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According to the box, Old Italic and Latin are basically independent derivations from Greek, but isn't Latin an evolution of the Old Italic alphabet? I'd say this would look better:
Comments?
See Talk:Middle Bronze Age alphabets
I'm a novice on this topic, but it seems to me that there are several written communcation systems that should be mentioned here, if only to dispel the myth that they developed independently.
First of all, I've read that Mayan writing on monuments and in inked codices was in many ways alphabetic, and it doesn't seem possible that it was derived from a semitic source.
Second, I've heard stories that the Korean script, Hangul, was invented by a single individual, and that many of the forms were based on the shape made by the tongue when pronouncing a given consonant. I've heard this story from several sources, so it seems worth dispelling the myth if it is indeed a myth.
Phoenician is no longer polictally correct. IS the ancient Paleo-Midddle-Eastern adjad. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.38.144.241 ( talk) 06:02, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Often in the discussion of the history of the alphabet, some terms are used with some flexibility in meaning. First, the term "the alphabet" often refers in western usage to the 26-letter Latin alphabet. In fact, the term "alphabet" refers to any writing system that denotes both vowels and consonants. The Latin alphabet is derived from Etruscan and Greek alphabets. The term "alphabet" first applies historically -- in the strictest definition of the term -- to the Greek Alphabet. The Greek alphabet was adopted and adapted from the Phoenicians' writing system which denoted primarily consonants. While the Phoenician writing system is often called the Phoenician Alphabet, some scholars, who insist it lies outside the category of alphabet, refer to it as the Phoenician abjad. The Phoenician abjad developed from early Semitic abjads. The origin of these Semitic abjads has been the source of much speculation and debate. Evidence and consensus points to a borrowing of Egyptian symbols which were re-assigned consonantal values by Semitic writers. In the sense that the history of alphabetic writing begins with the Egyptians, it is significant that the Egyptians had phonetic symbols. These phonetic symbols, however, were a very small subset of a vast, complex writing system.
The history outlined in this article, then, traces the idea and usage of PHONETIC writing that LEAD to the development of alphabetic writing.
This article is misleading in its title – implying the existence of one "the alphabet" – and in its content by not carefully defining the object of its discussion. (This article might be better titled "The development of phonetic writing.")
Dbachmann, if we're going to cite 22 consonants and the ABC alphabetic order, we should restrict ourselves to Phoenician and the subset of alphabets that descend from it. If we're going to talk about the history of the alphabet, then we should acknowledge all the alphabets in the family, which reflect 27 (Ugaritic) or 29 (S. Arabic) consonants, that were reduced to 22 in Phoenician, and also acknowledge both alphabetic orders. The latter is much more encyclopedic. I added it in, but was reverted. Will add again unless you wish too. kwami 19:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Please split the final column into "Greek", "Latin", and "Cyrillic". Georgia guy 01:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I am not going to insist on the passage, but I am not sure I am "flying in the face of mainstream scholarship". The earliest evidence for Greek alphabets date to the (early) 8th century. The earliest evidence for Old Italic or Anatolian alphabets, to the (late) 8th century. I.e. their temporal separation is a matter of decades. At such early times, it is a matter of terminology if you still speak of local variants of the Phoenician alphabets, or of early variants of the independent descendants. The Masiliana abecedarium is practically identical to the Phoenician alphabet, it is an academic question if it is a nascent Greek alphabet or a local variant of the Phoenician one. The Carian alphabet went undeciphered for many decades because people assumed it was derived from Greek. It was only deciphered when it was re-evaluated as independent from Greek. dab (ᛏ) 19:56, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
A different question. Under "Transmission to Greece", the article says "separate letters for vowels would have actually hindered the legibility of Egyptian, Phoenician, or Hebrew." At the very least, I think this needs a citation; better would be an explanation of this putative fact. (I happen to think it's wrong, the vowels are no less relevant in Semitic than they are in Greek; but that's just a personal opinion and not worth mentioning.) Mcswell ( talk) 21:46, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Check that out, evolution of the alphabet. Comments? Fresheneesz 08:38, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Instead of having arabic alone, I really think that nabatean should be before it and have arabic come out of it. Eshcorp
The article claims that the Hangul alphabet is *not* inspired in some way by the alphabet of the Egyptians. Reading the Hangul article, it says "some aspects of Hangul reflect a shared history with the Phagspa alphabet". Reading the Phagspa alphabet article, I can find "adapted the Uyghur alphabet — a descendant of the Syriac alphabet, via Sogdian — to write Mongol". The Syriac alphabet is surely in the line of inspiration from the Egyptian alphabet. I therefore have removed the stated Hangul exception. Hangul may be unique in other ways, but it apparently wasn't a tabula rasa re-invention of alphabetic principles. Martijn Faassen 21:22, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I removed the paranthesis about abjads ("...earliest alphabets (properly, 'abjads'..." because according to the article on abjads, "abjad", as used here, isn't a generally accepted term. And in any case, an abjad is a type of alphabet which means that "alphabet" is not at all incorrect by anyone's standards.
The term "abjad" seems to be cropping up in inappropriate places on wikipedia (e.g. a link from Proto-Semitic to this page is labelled "Semitic abjads", although this will be corrected by the time you read this). This is gratuitous obscurantism and it makes me suspect that an academic turf war may be being fought here. Ireneshusband 00:43, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I made a small rewrite. But want to make sure you I didn't change the meaning.
I belive the rewrite is clearer, mainly for the less read in alphabet history. Pablo2garcia 13:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
-- OLD LINE From it can be traced nearly all the alphabets ever used, most of which descend from the younger Phoenician version of the script.
-- INTRODUCED REWRITE From it can be traced nearly all the alphabets ever used, most of which descend from the Phoenician, an early version of the Canaanite script. --
I removed the "citation needed" from the sentence about abjadi order surviving or being reintroduced in alphabets which switched orders. The original abjd hwz hty klmn s`fs order is the basis for the traditional Arabic number system, just as in Greek and Hebrew, and is well known. the "abjadi order" article linked to in the sentence provides sufficient documentation. There is no need for further references here. IQAG1060 ( talk) 03:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
This needs to be fixed. Hangul is currently in use, and it's unrelated to the Canaanite alphabet. -- Kjoon lee 03:52, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
It appears from the article, that the perspective is basically european/middle-east centric (ie. areas influenced by various abrahamic cultures). There is an urgent need to cover other scripts that have not originated from Middle east, Greek, Latin. 129.118.38.222 ( talk) 19:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Latest findings prove that the history of alphabet comes from variations of the greek alpabet. Please take a look at this wiki - page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispilio_Tablet. In the last twelve years there are findings basically from to archaelogists n.sampson and g.hourmouziadis that testify that there have been written texts from 5000 - 6000bc.
Please update the article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.75.239.19 ( talk) 15:02, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Why is it in the current order it is right now? Petrarch1603 ( talk) 18:45, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
The greek alphabet is said to have started in early 8th century BCE (cf its wikipedia entry). But the summary box on the right side of the page has 9th century BCE. Shouldnt it be changed to 8th century BCE ?
