Phoenician alphabet

Phoenician alphabet
Script type	Abjad
Time period	Began 1050 BC, and gradually died out during the Hellenistic period as its evolved forms replaced it
Direction	Right-to-left script
Languages	Phoenician
Related scripts
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
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Phnx (115), ​Phoenician
Unicode
Unicode alias	Phoenician
Unicode range	U+10900 to U+1091F

The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia. It has been classified as an abjad because it records only consonantal sounds, with the addition of matres lectionis for some vowels.

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. The Aramaic alphabet, a modified form of Phoenician, was the ancestor of the modern Arabic and Hebrew scripts. 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.

As the letters were originally incised with a stylus, most of the 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.

History

When the Phoenician alphabet was first uncovered in the 19th century, its origins were unknown. Scholars at first believed that the script was a direct variation of Egyptian hieroglyphs. This idea was especially popular due to the recent decipherment of hieroglyphs. However, scholars could not 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.

Parent scripts

The Proto-Sinaitic alphabet was in use from ca. 1850 BC in the Sinai by Canaanite speakers. There are sporadic attestations of very short Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions in Canaan in the late Middle and Late Bronze Age, but the script was not widely used until the rise of new Semitic kingdoms in the 13th and 12th centuries BC. The oldest known inscription that goes by the name of Phoenician is the Ahiram epitaph, engraved on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram from circa 1200 BC.

It has become conventional to refer to the script as "Proto-Canaanite" until the mid-11th century, when it is first attested on inscribed bronze arrowheads, and as "Phoenician" only after 1050 BC.

Spread of the alphabet and its social effects

The Phoenician adaptation of the alphabet was extremely successful, and variants were adapted around the Mediterranean from about the 9th century, notably giving rise to the Greek, Old Italic, Anatolian and Paleohispanic scripts. The alphabet's 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 with the other scripts in use at the time, such as Cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, which employed many complex characters and were difficult to learn.

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. 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.

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 people to learn how to write. This upset the long-standing status of writing systems only being learned and employed by members of the royal and religious hierarchies of society, who used writing as an instrument of power to control access to information by the larger population. 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.

Letter names

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. 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.

However, according to a theory by Theodor Nöldeke from 1904, 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"

Other researchers such as Prof. Yigael Yadin went to great lengths to prove that there actually were tools of war, similar to the original drawings Prof. Aron Demsky from Bar Ilan University showed that there were sequences of letters with close meanings, proving the correct reading of the drawings. In later research it was postulated that the alphabet is actually two complete lists, the first dealing with land agriculture and activity, and the second dealing with water, sea and fishing.

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. There were 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. Occasionally, Phoenician used a short stroke or dot symbol as a word separator.

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	UCS	Name	Meaning	Ph.	Corresponding letter in
					He.	Sy.	Ar.	Greek	Latin	Cyr.
	𐤀‎	alf	ox	ʾ [ʔ]	א	ܐ	ﺍ	Αα	Aa	Аа
	𐤁‎	bet	house	b [b]	ב	ܒ	ﺏ	Ββ	Bb	Бб, Вв
	𐤂‎	gaml	camel	g [ɡ]	ג	ܓ	ﺝ	Γγ	Cc, Gg	Гг, Ґґ
	𐤃‎	delt	door	d [d]	ד	ܕ	د, ذ	Δδ	Dd	Дд
	𐤄‎	he	window	h [h]	ה	ܗ	هـ	Εε	Ee	Ее, Єє, Ээ
	𐤅‎	wau	hook	w [w]	ו	ܘ	ﻭ, ﻑ	(Ϝϝ), Υυ	Ff, Yy, Vv, Uu	(Ѵѵ), Уу, Ўў
	𐤆‎	zai	weapon	z [z]	ז	ܙ	ﺯ	Ζζ	Zz	Зз
	𐤇‎	het	wall	ḥ [ħ]	ח	ܚ	ح, خ	Ηη	Hh	Ии, Йй
	𐤈‎	tet	wheel	ṭ [tˤ]	ט	ܛ	ط, ظ	Θθ		(Ѳѳ)
	𐤉‎	yod	hand	y [j]	י	ܝ	ي	Ιι	Ii, Jj	Іі, Її, Јј
	𐤊‎	kaf	palm (of a hand)	k [k]	כך	ܟ	ﻙ	Κκ	Kk	Кк
	𐤋‎	lamd	goad	l [l]	ל	ܠ	ﻝ	Λλ	Ll	Лл
	𐤌‎	mem	water	m [m]	מם	ܡ	ﻡ	Μμ	Mm	Мм
	𐤍‎	nun	serpent	n [n]	נן	ܢ	ﻥ	Νν	Nn	Нн
	𐤎‎	semk	fish	s [s]	ס	ܣ / ܤ	س	Ξξ, poss. Χχ	poss. Xx	(Ѯѯ), poss. Хх
	𐤏‎	ain	eye	ʿ [ʕ]	ע	ܥ	ع, غ	Οο	Oo	Оо
	𐤐‎	pe	mouth	p [p]	פף	ܦ	پ*	Ππ	Pp	Пп
	𐤑‎	sade	hunt	ṣ [sˤ]	צץ	ܨ	ص, ض	(Ϻϻ)		Цц, Чч, Џџ
	𐤒‎	qof	monkey	q [q]	ק	ܩ	ﻕ	(Ϙϙ), poss. Φφ, Ψψ	Qq	(Ҁҁ), poss. Фф, (Ѱѱ)
	𐤓‎	rosh	head	r [r]	ר	ܪ	ﺭ	Ρρ	Rr	Рр
	𐤔‎	shin	tooth	š [ʃ]	ש	ܫ	ش	Σσς	Ss	Сс, Шш
	𐤕‎	tau	mark	t [t]	ת	ܬ	ت, ث	Ττ	Tt	Тт

