39 lines
2.7 KiB
Markdown
39 lines
2.7 KiB
Markdown
<!-- factbase:a94620 -->
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# Phoenician Alphabet
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## Overview
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The Phoenician alphabet (~1050 BCE) was the first widely-used phonetic alphabet, consisting of 22 consonant letters. It is the ancestor of virtually all modern alphabets including Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew. @t[~1050 BCE]
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## Key Facts
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- Origin: Phoenicia (modern Lebanon), ~1050 BCE @t[~1050 BCE] [^1]
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- Type: Abjad (consonantal alphabet, no vowels) [^2]
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- Number of letters: 22 [^1]
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- Direction: Right to left [^1]
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- Derived from: Proto-Sinaitic/Proto-Canaanite script (~1800 BCE) @t[~1800 BCE] [^1]
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- Used for: Iron Age Canaanite languages — Phoenician, Hebrew, Ammonite, Edomite, Old Aramaic [^3]
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## Oldest Known Evidence
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The Ahiram Sarcophagus (KAI 1), discovered in 1923 by French archaeologist Pierre Montet at Byblos (modern Jbeil, Lebanon), bears the earliest known example of the fully developed Phoenician alphabet. @t[~1050 BCE] The inscription is a funerary curse warning against disturbing the tomb; it is preserved in the National Museum of Beirut. [^4]
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## Letter Names and Acrophonic Principle
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The 22 letters were named acrophonically — each letter name began with the sound it represented, and the letter form derived from an Egyptian hieroglyph depicting that object. For example: *ʔalp* (𐤀, ox), *bayt* (𐤁, house), *gaml* (𐤂, throwing stick). This acrophonic origin links the Phoenician alphabet directly to Egyptian hieroglyphic tradition. [^5]
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## Descendants
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- Greek alphabet (~800 BCE): Added vowels, adapted letter forms @t[~800 BCE] [^1]
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- Aramaic alphabet: Ancestor of Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and many Asian scripts [^2]
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- Latin alphabet (via Greek and Etruscan): Used by most of the modern world [^2]
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- Punic script: Variant used in Carthage and North Africa @t[~814 BCE..146 BCE] [^3]
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- South Arabian script: Ancestor of Ethiopic (Ge'ez) [^2]
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## Significance
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- Simplified writing from hundreds of signs (cuneiform, hieroglyphics) to 22 letters [^2]
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- Made literacy more accessible beyond scribal elites [^2]
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- Spread across the Mediterranean through Phoenician trade networks; Tyro-Sidonian commercial dominance made Phoenician a maritime lingua franca during the Iron Age [^3]
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- Encoded in Unicode block U+10900–U+1091F [^5]
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---
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[^1]: Sass, B. *The Genesis of the Alphabet* (1988)
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[^2]: Daniels, P.T. & Bright, W. *The World's Writing Systems* (Oxford, 1996)
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[^3]: Wikipedia contributors. "Phoenician language." *Wikipedia*. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_language
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[^4]: History of Information. "The Oldest Known Evidence of the Phoenician Alphabet." http://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=1310
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[^5]: Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Phoenician alphabet." https://www.britannica.com/topic/Phoenician-alphabet |