Same thing with the hebrew alphabet, the modern version based on the "square script" was adopted in the 6th century BCE, but the summary box has 3rd century BCE. Any objections if I change it to 6th century BCE ? -- Squallgreg ( talk) 13:18, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
Please use images as much as possible instead of unicode characters for scripts that are not very common world-wide. How many people visiting this page will have a Phoenician font installed? Probably almost none. And how many will be able to display Tibetic? It's a contemporary script, but WinXP, which is the most common OS, doesn't support it. I don't want to have to install fonts just to see a few symbols on one single page... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.177.48.48 ( talk) 08:52, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
In the article on the Phoenician alphabet it is stated that scholars could not find any link between the Phoenician alphabet and the Egyptian hieroglyphs. This article states that most alphabets in the world, including the Greek alphabet, descended from the hieroglyphs. However, according to the article on the Phoenician alphabet the Greek alphabet was a descendant of the Phoenician. I am confused. Could some scholar please clear up the matter for me and e-mail me at dugeot at iafrica dot com? I will thank thee very, very, very much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.243.57.59 ( talk) 23:48, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
In the paragraph entitled "Greek alphabet", we are told that vowel letters actually hindered Egyptian, Hebrew and Arabic. Maltese has been written with vowel letters for centuries and so has Coptic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.254.83 ( talk) 08:27, 15 May 2010 (UTC) A call for explanation has been in the text for some time with no answer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.254.83 ( talk) 08:29, 15 May 2010 (UTC) Maltese is a dialect of colloquial Arabic and Coptic is a later form of Ancient Egyptian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.254.83 ( talk) 08:34, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
There is no evidence that the Brahmic script derives from Aramaic. Its just a theory so i don't see why its even mentioned that Brahmic is actually related to it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.139.56 ( talk) 11:36, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
"The Anglo-Saxons began using Roman letters to write Old English as they converted to Christianity, following Augustine of Canterbury's mission to Britain in the sixth century. Because the Runic wen, which was first used to represent the sound 'w' and looked like a p that is narrow and triangular, was easy to confuse with an actual p, the 'w' sound began to be written using a double u. Because the u at the time looked like a v, the double u looked like two v's, W was placed in the alphabet by V."
Where to start? The name of the letter is wynn, not "wen"; the Anglo-Saxons used it side-by-side with the letter P for centuries (down to the 12th century) indicating that there was no confusion for either scribes or contemporary readers. The letter is doubtless derived from the rune, but unlike the rune is not "narrow and triangular"; it has a curved top and a diagonal joining the top to the vertical stem. The contemporary forms of p (which was rather rare in Anglo-Saxon itself, though common in Latin) were shaped differently, having two joined curves.
In the continental Germanic languages, however, the sequence uu was used for the sound of [w] at least as early as the 9th century; over time it was replaced by the ligature w. This spelling was brought into England by the Normans, and gradually displaced the native wynn because it was more familiar to scribes who primarily wrote in Norman-French. I know of no evidence that any similarity between wynn and p motivated the shift. I think this whole paragraph is speculation by a hasty editor. RandomCritic ( talk) 18:58, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
The statement "Greek, the first true alphabet in that it consistently assigns letters to both consonants and vowels." is in my view erroneous.
In either way, I speak Aramaic. I can write it. I can read it, even if the vowels are not written out. We have many ways of denoting the vowels. We can use simple dots, or we even have separate symbols for them however we can also write the language without them and still read the words pronouncing the vowels. This is done partly by recognizing the set of consonants and also it is important to note that the consonants in Aramaic themselves reveal largely which vowel is to be pronounced when reading the word (with exceptions of course). When we type vowels in Aramaic they are always typed along with a consonant on the basline. The vowels are always followed by the same consonants (most of the time) and if you know the rules and is familiar with the language it is easy to understand that you wouldn't need to type out the vowels as the consonant itself represents a vowel (generally when familiar with a word the vowels are not simply needed to be typed out explicitly). So the statement I am disputing at the top of this passage would have to mean that Phonecians, Arameans etc didn't use vowels when they pronounced a written word? Of course this statement is absurd. Vowels are incorporated in these languages, just in a very clever way (remember Phonecian and Aramaic languages spread due to their intelligent and simple ways of typing down speech). It seems to me that the writer of this Wiki article has been outsmarted by this simple system.
In this way some different dialects of Aramaic that are still used today, sound differentwhen spoken but when written down and vowels omitted they infact look the same (as the main difference in the dialects are the use of the vowels) and can be understood by the speakers of the different dialects. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ManoYMano100 ( talk • contribs) 23:38, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes indeed. Alphabet: "A system of characters, signs, or symbols used to indicate letters or speech sounds." Nor can I find any reference to "true alphabet" as a technical term in the literature.
Finally, just to be safe, a quick check on Google Scholar shows that in the academic literature the term "true alphabet" is almost completely absent. And even among the few hits, most appear to be irrelevant, for example: "George Grierson called Landa the “true alphabet of the Punjab”."
I will edit.
Micheln ( talk) 08:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Note also how even in the section itself, the word "true" is between quotes, showing how the usage is non-standard.
Assuming that some scholars use this terminology, then in my view it is acceptable to use the term in a section paragraph, on one condition: the context must make it clear that this is not a consensus-terminology. But it should definitely not be used in a section header unless and until it becomes a generally accepted terminology in the academic community. Micheln ( talk) 08:44, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
We've got a bit of an edit war going on here (myself included), and both editors are trying to resolve it in the edit summaries, but that doesn't seem to be working. It involves the opening sentences of History of the alphabet#Semitic alphabet under Consonantal alphabets. The intro is "The Proto-Sinaitic script of Egypt has yet to be fully deciphered. However, it may alphabetic [sic] and probably records the Canaanite language."
This is in an article titled 'History of the alphabet', in a section called 'Consonantal alphabets' and subsection 'Semitic alphabet'. If your objection is that the Semitic alphabet is not an alphabet, then shouldn't we change the rest of this too? We also describe the Egyptian uniliterals as 'alphabetic' in the preceding section. When I suggested that perhaps you should read the article to understand the context of the edit before revert warring over it, this is what I meant. — kwami ( talk) 22:19, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Why is the row called "Possible Egyptian prototype" empty? -- Espoo ( talk) 16:42, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I am out of my field here, but why is:
• The Tibetan ད (Da) not on the D row, (and a dash is there) • The Tibetan ཧ (Ha) on the E row (especially as Brahmic languages are abugida, and the vowels (in Tibetan) are written in dependant on a consonant) • The Tibetan ཝ (Wa) present at all, as it's a relatively modern addition to the alphabet • The Tibetan Da ད (ཌ) (or retroflex Da) is found on the Z two instead of ཟ (ZA) • The Tibetan ཧ (Ha) not on the H row, (and a dash is there) • The Tibetan ཐ (ཋ) (T'a, or retroflex - aspirated T) on the Θ row, as it's not pronounced like Θ, but as an (non-fricative) aspirated dental. • The Tibetan ཤ (Sha) on the Ξ row, as it's not pronounced like Ξ, but as (IPA [ʃ]) (sh) • The Tibetan ཕ (P'a - aspirated P) present on the P row, especially as the correlate ཐ is not on the T row. • The Tibetan ས (Sa) present on the Sampi row, as it's pronounced the same way as Σ • The Tibetan ཁ (K'a - aspirated K) on the Q row? • The Tibetan ཥ (retroflex Sha, only used when transliterating Sanskrit) on the S row, and not ས (Sa) ?
