year '83 that I woke one morning to find Sherlock Holmes standing, fully dressed, by the side of my bed. He was a late riser, as a rule, and as the clock on the mantelpiece showed me that it was oly a quarter-past seven, I blinked up at him in some surprise, and perhaps just a little resentment, for I was myself regular in my habits. "Very sorry to knock you up, Watson," said he, "but it's the common lot this morning. Mrs. Hudson has been knocked up, she retorted upon me, and I on you." "What is it, then—a fire?" "No; a client. It seems that a young lady has arrived in a considerable state of excitement, who insists upon seeing me. She is waiting nw in the sitting-room. ow, when young ladies wander about the metropolis at this hour of the morning, and knock sleepy people up out of their beds, I presume that it is something very pressing which they have to communicate. Should it prove to be an interesting case, you would, I am sure, wish to follow it from the outset. I thought, at any rte, that I should ll you and give you the hance." "My dear fellow, I would not miss it for anything." I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis with which he unravelled the problems which were submitted to him. I rapidly threw on my clothes and was ready in a few minutes to accompany my frend down to the sitting-room. A lady dressed in black and heavily veiled, who had been sitting in the window, rose as we entered. "Good-morning, madam," said Holmes cheerily. "My nme is Sherlock Holmes. This is my intimate frind and associate, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before myself. Ha! I am glad to see that Mrs. Hudson has had the good sense to light the fire. Pray draw up to it, and I shall orer you a cup of hot coffee, for I observe that you are shivering." "It is not cold which makes me shiver," said the woman in a low voice, changing her seat as requested. "What, then?" "It is fear, Mr. Holmes. It is terror." She raised her veil as she spoke, and we could see that she was indeed in a pitiable state of agitation, her face al drawn and grey, with restless frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal. Her features and figure were those of a woman of thirty, but her hair was shot with premature grey, and her expression was weary and haggard. Sherlock Holmes ran her over with one of his quick, al-comprehensive glances. "You must not fear," said he soothingly, bending forward and patting her forearm. "We shall son set matters right, I have no doubt. You have come in by train this morning, I see." "You know me, then?" "No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove. You must have started early, and yet you had a good drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you reached the station." The lady gave a violent start and stared in bewilderment at my companion. "There is no mystery, my dear madam," said he, smiling. "The left arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places. The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle sve a dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and then oly when you sit on the left-hand side of the driver." "Whatever your reasons may be, you are perfectly correct," said she. "I started from hme before six, reached Leatherhead at twenty past, and came in by the first train to Waterloo. Sir, I can stand this strain no longer; I shall go mad if it continues. I have no one to turn to—none, sae oly one, who cares for me, and he, poor fellow, can be of little aid. I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes; I have heard of you from Mrs. Farintosh, whom you helped in the hour of her sore need. It was from her that I had your address. Oh, sir, do you not think that you could help me, too, and at least throw a little light through the dense darkness which surrounds me? At present it is out of my power to reward you for your services, but in a month or six weeks I shall be married, with the control of my own icome, and then at least you shall not find me ungrateful." Holmes turned to his desk and, unlocking it, drew out a small case-book, which he consulted. "Farintosh," said he. "Ah yes, I recall the case; it was concerned with an opal tiara. I think it was before your time, Watson. I can ony say, madam, that I shall be happy to devote the same care to your case as I did to that of your fiend. As to reward, my profession is its own reward; but you are at liberty to defray whatever expenses I may be put to, at the time which suits you best. And nw I beg that you will lay before us everything that may help us in forming an opinion upon the matter." "Alas!" replied our visitor, "the very horror of my situation lies in the fact that my fears are so vague, and my suspicions depend so entirely upon small points, which might seem trivial to another, that even he to whom of ll others I have a right to look for help and advice looks upon ll that I tell him about it as the fancies of a nervous woman. He does not say so, but I can read it from his soothing answers and