Phoenician alphabet

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Phoenician alphabet
Type Abjad
Languages Phoenician
Time period Began 1050 BCE, and gradually died out as its evolved forms replaced it
Parent systems Egyptian hieroglyphs
 → Proto-Sinaitic
  → Proto-Canaanite alphabet
   → Phoenician alphabet
Child systems Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
Aramaic alphabet
Greek alphabet
Many hypothesized others
Sister systems South Arabian alphabet
Unicode range U+10900 to U+1091F
ISO 15924 Phnx
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
History of the alphabet

Middle Bronze Age 19th c. BCE
Meroitic 3rd c. BCE
Ogham 4th c.
Hangul 1443
Canadian Syllabics 1840
Zhuyin 1913
complete genealogy

The Phoenician alphabet is a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention taken to originate around 1050 BC. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language. The Phoenician alphabet is classified as an abjad in that it records only consonant sounds (with the addition of matres lectionis). However, the Greek alphabet, a descendant of Phoenician, modified the script to represent vowel phonemes as well.

Phoenician became one of the most widely used writing systems, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it was assimilated by many other cultures and evolved. Many modern writing systems thought to have descended from Phoenician cover much of the world. The Aramaic alphabet, a modified form of Phoenician, was the ancestor of the modern Arabic and Hebrew scripts, as well as the Brāhmī script, the parent writing system of most modern abugidas in India, Southeast Asia, Tibet, and Mongolia. The Greek alphabet (and by extension its descendants such as the Latin, the Cyrillic and the Coptic), was a direct successor of Phoenician, though certain letter values were changed to represent vowels.

Contents

When the Phoenicians were first uncovered in the 19th century, its origins were unknown. Scholars at first believed that the script was a direct variation of Egyptian hieroglyphs.[1] This idea was especially popular due to the recent decipherment of hieroglyphs. However, no scholars could find any link between the two writing systems. Certain scholars hypothesized ties with Hieratic, Cuneiform, or even an independent creation, perhaps inspired by some other writing system. The theories of independent creation ranged from the idea of a single man conceiving it to the Hyksos people forming it from corrupt Egyptian.[2]

With the discovery of the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet, scientists discovered the missing link between Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Proto-Canaanite script. This discovery reinforced the earlier hypothesis of Phoenician's Egyptian origin. The Proto-Sinaitic script was in use from ca. 1500 BCE in the Sinai and the Levant, probably by early West Semitic speakers. In Canaan it developed into the Proto-Canaanite alphabet from ca. 1400 BCE, adapted to writing a Canaanite (Northwest Semitic) language.

The Phoenician alphabet seamlessly continues the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention called Phoenician from the mid 11th century. Phoenician became the widespread form of Proto-Canaanite; previously, the script had been restricted to recording only Canaanite languages.

Phoenician differed in only letterform and time period from the Proto-Canaanite script, so it is therefore difficult to attest a specific beginning of the alphabet. However, the oldest known inscription of Phoenician is known as the Ahiram epitaph, and is engraved on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram.[3]

The Phoenician adaptation of the alphabet was extremely successful, and variants were adapted around the Mediterranean from ca. the 9th century, notably giving rise to the Greek, Old Italic, Anatolian and Paleohispanic scripts. Its success was due in part to its phonetic nature; Phoenician was the first widely used script in which one sound was represented by one symbol. This simple system contrasted the other scripts in use at the time, such as Cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, which employed many complex characters and were difficult to learn.[4] This one-to-one configuration also made it possible for Phoenician to be employed in multiple languages.

Another reason of its success was the maritime trading culture of Phoenician merchants, which spread the use of the alphabet into parts of North Africa and Europe.[5] In fact, inscriptions of Phoenician have been found as far as Ireland. 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.[6]

Phoenician had long-term effects on the social structures of the civilizations which came in contact with it. As mentioned above, the script was the first widespread phonetic script. Its simplicity not only allowed it to be used in multiple languages, but it also allowed the common population to learn how to write. This upset the long-standing status of writing systems only being learnt and employed by members of the royal and religious groups of society, who used writing as an instrument of power to control the access of information by the larger population.[7] The appearance of Phoenician disintegrated many of these class divisions, although many Middle Eastern kingdoms would continue to use cuneiform for legal and liturgical matters well into the common era.