The mere appearances of many of these letters do not match - they represent different sounds, and their I am pretty confused by their presence! At least the article should explain how the correlation is made, and by what sources. I see that the table is captioned "The transmission of the alphabet from Tibetan (through Phagspa) to Hangul is also controversial." Well, without discussion it appears to be fabricated. ( 20040302 ( talk) 11:03, 14 October 2011 (UTC))
I have pulled the unsourced, highly suspect correlation regarding the Brahmic descent. The cut text follows
Western ← | Phoenician | → Brahmic | → Korean | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Latin | Greek | Gujarati | Devanagari | Tibetan citation needed | ||
A | Α |
![]() |
અ | अ | ཨ | |
B | В |
![]() |
બ | ब | བ | ㅂ |
C, G | Г |
![]() |
ગ | ग | ག | ㄱ |
D | Δ |
![]() |
ધ (ઢ) | ध (ढ) | – | ㄷ |
E | Ε |
![]() |
હ | ह | ཧ | (ㅱ) |
F, V | Ϝ, Υ |
![]() |
વ | व | ཝ | |
Z | Ζ |
![]() |
દ (ડ) | द (ड) | ད (ཌ) | ㅈ |
H | Η |
![]() |
ઘ | घ | – | |
– | Θ |
![]() |
થ (ઠ) | थ (ठ) | ཐ (ཋ) | |
I, J | Ι |
![]() |
ય | य | ཡ | |
K | Κ |
![]() |
ક | क | ཀ | ㅋ |
L | Λ |
![]() |
લ | ल | ལ | ㄹㄹ |
M | Μ |
![]() |
મ | म | མ | ㅁ |
N | Ν |
![]() |
ન | न | ན | ㄴ |
– | Ξ |
![]() |
શ | श | ཤ | |
O | Ο |
![]() |
? | |||
P | Π |
![]() |
પ, ફ | प, फ | པ, ཕ | ㅍ |
– | Ϡ |
![]() |
સ | स | ས | |
Q | Ϙ |
![]() |
ખ | ख | ཁ | |
R | Ρ |
![]() |
ર | र | ར | ㄹ |
S | Σ |
![]() |
ષ | ष | ཥ | ㅅ |
T | Τ |
![]() |
ત (ટ) | त (ट) | ཏ (ཊ) | ㅌ |
Table: The spread of the alphabet west (Greek, Latin) and east (Brahmic, Korean). Note that the exact correspondence between Phoenician (through Aramaic) to Brahmic is uncertain citation needed, especially for the sibilants and the letters in parentheses. The transmission of the alphabet from Tibetan (through Phagspa) to Hangul is also controversial citation needed.
There needs to be a source for the Brahmic connection, along with the rationale for it. Certainly by the time that one gets to Tibetan, there is no phonic or visual correlation as supplied ( 20040302 ( talk) 19:15, 23 October 2011 (UTC))
References
In the section Predecessors, the article states:
That is, while capable of being used as an alphabet, it was in fact nearly always used with a strong logographic component, presumably due to strong cultural attachment to the complex Egyptian script.
This speculation is probably erroneous considering a similar situation occurred during the 20th Century. Immediately after the 1911 Revolution that established the Republic of China, many young reformers called for the elimination of Chinese characters and their replacement with a "modern" alphabetic or phonetic script. This effort resulted in various transcription systems such as Pinyin romanization and simplified Chinese characters, but Chinese characters are still used to this day. Why did this happen? It was not due to any sentimental attachment to writing Chinese. It was due to the simple fact that written Chinese encodes more information than a phonetic script ever could.
I do not pretend to know what Egyptians were thinking thousands of years ago, but I would choose a modern example of such a scenario before wildly speculating upon the sentiments of people whose culture I could not possibly encounter or get to know. This statement should be amended to reflect a more educated guess as to why the Egyptian writing system endured for so long.
-- LuYu ( talk) 12:14, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
In the picture "Venn diagram showing the intersections of the Greek, Latin and Russian alphabet" letter "K" appears twice: as common for Greek and Latin and as Russian only. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.87.141.67 ( talk) 12:59, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
I thought the alphabet was first invented by the ancient Sumerians. 165.120.146.80 ( talk) 01:09, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
"Two scripts are well attested from before the end of the fourth millennium BCE: Mesopotamian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs." Well, no. Hieroglyphs came from the pictographic script whose oldest example is the inscription of King Scorpion in the 34th century BC. Very quickly this pictographic script into Hieroglyphics. So far we're in the 4th millennium BCE. Mesopotamian pictographic writing is either from the 35th century BC or the 32nd century BC depending on the source. However, Cuneiform however doesn't appear until the 26th century BC. Therefore, the statement that Hieroglyphs and Cuneiform were "well attested before the end of the fourth millennium BC" is therefore incorrect. MrSativa ( talk) 00:58, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
By at least the 8th century BCE the Greeks borrowed the Phoenician alphabet and adapted it to their own language,[14] creating in the process the first "true" alphabet, in which vowels were accorded equal status with consonants.
Equal status? This makes no sense at all... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.19.13.227 ( talk) 02:00, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
There are not enough letter comparisons in the runic section of the table. Furthermore, it inadequately treats runic as a single system of writing, when in fact, there are numerous runic alphabets. I recommend pulling information from the table in the Wikipedia article "Lepontic Language" and also from the article "Younger Futhark" for a more comprehensive table in this article. I'd do it myself, but I'm used to MLA format and don't really know the rules for WikiSource format. AgnosticChaos92 ( talk) 21:39, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
"Two scripts are well attested from before the end of the fourth millennium BCE: Mesopotamian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs." What does cuneiform have to do with the history of the alphabet? Nothing, therefore it's inclusion is misleading for readers. 83.84.100.133 ( talk) 05:13, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
Proto-Sinaitic is based on Ancient Egyptian hieoroglyphs. There isn't enough about that, and too much of:
"The history of alphabetic writing goes back to the consonantal writing system used for Semitic languages in the Levant in the 2nd millennium BCE. Most or nearly all alphabetic scripts used throughout the world today ultimately go back to this Semitic proto-alphabet.[1] Its first origins can be traced back to a Proto-Sinaitic script developed in Ancient Egypt to represent the language of Semitic-speaking workers and slaves in Egypt. This script was partly influenced by the older Egyptian hieratic, a cursive script related to Egyptian hieroglyphs.[2][3]"
You'd think that the Alphabets are based on a Semitic script, not Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and that sounds misleading to me. Also, what is a "Semitic proto-alphabet". Clearly Semitic wasn't a writing system. 83.84.100.133 ( talk) 22:55, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
Hello there,
Do you think that GLAGOLITIC script may fit into Graphically independent alphabets category? Since this is graphically very different from Latin or Cyrillic.