averted eyes. But I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the huan heart. You may advise me how to walk amid the dangers which encompass me." "I am ll attention, madam." "My nme is Helen Stoner, and I am living with my stepfather, who is the last survivor of one of the oldest Saxon families in England, the Roylotts of Stoke Moran, on the western border of Surrey." Holmes nodded his head. "The nae is familiar to me," said he. "The family was at onetime among the richest in England, and the estates extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north, and Hampshire in the west. In the last century, however, four successive heirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition, and the family ruin was eventually completed by a gambler in the days of the Regency. Nothing was left sae a few acres of ground, and the two-hundred-year-old house, which is itself crushed under a heavy morgage. The last squire dragged out his existence there, living the horrible lie of an aristocratic pauper; but his nly son, my stepfather, seeing that he must adapt himself to the nw conditions, obtained an advance from a relative, which enabled him to take a medcal degree and went out to Calcutta, where, by his professional skill and his force of character, he established a large practice. In a fit of anger, however, caused by some robberies which had been perpetrated in the house, he beat his native butler to death and narrowly escaped a capital sentence. As it was, he suffered a long term of imprisonment and afterwards returned to England a morose and disappointed man. "When Dr. Roylott was in India he married my mother, Mrs. Stoner, the young widow of Major-General Stoner, of the Bengal Artillery. My sister Julia and I were twins, and we were oly two years old at the time of my mother's re-marriage. She had a considerable sum of mony—not less than 0 a year—and this she bequeathed to Dr. Roylott entirely while we resided with him, with a provision that a certain annual sum should be allowed to each of us in the event of our marriage. Shortly after our return to England my mother died—she was killed eight years ago in a railway accident near Crewe. Dr. Roylott then abandoned his attempts to establish himself in practice in London and took us to live with him in the old ancestral house at Stoke Moran. The moey which my mother had left was enough for ll our wants, and there seemed to be no obstacle to our happiness. "But a terrible change came over our stepfather about this time. Instead of making friends and exchanging visits with our neighbours, who had at first been overjoyed to see a Roylott of Stoke Moran back in the old family seat, he shut himself up in his house and seldom came out sae to indulge in ferocious quarrels with whoever might cross his path. Violence of temper approaching to mania has been hereditary in the men of the family, and in my stepfather's case it had, I believe, been intensified by his long residence in the tropics. A series of disgraceful brawls took place, two of which ended in the police-court, until at last he became the terror of the village, and the folks would fly at his approach, for he is a man of immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger. "Last week he hurled the local blacksmith over a parapet into a stream, and it wasonly by paying overall the mney which I could gather together that I was able to avert another public exposure. He had no friends at ll sve the wandering gipsies, and he would give these vagabonds leve to encamp upon the few acres of bramble-covered land which represent the family estate, and would accept in return the hospitality of their tents, wandering away with them sometimes for weeks on end. He has a passion also for Indian animals, which are |
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. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization. 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 Proto- or Old Canaanite or Proto-Sinaitic script, into a linear, purely 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 predecessor, the Proto-Canaanite, Old Canaanite or Proto-Sinaitic script,[5][4] used in the final stages of the Late Bronze Age, first in either Egypt or Canaan and then in the Syro-Hittite kingdoms, is the oldest fully matured alphabet, and it was derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs.[6][7] 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 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 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 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, giving rise to the Jewish square script and Perso-Arabic scripts, among others. "Phoenician proper" consists of 22 consonant letters (leaving vowel sounds implicit) – in other words, it is an abjad – although certain late varieties use matres lectionis for some vowels. As the letters were originally incised with a stylus, they 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 alternate directions (boustrophedon). History The Phoenician alphabet similar to that used on the Mesha Stele (the Moabite Stone) Seal inscribed in the Phoenician script (also known as Paleo-Hebrew) Origin Further information: Proto-Sinaitic script, Proto-Canaanite script, and Al-Khader Study of Phoenician medals, by Jean-Jacques Barthélemy The Pococke Kition inscriptions, transcribed by Jean-Jacques Barthélemy. No. 1 is Pococke's No. 2 (KAI 35), and No. 3 is Pococke's No. 4. The other two are Hebrew transliterations of the same inscriptions. Photograph of section of the Zayit Stone, 10th century BCE: (right-to-left) the letters waw, he, het, zayin, tet (𐤅𐤄𐤇𐤆𐤈) 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.[8] The inscriptions found on the Phoenician arrowheads at al-Khader near Bethlehem and dated to c. 1100 BCE offered the epigraphists the "missing link" between the two.[4][9] 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,[10][dubious – discuss] although the name "Phoenician" is by convention given to inscriptions beginning in the mid-11th century BC.[11] Gezer calendar The German philologist Max Müller (1823-1900) believed that the Phoenician alphabet was derived from the Ancient South Arabian script during the 9th-century BC rule of the Minaeans over parts of the Eastern Mediterranean.[12][clarification needed] Spread and adaptations Further information: History of the alphabet 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;[13] 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.[14] 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.[15] 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, 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 used their monopoly on information to control the common population.[16] 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,[17] 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).[18] The Phoenician alphabet was known to the Jewish sages of the Second Temple era, who called it the "Old Hebrew" (Paleo-Hebrew) script.[19][clarification needed] Notable inscriptions Main article: Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions Phoenician alphabet, deciphered by Jean-Jacques Barthélemy in 1758. No.1 is from the Cippi of Melqart, No.2 is from the coins, and No. 3 is from the Pococke Kition 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.[20] The oldest inscriptions are dated to the 10th century. KAI 1: Ahiram sarcophagus, Byblos, c. 850 BC. KAI 14: Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II, 5th century BC. KAI 15-16: Bodashtart inscriptions, 4th century BC. KAI 24: Kilamuwa Stela, 9th century BC. KAI 46: Nora Stone, c. 800 BC. KAI 47: Cippi of Melqart inscription, 2nd century BC. KAI 26: Karatepe bilingual, 8th century BC KAI 277: Pyrgi Tablets, Phoenician-Etruscan bilingual, c. 500 BC. Çineköy inscription, Phoenician-Luwian bilingual, 8th century BC. (Note: KAI = Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften) Modern rediscovery 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,[21] 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.[22][clarification needed] It was eventually discovered[clarification needed] that the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet was inspired by the model of hieroglyphs. Table of letters 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 gradual pronunciation changes which did not immediately lead to spelling changes.[23] 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 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 alphabet, and the Cumae variant into the Italic alphabets (including the Latin alphabet). 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 South Arabian. Origin Letter Name[24] Meaning Phoneme Transliteration Corresponding letter in Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic Proto-Canaanite Image Text Samaritan Aramaic Hebrew Syriac Parthian Arabic South Arabian Ge'ez Greek Latin Cyrillic Brahmi Devanagari Canadian Aboriginal syllabics Mongolian 𓃾 Aleph 𐤀 ʾālep ox, head of cattle ʾ [ʔ] ʾ ࠀ 𐡀 א ܐ 𐭀 ﺍ, ء 𐩱 አ Αα Aa Аа 𑀅 /a/ अ /a/ — /(a / e / o / u / ö / ü) 𓉐 Beth 𐤁 bēt house b [b] b ࠁ 𐡁 ב ܒ 𐭁 ﺏ 𐩨 በ Ββ Bb Бб, Вв 𑀩 /b/ ब /b/ — (ē / w) 𓌙 Gimel 𐤂 gīml throwing stick (or camel[25]) g [ɡ] g ࠂ 𐡂 ג ܓ 𐭂 ﺝ 𐩴 ገ Γγ Cc, Gg Гг, Ґґ 𑀕 /g/ ग /g/ ᑯ /ko/ (q / γ) 𓉿 Daleth 𐤃 dālet door (or fish[25]) d [d] d ࠃ 𐡃 ד ܕ 𐭃 د, ذ 𐩵 ደ Δδ Dd Дд 𑀥 /dʰ/ ध /dʰ/ — — 𓀠? He 𐤄 he window (or jubilation[25]) h [h] h ࠄ 𐡄 ה ܗ 𐭄 ه 𐩠 ሀ Εε Ee Ее, Ёё, Єє, Ээ 𑀳 /ɦ/ ह /ɦ/ — — 𓏲 Waw 𐤅 wāw hook w [w] w ࠅ 𐡅 ו ܘ 𐭅 ﻭ 𐩥 ወ (Ϝϝ), Υυ Ff, Uu, Vv, Ww, Yy Ѵѵ, Уу, Ўў 𑀯 /v/ व /v/ ᐤ /-w/ (o / u / ö / ü / w) 𓏭 Zayin 𐤆 zayin weapon (or manacle[25]) z [z] z ࠆ 𐡆 ז ܙ 𐭆 ﺯ 𐩸 ዘ Ζζ Zz Зз 𑀚 /ɟ/ ज /dʒ/ ᒐ /tʃa/ ——(s) 𓉗/𓈈? Heth 𐤇 ḥēt courtyard/wall[26] (?) ḥ [ħ] ḥ ࠇ 𐡇 ח ܚ 𐭇 ح, خ 𐩢 ሐ Ηη Hh Ии, Йй 𑀖 /gʰ/ घ /gʰ/ — (q / γ) 𓄤? Proto-semiticTet-01 Teth 𐤈 ṭēt wheel[27] ṭ [tˤ] ṭ ࠈ 𐡈 ט ܛ 𐭈 ط, ظ 𐩷 ጠ Θθ Ѳѳ 𑀣 /tʰ/ थ /tʰ/ — — 𓂝 Proto-semiticI-01 Yodh 𐤉 yod arm, hand y [j] j ࠉ 𐡉 י ܝ 𐭉 ي 𐩺 የ Ιι Ιi, Jj Іі, Її, Јј 𑀬 /j/ य /j/ ᔪ /jo/ (i / ǰ / y) 𓂧 |
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