*This letter is only used in Persian Farsi/Dari and is not a sound or letter used in Arabic

		Labial	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
			Plain	Emphatic
Nasal		m	n
Stop	Voiceless	p	t	tˤ		k	q		ʔ
	Voiced	b	d			ɡ
Fricative	Voiceless		s	sˤ	ʃ			ħ	h
	Voiced		z					ʕ
Trill			r
Approximant			l		j	w

The numerals

The Phoenician numeral system consisted of separate symbols for 1, 5, 10, 20, and 100. The sign for 1 was a simple vertical stroke. Other numbers 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. The sign for 20 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. The 100 symbol could be combined with a preceding numeral in a multiplicatory way, e.g. the combination of "4" and "100" yielded 400.

Encoding

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 𐤟‎ is the word separator.

Phoenician[1][2] Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

A

B

C

D

E

F

U+1090x

𐤀‎

𐤁‎

𐤂‎

𐤃‎

𐤄‎

𐤅‎

𐤆‎

𐤇‎

𐤈‎

𐤉‎

𐤊‎

𐤋‎

𐤌‎

𐤍‎

𐤎‎

𐤏‎

U+1091x

𐤐‎

𐤑‎

𐤒‎

𐤓‎

𐤔‎

𐤕‎

𐤖‎

𐤗‎

𐤘‎

𐤙‎

𐤚‎

𐤛‎

𐤟‎

Notes 1.^ As of Unicode version 15.1 2.^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points

Derived alphabets

Each letter of Phoenician gave way to a new form in its daughter scripts. Left to right:Latin, Greek, Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic

Middle Eastern descendents

The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, used to write early Hebrew, was a regional offshoot of, but was rooted in Phoenician; it is nearly identical to the Phoenician one. The Samaritan alphabet, used by the Samaritans, is a direct descendant 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 Nabataean alphabet. Thus Phoenician was the origin of the Arabic alphabet which is the major alphabet of the Arabic Middle East - from Iraq, the Levant, and North Africa.

Derived European scripts

According to Herodotus, 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, which was later introduced to the rest of Europe. Herodotus, who gives this account, estimates that Cadmus lived sixteen hundred years before his time, or around 2000 BC. However, Herodotus' writings are not used as a standard source by contemporary historians. The Greek alphabet is derived from the Phoenician alphabet. The phonology of Greek being different from that of Phoenician, the Greeks modified the Phoenician script to better suit their language. It was particularly 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. For this reason the Greeks adapted some of the signs of the Phoenician script that represented unused consonants for vowels. For example ʾāleph, which designated a glottal stop in Phoenician, was re-purposed 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 a form of the Greek alphabet), used for Etruscan and other languages. The Runic alphabet also seems to have been derived from an early form of Old Italic alphabet, via the Alpine scripts.

Influence in India and Eastern Asia

Most historians believe that the Brahmi script and the subsequent Indic alphabets are derived from the Aramaic script as well, which would make Phoenician the ancestor of most writing systems in use today. This possibly includes even hangul, which may have been influenced by Brahmic Phagspa. This would mean that of all the major national scripts in use in the world today, only the Chinese script and its derivatives have an independent origin.

See also

• Arabic alphabet
• Aramaic alphabet
• Hebrew alphabet
• Greek alphabet
• Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
• Tanakh at Qumran
• Tifinagh
• Old Turkic script

References

• Jean-Pierre Thiollet, Je m'appelle Byblos, H & D, Paris, 2005. ISBN 2 914 266 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, 2003.
• Markoe, Glenn E., Phoenicians. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22613-5 (2000) (hardback)
• Ancient Hebrew and Aramaic on Coins, reading and transliterating Proto-Hebrew, online edition. (Judaea Coin Archive)

External links

• Ancient Scripts.com (Phoenician)
• Omniglot.com (Phoenician alphabet)
• official Unicode standards document for Phoenician (PDF file)
• [1] Free-Libre GPL2 Licenced Unicode Phoenician Font