78.11.179.104 ( talk) 06:07, 20 September 2020 (UTC) Filip
The PBS Nova episode "A-Z: The First Alphabet" (broadcast just recently) had a detailed explanation of the acrophonic principle or method by which the first alphabet was created, but for some reason the word "acrophonic" itself was avoided. See Talk:Proto-Sinaitic script... AnonMoos ( talk) 09:04, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
How do these two new articles affect the text of this article?
-- Bejnar ( talk) 15:20, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
From WP:SDNONE
The introductory paragraph as it is now reads:
"The history of the alphabet goes back to the consonantal writing system used for Semitic languages in the Levant in the 2nd millennium BCE. Most or nearly all alphabetic scripts used throughout the world today ultimately go back to this Semitic proto-alphabet.[1] Its first origins can be traced back to a Proto-Sinaitic script developed in Ancient Egypt to represent the language of Semitic-speaking workers and slaves in Egypt. Unskilled in the complex hieroglyphic system used to write the Egyptian language, which required a large number of pictograms, they selected a small number of those commonly seen in their Egyptian surroundings to describe the sounds, as opposed to the semantic values, of their own Canaanite language.[2][3] This script was partly influenced by the older Egyptian hieratic, a cursive script related to Egyptian hieroglyphs.[4][5]
In support of the claim that "its first origins can be traced back to a Proto-Sinaitic script developed in Ancient Egypt to represent the language of Semitic-speaking workers and slaves in Egypt," the author cites two articles outside of the scholarly mainstream and both by the same author Goldwasser, O. (2012). "The Miners that Invented the Alphabet - a Response to Christopher Rollston". Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections and Goldwasser, O. (2010). "How the Alphabet was Born from Hieroglyphs". Biblical Archaeology Review. 36 (2): 40-53.
The first article doesn't contend that any of the so-called inventors were "Semitic-speaking workers and slaves in Egypt." This is just again sticking the Biblical story into history. As well, the article doesn't make the claims that are summarized here. The author describes one particular stela in which are records of both Egyptians and Phoenicians of different social status, and she speculates that the workers created an alphabet from Egyptian hieroglyphics because they couldn't read - and the writing is terrible for a scribe. Never mind the leap of faith it takes that they would have been attempting to write at all, never mind the leap of faith it takes to assume because the writing is bad it's not just a bad scribe - but surely a poor Canaanite working in a mine - contradicting the fact that there were Egyptians and Canaanites of all social status by her own admission, slaves are not mentioned anywhere. A rich Egyptian was far more likely to attempt to write something anew than a worker who worked all day. So this author makes the totally silly biased assumption that poor handwriting/poor struggling workers must have created their own script. What? As well, her theories are all based on this one area where we are assuming due to Petrie that this is the place where the alphabet originated. C'mon! We FOUND the stelae there, but that means nothing! Our oldest records might be related to the mining operations, but why would we assume simply because of where we found the earliest records is the same place as where it was invented? Strange reasoning.
Anyways, NO SLAVES. NO HEBREWS. KNN/Phoenician. Egypt ruled almost entire Levant since about the 15th c BCE to 11th c BCE. Proto-Sinaitic and "Paleo-Hebrew" is just another made up concept to give the Biblical myths life. It's just Proto-KNN and KNN. Which evolves into Aramaic. Hebrew is younger than even the Aramaic script. Historiaantiqua ( talk) 05:12, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
I didn't realize that this issue was so hotly debated, as shown in a recent Science News article that states that ancient Hebrews turned Egyptian hieroglyphics into letters. There is no mention in the article of the Phoenician's contribution, which must suggest that the Hebrew "alphabet" pre-dates the Phoenician's. Science News, 11/19/2016. Sapientiaetdoctrina ( talk) 13:31, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
Mahoney's method of film-making is pretty straight forward. Gather together an ensemble cast of legitimate scholars, then lionize some fringe loon on the outskirts of the academic radar. [1]
— David A. Falk, The Moses Controversy: More So-called Patterns of "Evidence"
-- 21:23, 28 October 2020 Tgeorgescu
References
Early SEMITIC LANGUAGE SPEAKERS (almost certainly not specifically Hebrews) developed the early Alphabet under the influence of Egyptian hieroglyphics. AnonMoos ( talk) 10:38, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Thank you all - Doug Weller in particular - for remaining objective and reasonable referees on this topic. It is an infuriating topic because it is colored by the woke lens which is painting all our work. It has the most elementary epistemological errors, but it lines up with their religion and so they keep ramming it.
To observe the plain truth is to give the credit for the alphabet to conscious efforts to create a writing system to enable all people access to knowledge, a legacy that I see fundamentally rooted in Judaism, a commitment to scholarship and a vehicle towards egalitarianism. But the people whose entire narrative of history is based on a perspective of class struggle, it becomes convenient and that much more affirming to suggest that the alphabet emerged amongst the poor and the victimized who slaved away while the rich lived off of their surplus. In short these people are nimwitted, yes, but mostly dishonest.
AnonMoos for example doesn't even know that the Torah tells us it is written in the Canaan language, or that Hebrew is effectively an ethno religious renaming of the same language and an appropriation. What makes this extraordinary is that it's simultaneously upholds mythical religious lies while creating new lies based on an epistemological lens of oppression theory. Historiaantiqua ( talk) 22:45, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
Canaanites are not Semitic!, there Afro/Hamitic. They adopted Syriac Aramiac. The evidence most frequently used to support them as semitic which their not is the texts found at Ras Shamra Ugarit, written in a Semitic language/dialect & circa. 14th cent. B.C.E. However, Ugarit apparently did not come within the Biblical boundaries of Canaan. "it is now clearly a misnomer to call Ugarit a `Canaanite' city" said, A. F. Rainey. One source says "the Amarna Letters contain evidence for the opinion that non-Semitic ethnic elements settled in Palestine & Syria at a rather early date, for a number of these letters show a remarkable influence of non-Semitic tongues." The facts are that there is still uncertainty as to the original language spoken by the first inhabitants of Canaan. Such a change would be no greater than that of other ancient nations, such as the ancient Persians, who, though of Indo-Europeanc origin, later adopted the Semitic Aramaean language & writing. [unsigned by 72.38.211.144, 20:32, 2007 November 15]
Tradition shows is that Moses recorded Job expirences basically his lifestory, the book of Job dates to possibly 1473 B.C.E. It is accurate it would mean that even 40 years before the Exodus there an alphabet. Some suggest the sign given to Cain was a letter.
Actually as far as we know, Canaanites were Semites, with Canaanite being a Semitic language. --Preceding unsigned comment added by Melchiord ( talk o contribs) 00:20, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Okay, not all so-called "arabs", are Canaanite descend. Genesis 10, shows the ancestor of the Canaanites, are Canaan son of Ham. Most of Arab people come from Joktan, or Ishmael, both descenants of Shem.
linguistic speaking there no evidence a Canaanite language father the Hebrew language period. It show a similar language exist in the area Hebrew migranted to and only that.