As the letters were originally incised with a stylus, most shapes are angular and straight, although more cursive versions are increasingly attested in later times, culminating in the Neo-Punic alphabet of Roman-era North Africa. Phoenician was usually written from right to left, although there are some texts written in boustrophedon (consecutive lines in alternating directions).

Phoenician uses a system of acrophony to name letters. The names of the letters are essentially the same as in its parental scripts, which are in turn derived from the word values of the original hieroglyph for each letter.[8] The original word was translated from Egyptian into its equivalent form in the Semitic language, and then the initial sound of the translated word become the letter's value.[9] However, some of the letter names were changed in Phoenician from the Proto-Canaanite script. This includes:

  • gaml "throwing stick" to gimel "camel"
  • digg "fish" to dalet "door"
  • hll "jubilation" to he "window"
  • ziqq "manacle" to zayin "weapon"
  • naḥš "snake" to nun "fish"
  • piʾt "corner" to pe "mouth"
  • šimš "sun" to šin "tooth"

The meanings given are of the letter names in Phoenician. The Phoenician letter names are not directly attested and were reconstructed by Theodor Nöldeke in 1904.

The Phoenician letterforms shown here are idealized — actual Phoenician writing was cruder and more variable in appearance. There were also significant variations in Phoenician letterforms by era and region.

When alphabetic writing began in Greece, the letterforms used were similar but not identical to the Phoenician ones and vowels were added, because the Phoenician Alphabet did not contain any vowels, this is because the Phoenician Alphabet was derived from Egyptian Hieroglphyics which also did not contain vowels. There was also distinct variations of the writing system in different parts of Greece, primarily in how the Phoenician characters which did not have an exact match to Greek sounds were employed. One of these local Greek alphabets evolved into the standard Greek alphabet, and another into the Latin alphabet, which accounts for many of the differences between the two.

The chart shows the graphical evolution of Phoenician letterforms into other alphabets. The sound values often changed significantly, both during the initial creation of new alphabets, and due to pronunciation changes of languages using the alphabets over time.

Letter Unicode Name Meaning Sound Corresponding letter in
Hebrew Arabic Greek Latin Cyrillic
Aleph 𐤀 ʼāleph ox ʼ א ﺍ Αα Aa Аа
Beth 𐤁 bēth house b ב ﺏ Ββ Bb Бб, Вв
Gimel 𐤂 gīmel camel g ג ﺝ Γγ Cc, Gg Гг
Daleth 𐤃 dāleth door d ד د,ذ Δδ Dd Дд
He 𐤄 hē window h ה ه Εε Ee Ее, Єє
Waw 𐤅 wāw hook w ו ﻭ Υυ, (Ϝϝ) Yy, Ff, Vv, Uu, Ww Уу
Zayin 𐤆 zayin weapon z ז ﺯ Ζζ Zz Зз
Heth 𐤇 ḥēth fence ḥ ח ح,خ Ηη Hh Ии, Йй
Teth 𐤈 ṭēth wheel ṭ ט ط,ظ Θθ (Ѳѳ)
Yodh 𐤉 yōdh arm y י ي Ιι Ii, Jj Іі, Її, Јј
Kaph 𐤊 kaph palm (of a hand) k כ,ך ﻙ Κκ Kk Кк
Lamedh 𐤋 lāmedh goad l ל ﻝ Λλ Ll Лл
Mem 𐤌 mēm water m מ,ם ﻡ Μμ Mm Мм
Nun 𐤍 nun fish n נ,ן ﻥ Νν Nn Нн
Samekh 𐤎 sāmekh pillar s ס Ξξ, poss. Χχ poss. Xx (Ѯѯ), poss. Хх
Ayin 𐤏 ʼayin eye ʼ ע ع,غ Οο Oo Оо
Pe 𐤐 pē mouth p פ,ף ﻑ Ππ Pp Пп
Sade 𐤑 ṣādē papyrus plant ṣ צ,ץ ص,ض (Ϻϻ) Цц, Чч
Qoph 𐤒 qōph Eye of a needle q ק ﻕ (Ϙϙ) Qq
Res 𐤓 rēš head r ר ﺭ Ρρ Rr Рр
Sin 𐤔 šin tooth š ש س,ش Σσ Ss Сс, Шш
Taw 𐤕 tāw mark t ת ت,ث Ττ Tt Тт