Canaanite formed their own adopted and adapted language, Languages around them were, Akkadian, Aramaic, Urgatic, Arabic, Israelite Hebrew, non-Israelite Hebrew as Edomite, Moabite, Ammonite. Abraham children Zim'ran, Mid'i·anite, Me'dan, Shu'ah, Jok'shan father of Sheba and Dedan, Ish'bak - Genesis 25:1-3; 1Ch 1:32. See a picture Semite influence their language not the other around.
Quoting one refenece book, The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (edited by G. A. Buttrick, 1962, Vol. 1, p. 495) that "the Amarna Letters contain evidence for the opinion that non-Semitic ethnic elements settled in Palestine and Syria at a rather early date, for a number of these letters show a remarkable influence of non-Semitic tongues." (Italics ours.)
What a silly racialist babble. We are talking about taxonomies of language, not fascism. Canaanite is not only Semitic, it is THE Semitic considering that Yehudit/Hebrew is a renaming of QNN for cultural and religious purposes. The Torah tells us what language it's written in and guess what it ain't Hebrew Historiaantiqua ( talk) 22:35, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
The article needs to treat the various alphabets developed in India and their descendants in Southeast Asia. Achar Sva ( talk) 21:35, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, this article started with mixed forms, before settling on BCE/CE so that is the style to retain. The split of two uses to one use at start doesn't establish anything. This really shouldn't be something worth quibbling over, both styles are equally valid. 74.73.224.126 ( talk) 11:00, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
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According to the box, Old Italic and Latin are basically independent derivations from Greek, but isn't Latin an evolution of the Old Italic alphabet? I'd say this would look better:
Comments?
See Talk:Middle Bronze Age alphabets
I'm a novice on this topic, but it seems to me that there are several written communcation systems that should be mentioned here, if only to dispel the myth that they developed independently.
First of all, I've read that Mayan writing on monuments and in inked codices was in many ways alphabetic, and it doesn't seem possible that it was derived from a semitic source.
Second, I've heard stories that the Korean script, Hangul, was invented by a single individual, and that many of the forms were based on the shape made by the tongue when pronouncing a given consonant. I've heard this story from several sources, so it seems worth dispelling the myth if it is indeed a myth.
Phoenician is no longer polictally correct. IS the ancient Paleo-Midddle-Eastern adjad. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.38.144.241 ( talk) 06:02, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Often in the discussion of the history of the alphabet, some terms are used with some flexibility in meaning. First, the term "the alphabet" often refers in western usage to the 26-letter Latin alphabet. In fact, the term "alphabet" refers to any writing system that denotes both vowels and consonants. The Latin alphabet is derived from Etruscan and Greek alphabets. The term "alphabet" first applies historically -- in the strictest definition of the term -- to the Greek Alphabet. The Greek alphabet was adopted and adapted from the Phoenicians' writing system which denoted primarily consonants. While the Phoenician writing system is often called the Phoenician Alphabet, some scholars, who insist it lies outside the category of alphabet, refer to it as the Phoenician abjad. The Phoenician abjad developed from early Semitic abjads. The origin of these Semitic abjads has been the source of much speculation and debate. Evidence and consensus points to a borrowing of Egyptian symbols which were re-assigned consonantal values by Semitic writers. In the sense that the history of alphabetic writing begins with the Egyptians, it is significant that the Egyptians had phonetic symbols. These phonetic symbols, however, were a very small subset of a vast, complex writing system.
The history outlined in this article, then, traces the idea and usage of PHONETIC writing that LEAD to the development of alphabetic writing.
This article is misleading in its title – implying the existence of one "the alphabet" – and in its content by not carefully defining the object of its discussion. (This article might be better titled "The development of phonetic writing.")
Dbachmann, if we're going to cite 22 consonants and the ABC alphabetic order, we should restrict ourselves to Phoenician and the subset of alphabets that descend from it. If we're going to talk about the history of the alphabet, then we should acknowledge all the alphabets in the family, which reflect 27 (Ugaritic) or 29 (S. Arabic) consonants, that were reduced to 22 in Phoenician, and also acknowledge both alphabetic orders. The latter is much more encyclopedic. I added it in, but was reverted. Will add again unless you wish too. kwami 19:58, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Please split the final column into "Greek", "Latin", and "Cyrillic". Georgia guy 01:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I am not going to insist on the passage, but I am not sure I am "flying in the face of mainstream scholarship". The earliest evidence for Greek alphabets date to the (early) 8th century. The earliest evidence for Old Italic or Anatolian alphabets, to the (late) 8th century. I.e. their temporal separation is a matter of decades. At such early times, it is a matter of terminology if you still speak of local variants of the Phoenician alphabets, or of early variants of the independent descendants. The Masiliana abecedarium is practically identical to the Phoenician alphabet, it is an academic question if it is a nascent Greek alphabet or a local variant of the Phoenician one. The Carian alphabet went undeciphered for many decades because people assumed it was derived from Greek. It was only deciphered when it was re-evaluated as independent from Greek. dab (ᛏ) 19:56, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
A different question. Under "Transmission to Greece", the article says "separate letters for vowels would have actually hindered the legibility of Egyptian, Phoenician, or Hebrew." At the very least, I think this needs a citation; better would be an explanation of this putative fact. (I happen to think it's wrong, the vowels are no less relevant in Semitic than they are in Greek; but that's just a personal opinion and not worth mentioning.) Mcswell ( talk) 21:46, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Check that out, evolution of the alphabet. Comments? Fresheneesz 08:38, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Instead of having arabic alone, I really think that nabatean should be before it and have arabic come out of it. Eshcorp
The article claims that the Hangul alphabet is *not* inspired in some way by the alphabet of the Egyptians. Reading the Hangul article, it says "some aspects of Hangul reflect a shared history with the Phagspa alphabet". Reading the Phagspa alphabet article, I can find "adapted the Uyghur alphabet — a descendant of the Syriac alphabet, via Sogdian — to write Mongol". The Syriac alphabet is surely in the line of inspiration from the Egyptian alphabet. I therefore have removed the stated Hangul exception. Hangul may be unique in other ways, but it apparently wasn't a tabula rasa re-invention of alphabetic principles. Martijn Faassen 21:22, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I removed the paranthesis about abjads ("...earliest alphabets (properly, 'abjads'..." because according to the article on abjads, "abjad", as used here, isn't a generally accepted term. And in any case, an abjad is a type of alphabet which means that "alphabet" is not at all incorrect by anyone's standards.
The term "abjad" seems to be cropping up in inappropriate places on wikipedia (e.g. a link from Proto-Semitic to this page is labelled "Semitic abjads", although this will be corrected by the time you read this). This is gratuitous obscurantism and it makes me suspect that an academic turf war may be being fought here. Ireneshusband 00:43, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
I made a small rewrite. But want to make sure you I didn't change the meaning.
I belive the rewrite is clearer, mainly for the less read in alphabet history. Pablo2garcia 13:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
-- OLD LINE From it can be traced nearly all the alphabets ever used, most of which descend from the younger Phoenician version of the script.
-- INTRODUCED REWRITE From it can be traced nearly all the alphabets ever used, most of which descend from the Phoenician, an early version of the Canaanite script. --
I removed the "citation needed" from the sentence about abjadi order surviving or being reintroduced in alphabets which switched orders. The original abjd hwz hty klmn s`fs order is the basis for the traditional Arabic number system, just as in Greek and Hebrew, and is well known. the "abjadi order" article linked to in the sentence provides sufficient documentation. There is no need for further references here. IQAG1060 ( talk) 03:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
This needs to be fixed. Hangul is currently in use, and it's unrelated to the Canaanite alphabet. -- Kjoon lee 03:52, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
It appears from the article, that the perspective is basically european/middle-east centric (ie. areas influenced by various abrahamic cultures). There is an urgent need to cover other scripts that have not originated from Middle east, Greek, Latin. 129.118.38.222 ( talk) 19:08, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Latest findings prove that the history of alphabet comes from variations of the greek alpabet. Please take a look at this wiki - page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispilio_Tablet. In the last twelve years there are findings basically from to archaelogists n.sampson and g.hourmouziadis that testify that there have been written texts from 5000 - 6000bc.
Please update the article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.75.239.19 ( talk) 15:02, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Why is it in the current order it is right now? Petrarch1603 ( talk) 18:45, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
The greek alphabet is said to have started in early 8th century BCE (cf its wikipedia entry). But the summary box on the right side of the page has 9th century BCE. Shouldnt it be changed to 8th century BCE ?
Same thing with the hebrew alphabet, the modern version based on the "square script" was adopted in the 6th century BCE, but the summary box has 3rd century BCE. Any objections if I change it to 6th century BCE ? -- Squallgreg ( talk) 13:18, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
Please use images as much as possible instead of unicode characters for scripts that are not very common world-wide. How many people visiting this page will have a Phoenician font installed? Probably almost none. And how many will be able to display Tibetic? It's a contemporary script, but WinXP, which is the most common OS, doesn't support it. I don't want to have to install fonts just to see a few symbols on one single page... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.177.48.48 ( talk) 08:52, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
In the article on the Phoenician alphabet it is stated that scholars could not find any link between the Phoenician alphabet and the Egyptian hieroglyphs. This article states that most alphabets in the world, including the Greek alphabet, descended from the hieroglyphs. However, according to the article on the Phoenician alphabet the Greek alphabet was a descendant of the Phoenician. I am confused. Could some scholar please clear up the matter for me and e-mail me at dugeot at iafrica dot com? I will thank thee very, very, very much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.243.57.59 ( talk) 23:48, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
In the paragraph entitled "Greek alphabet", we are told that vowel letters actually hindered Egyptian, Hebrew and Arabic. Maltese has been written with vowel letters for centuries and so has Coptic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.254.83 ( talk) 08:27, 15 May 2010 (UTC) A call for explanation has been in the text for some time with no answer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.254.83 ( talk) 08:29, 15 May 2010 (UTC) Maltese is a dialect of colloquial Arabic and Coptic is a later form of Ancient Egyptian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.177.254.83 ( talk) 08:34, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
There is no evidence that the Brahmic script derives from Aramaic. Its just a theory so i don't see why its even mentioned that Brahmic is actually related to it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.139.56 ( talk) 11:36, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
"The Anglo-Saxons began using Roman letters to write Old English as they converted to Christianity, following Augustine of Canterbury's mission to Britain in the sixth century. Because the Runic wen, which was first used to represent the sound 'w' and looked like a p that is narrow and triangular, was easy to confuse with an actual p, the 'w' sound began to be written using a double u. Because the u at the time looked like a v, the double u looked like two v's, W was placed in the alphabet by V."
Where to start? The name of the letter is wynn, not "wen"; the Anglo-Saxons used it side-by-side with the letter P for centuries (down to the 12th century) indicating that there was no confusion for either scribes or contemporary readers. The letter is doubtless derived from the rune, but unlike the rune is not "narrow and triangular"; it has a curved top and a diagonal joining the top to the vertical stem. The contemporary forms of p (which was rather rare in Anglo-Saxon itself, though common in Latin) were shaped differently, having two joined curves.
In the continental Germanic languages, however, the sequence uu was used for the sound of [w] at least as early as the 9th century; over time it was replaced by the ligature w. This spelling was brought into England by the Normans, and gradually displaced the native wynn because it was more familiar to scribes who primarily wrote in Norman-French. I know of no evidence that any similarity between wynn and p motivated the shift. I think this whole paragraph is speculation by a hasty editor. RandomCritic ( talk) 18:58, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
The statement "Greek, the first true alphabet in that it consistently assigns letters to both consonants and vowels." is in my view erroneous.
In either way, I speak Aramaic. I can write it. I can read it, even if the vowels are not written out. We have many ways of denoting the vowels. We can use simple dots, or we even have separate symbols for them however we can also write the language without them and still read the words pronouncing the vowels. This is done partly by recognizing the set of consonants and also it is important to note that the consonants in Aramaic themselves reveal largely which vowel is to be pronounced when reading the word (with exceptions of course). When we type vowels in Aramaic they are always typed along with a consonant on the basline. The vowels are always followed by the same consonants (most of the time) and if you know the rules and is familiar with the language it is easy to understand that you wouldn't need to type out the vowels as the consonant itself represents a vowel (generally when familiar with a word the vowels are not simply needed to be typed out explicitly). So the statement I am disputing at the top of this passage would have to mean that Phonecians, Arameans etc didn't use vowels when they pronounced a written word? Of course this statement is absurd. Vowels are incorporated in these languages, just in a very clever way (remember Phonecian and Aramaic languages spread due to their intelligent and simple ways of typing down speech). It seems to me that the writer of this Wiki article has been outsmarted by this simple system.
In this way some different dialects of Aramaic that are still used today, sound differentwhen spoken but when written down and vowels omitted they infact look the same (as the main difference in the dialects are the use of the vowels) and can be understood by the speakers of the different dialects. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ManoYMano100 ( talk • contribs) 23:38, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes indeed. Alphabet: "A system of characters, signs, or symbols used to indicate letters or speech sounds." Nor can I find any reference to "true alphabet" as a technical term in the literature.
Finally, just to be safe, a quick check on Google Scholar shows that in the academic literature the term "true alphabet" is almost completely absent. And even among the few hits, most appear to be irrelevant, for example: "George Grierson called Landa the “true alphabet of the Punjab”."
I will edit.
Micheln ( talk) 08:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
Note also how even in the section itself, the word "true" is between quotes, showing how the usage is non-standard.
Assuming that some scholars use this terminology, then in my view it is acceptable to use the term in a section paragraph, on one condition: the context must make it clear that this is not a consensus-terminology. But it should definitely not be used in a section header unless and until it becomes a generally accepted terminology in the academic community. Micheln ( talk) 08:44, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
We've got a bit of an edit war going on here (myself included), and both editors are trying to resolve it in the edit summaries, but that doesn't seem to be working. It involves the opening sentences of History of the alphabet#Semitic alphabet under Consonantal alphabets. The intro is "The Proto-Sinaitic script of Egypt has yet to be fully deciphered. However, it may alphabetic [sic] and probably records the Canaanite language."