The Phoenician script was accepted for encoding in Unicode 5.0 in the range U+10900 to U+1091F. An alternative proposal to handle it as a font variation of Hebrew was turned down. (See PDF summary.) 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 𐤟 the word separator.

Phoenician
Unicode.org chart (PDF)
U+ 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
1090 𐤀 𐤁 𐤂 𐤃 𐤄 𐤅 𐤆 𐤇 𐤈 𐤉 𐤊 𐤋 𐤌 𐤍 𐤎 𐤏
1091 𐤐 𐤑 𐤒 𐤓 𐤔 𐤕 𐤖 𐤗 𐤘 𐤙 𐤚 𐤛 𐤜 𐤝 𐤞 𐤟

Each letter of Phoenician gave way to a new form in its daughter scripts
Each letter of Phoenician gave way to a new form in its daughter scripts

The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, used to write early Hebrew, As a regional offshoot, but rooted in, Phoenician, it is nearly identical to the Phoenician one. The Samaritan alphabet, used by the Samaritans, is purported by some to be a later version of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet.

The Aramaic alphabet, used to write Aramaic, is another descendant of Phoenician. Aramaic being the lingua franca of the Middle East, it was widely adopted. It later split off (due to power/political borders) into a number of related alphabets, including the Hebrew alphabet, the Syriac alphabet, and the Nabatean alphabet. Thus Phoenician was the origin of the Arabic alphabet which is the major alphabet of the Arabic Middle East - from the Levant to Iran, and parts of North Eastern Africa.

The Greek alphabet is derived from the Phoenician alphabet. The phonology of Greek was very different from that of Phoenician: in particular it was necessary to distinguish between different vowel sounds. For this reason the Greeks adapted some of the signs of the Phoenician script that represented unused consonants for vowels. For example ʼāleph, which designated a glottal stop in Phoenician, was repurposed to represent the vowel /a/.

The Cyrillic alphabet was derived from the Greek alphabet. Some Cyrillic letters are based on Glagolitic forms, which were influenced by the Hebrew alphabet.

The Latin alphabet was derived from Old Italic (originally from the Greek alphabet), used for Etruscan and other languages. The Runic alphabet also seem to have been derived from an early form of Old Italic alphabet, via the Alpine scripts.

Many historians believe that the Brahmi script and the subsequent Indic alphabets are derived from this script as well,[citation needed] which would make it the ancestor of almost all major writing systems in use today, possibly including even Hangul, which is possibly derived from Phagspa, itself a derivative of a Brahmi script; this would mean that of all the scripts in use in the world today, only the Chinese script and its derivatives have an independent origin. It is important to note, however, that the ancient scripts of the Maya and Sumerian cultures evolved independently, and that the Phoenician alphabet owes much of its inspiration to the Egyptian writing system.

  1. ^ Jensen (1969) p. 256.
  2. ^ Jensen (1969) p. 256-258.
  3. ^ Coulmas (1989) p. 141.
  4. ^ Hock and Joseph (1996) p. 85.
  5. ^ Daniels (1996) p. 94-95.
  6. ^ Semitic script dated to 1800 BCE
  7. ^ Fischer (2003) p. 68-69.
  8. ^ Jensen (1969) p. 262.
  9. ^ Jensen (1969) p. 262-263.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
  • Sanford Holst, Phoenicians: Lebanon's Epic Heritage, Cambridge and Boston Press, Los Angeles, 2005.
  • Jean-Pierre Thiollet, Je m'appelle Byblos, H & D, Paris, 2005. ISBN 2 914 266 04 9
  • George Rawlinson, History of Phoenicia, Longmans and Green, 1889.
  • 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, 2003.

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