This is in an article titled 'History of the alphabet', in a section called 'Consonantal alphabets' and subsection 'Semitic alphabet'. If your objection is that the Semitic alphabet is not an alphabet, then shouldn't we change the rest of this too? We also describe the Egyptian uniliterals as 'alphabetic' in the preceding section. When I suggested that perhaps you should read the article to understand the context of the edit before revert warring over it, this is what I meant. — kwami ( talk) 22:19, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Why is the row called "Possible Egyptian prototype" empty? -- Espoo ( talk) 16:42, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I am out of my field here, but why is:
• The Tibetan ད (Da) not on the D row, (and a dash is there) • The Tibetan ཧ (Ha) on the E row (especially as Brahmic languages are abugida, and the vowels (in Tibetan) are written in dependant on a consonant) • The Tibetan ཝ (Wa) present at all, as it's a relatively modern addition to the alphabet • The Tibetan Da ད (ཌ) (or retroflex Da) is found on the Z two instead of ཟ (ZA) • The Tibetan ཧ (Ha) not on the H row, (and a dash is there) • The Tibetan ཐ (ཋ) (T'a, or retroflex - aspirated T) on the Θ row, as it's not pronounced like Θ, but as an (non-fricative) aspirated dental. • The Tibetan ཤ (Sha) on the Ξ row, as it's not pronounced like Ξ, but as (IPA [ʃ]) (sh) • The Tibetan ཕ (P'a - aspirated P) present on the P row, especially as the correlate ཐ is not on the T row. • The Tibetan ས (Sa) present on the Sampi row, as it's pronounced the same way as Σ • The Tibetan ཁ (K'a - aspirated K) on the Q row? • The Tibetan ཥ (retroflex Sha, only used when transliterating Sanskrit) on the S row, and not ས (Sa) ?
The mere appearances of many of these letters do not match - they represent different sounds, and their I am pretty confused by their presence! At least the article should explain how the correlation is made, and by what sources. I see that the table is captioned "The transmission of the alphabet from Tibetan (through Phagspa) to Hangul is also controversial." Well, without discussion it appears to be fabricated. ( 20040302 ( talk) 11:03, 14 October 2011 (UTC))
I have pulled the unsourced, highly suspect correlation regarding the Brahmic descent. The cut text follows
Western ← | Phoenician | → Brahmic | → Korean | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Latin | Greek | Gujarati | Devanagari | Tibetan citation needed | ||
A | Α |
![]() |
અ | अ | ཨ | |
B | В |
![]() |
બ | ब | བ | ㅂ |
C, G | Г |
![]() |
ગ | ग | ག | ㄱ |
D | Δ |
![]() |
ધ (ઢ) | ध (ढ) | – | ㄷ |
E | Ε |
![]() |
હ | ह | ཧ | (ㅱ) |
F, V | Ϝ, Υ |
![]() |
વ | व | ཝ | |
Z | Ζ |
![]() |
દ (ડ) | द (ड) | ད (ཌ) | ㅈ |
H | Η |
![]() |
ઘ | घ | – | |
– | Θ |
![]() |
થ (ઠ) | थ (ठ) | ཐ (ཋ) | |
I, J | Ι |
![]() |
ય | य | ཡ | |
K | Κ |
![]() |
ક | क | ཀ | ㅋ |
L | Λ |
![]() |
લ | ल | ལ | ㄹㄹ |
M | Μ |
![]() |
મ | म | མ | ㅁ |
N | Ν |
![]() |
ન | न | ན | ㄴ |
– | Ξ |
![]() |
શ | श | ཤ | |
O | Ο |
![]() |
? | |||
P | Π |
![]() |
પ, ફ | प, फ | པ, ཕ | ㅍ |
– | Ϡ |
![]() |
સ | स | ས | |
Q | Ϙ |
![]() |
ખ | ख | ཁ | |
R | Ρ |
![]() |
ર | र | ར | ㄹ |
S | Σ |
![]() |
ષ | ष | ཥ | ㅅ |
T | Τ |
![]() |
ત (ટ) | त (ट) | ཏ (ཊ) | ㅌ |
Table: The spread of the alphabet west (Greek, Latin) and east (Brahmic, Korean). Note that the exact correspondence between Phoenician (through Aramaic) to Brahmic is uncertain citation needed, especially for the sibilants and the letters in parentheses. The transmission of the alphabet from Tibetan (through Phagspa) to Hangul is also controversial citation needed.
There needs to be a source for the Brahmic connection, along with the rationale for it. Certainly by the time that one gets to Tibetan, there is no phonic or visual correlation as supplied ( 20040302 ( talk) 19:15, 23 October 2011 (UTC))
References
In the section Predecessors, the article states:
That is, while capable of being used as an alphabet, it was in fact nearly always used with a strong logographic component, presumably due to strong cultural attachment to the complex Egyptian script.
This speculation is probably erroneous considering a similar situation occurred during the 20th Century. Immediately after the 1911 Revolution that established the Republic of China, many young reformers called for the elimination of Chinese characters and their replacement with a "modern" alphabetic or phonetic script. This effort resulted in various transcription systems such as Pinyin romanization and simplified Chinese characters, but Chinese characters are still used to this day. Why did this happen? It was not due to any sentimental attachment to writing Chinese. It was due to the simple fact that written Chinese encodes more information than a phonetic script ever could.
I do not pretend to know what Egyptians were thinking thousands of years ago, but I would choose a modern example of such a scenario before wildly speculating upon the sentiments of people whose culture I could not possibly encounter or get to know. This statement should be amended to reflect a more educated guess as to why the Egyptian writing system endured for so long.
-- LuYu ( talk) 12:14, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
In the picture "Venn diagram showing the intersections of the Greek, Latin and Russian alphabet" letter "K" appears twice: as common for Greek and Latin and as Russian only. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.87.141.67 ( talk) 12:59, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
I thought the alphabet was first invented by the ancient Sumerians. 165.120.146.80 ( talk) 01:09, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
"Two scripts are well attested from before the end of the fourth millennium BCE: Mesopotamian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs." Well, no. Hieroglyphs came from the pictographic script whose oldest example is the inscription of King Scorpion in the 34th century BC. Very quickly this pictographic script into Hieroglyphics. So far we're in the 4th millennium BCE. Mesopotamian pictographic writing is either from the 35th century BC or the 32nd century BC depending on the source. However, Cuneiform however doesn't appear until the 26th century BC. Therefore, the statement that Hieroglyphs and Cuneiform were "well attested before the end of the fourth millennium BC" is therefore incorrect. MrSativa ( talk) 00:58, 13 November 2016 (UTC)
By at least the 8th century BCE the Greeks borrowed the Phoenician alphabet and adapted it to their own language,[14] creating in the process the first "true" alphabet, in which vowels were accorded equal status with consonants.
Equal status? This makes no sense at all... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.19.13.227 ( talk) 02:00, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
There are not enough letter comparisons in the runic section of the table. Furthermore, it inadequately treats runic as a single system of writing, when in fact, there are numerous runic alphabets. I recommend pulling information from the table in the Wikipedia article "Lepontic Language" and also from the article "Younger Futhark" for a more comprehensive table in this article. I'd do it myself, but I'm used to MLA format and don't really know the rules for WikiSource format. AgnosticChaos92 ( talk) 21:39, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
"Two scripts are well attested from before the end of the fourth millennium BCE: Mesopotamian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs." What does cuneiform have to do with the history of the alphabet? Nothing, therefore it's inclusion is misleading for readers. 83.84.100.133 ( talk) 05:13, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
Proto-Sinaitic is based on Ancient Egyptian hieoroglyphs. There isn't enough about that, and too much of:
"The history of alphabetic writing goes back to the consonantal writing system used for Semitic languages in the Levant in the 2nd millennium BCE. Most or nearly all alphabetic scripts used throughout the world today ultimately go back to this Semitic proto-alphabet.[1] Its first origins can be traced back to a Proto-Sinaitic script developed in Ancient Egypt to represent the language of Semitic-speaking workers and slaves in Egypt. This script was partly influenced by the older Egyptian hieratic, a cursive script related to Egyptian hieroglyphs.[2][3]"
You'd think that the Alphabets are based on a Semitic script, not Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, and that sounds misleading to me. Also, what is a "Semitic proto-alphabet". Clearly Semitic wasn't a writing system. 83.84.100.133 ( talk) 22:55, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
Hello there,
Do you think that GLAGOLITIC script may fit into Graphically independent alphabets category? Since this is graphically very different from Latin or Cyrillic.
78.11.179.104 ( talk) 06:07, 20 September 2020 (UTC) Filip
The PBS Nova episode "A-Z: The First Alphabet" (broadcast just recently) had a detailed explanation of the acrophonic principle or method by which the first alphabet was created, but for some reason the word "acrophonic" itself was avoided. See Talk:Proto-Sinaitic script... AnonMoos ( talk) 09:04, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
How do these two new articles affect the text of this article?
-- Bejnar ( talk) 15:20, 2 May 2021 (UTC)
From WP:SDNONE
The introductory paragraph as it is now reads:
"The history of the alphabet goes back to the consonantal writing system used for Semitic languages in the Levant in the 2nd millennium BCE. Most or nearly all alphabetic scripts used throughout the world today ultimately go back to this Semitic proto-alphabet.[1] Its first origins can be traced back to a Proto-Sinaitic script developed in Ancient Egypt to represent the language of Semitic-speaking workers and slaves in Egypt. Unskilled in the complex hieroglyphic system used to write the Egyptian language, which required a large number of pictograms, they selected a small number of those commonly seen in their Egyptian surroundings to describe the sounds, as opposed to the semantic values, of their own Canaanite language.[2][3] This script was partly influenced by the older Egyptian hieratic, a cursive script related to Egyptian hieroglyphs.[4][5]
In support of the claim that "its first origins can be traced back to a Proto-Sinaitic script developed in Ancient Egypt to represent the language of Semitic-speaking workers and slaves in Egypt," the author cites two articles outside of the scholarly mainstream and both by the same author Goldwasser, O. (2012). "The Miners that Invented the Alphabet - a Response to Christopher Rollston". Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections and Goldwasser, O. (2010). "How the Alphabet was Born from Hieroglyphs". Biblical Archaeology Review. 36 (2): 40-53.
The first article doesn't contend that any of the so-called inventors were "Semitic-speaking workers and slaves in Egypt." This is just again sticking the Biblical story into history. As well, the article doesn't make the claims that are summarized here. The author describes one particular stela in which are records of both Egyptians and Phoenicians of different social status, and she speculates that the workers created an alphabet from Egyptian hieroglyphics because they couldn't read - and the writing is terrible for a scribe. Never mind the leap of faith it takes that they would have been attempting to write at all, never mind the leap of faith it takes to assume because the writing is bad it's not just a bad scribe - but surely a poor Canaanite working in a mine - contradicting the fact that there were Egyptians and Canaanites of all social status by her own admission, slaves are not mentioned anywhere. A rich Egyptian was far more likely to attempt to write something anew than a worker who worked all day. So this author makes the totally silly biased assumption that poor handwriting/poor struggling workers must have created their own script. What? As well, her theories are all based on this one area where we are assuming due to Petrie that this is the place where the alphabet originated. C'mon! We FOUND the stelae there, but that means nothing! Our oldest records might be related to the mining operations, but why would we assume simply because of where we found the earliest records is the same place as where it was invented? Strange reasoning.
Anyways, NO SLAVES. NO HEBREWS. KNN/Phoenician. Egypt ruled almost entire Levant since about the 15th c BCE to 11th c BCE. Proto-Sinaitic and "Paleo-Hebrew" is just another made up concept to give the Biblical myths life. It's just Proto-KNN and KNN. Which evolves into Aramaic. Hebrew is younger than even the Aramaic script. Historiaantiqua ( talk) 05:12, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
I didn't realize that this issue was so hotly debated, as shown in a recent Science News article that states that ancient Hebrews turned Egyptian hieroglyphics into letters. There is no mention in the article of the Phoenician's contribution, which must suggest that the Hebrew "alphabet" pre-dates the Phoenician's. Science News, 11/19/2016. Sapientiaetdoctrina ( talk) 13:31, 19 November 2016 (UTC)
Mahoney's method of film-making is pretty straight forward. Gather together an ensemble cast of legitimate scholars, then lionize some fringe loon on the outskirts of the academic radar. [1]
— David A. Falk, The Moses Controversy: More So-called Patterns of "Evidence"
-- 21:23, 28 October 2020 Tgeorgescu
References
Early SEMITIC LANGUAGE SPEAKERS (almost certainly not specifically Hebrews) developed the early Alphabet under the influence of Egyptian hieroglyphics. AnonMoos ( talk) 10:38, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
Thank you all - Doug Weller in particular - for remaining objective and reasonable referees on this topic. It is an infuriating topic because it is colored by the woke lens which is painting all our work. It has the most elementary epistemological errors, but it lines up with their religion and so they keep ramming it.
To observe the plain truth is to give the credit for the alphabet to conscious efforts to create a writing system to enable all people access to knowledge, a legacy that I see fundamentally rooted in Judaism, a commitment to scholarship and a vehicle towards egalitarianism. But the people whose entire narrative of history is based on a perspective of class struggle, it becomes convenient and that much more affirming to suggest that the alphabet emerged amongst the poor and the victimized who slaved away while the rich lived off of their surplus. In short these people are nimwitted, yes, but mostly dishonest.
AnonMoos for example doesn't even know that the Torah tells us it is written in the Canaan language, or that Hebrew is effectively an ethno religious renaming of the same language and an appropriation. What makes this extraordinary is that it's simultaneously upholds mythical religious lies while creating new lies based on an epistemological lens of oppression theory. Historiaantiqua ( talk) 22:45, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
Canaanites are not Semitic!, there Afro/Hamitic. They adopted Syriac Aramiac. The evidence most frequently used to support them as semitic which their not is the texts found at Ras Shamra Ugarit, written in a Semitic language/dialect & circa. 14th cent. B.C.E. However, Ugarit apparently did not come within the Biblical boundaries of Canaan. "it is now clearly a misnomer to call Ugarit a `Canaanite' city" said, A. F. Rainey. One source says "the Amarna Letters contain evidence for the opinion that non-Semitic ethnic elements settled in Palestine & Syria at a rather early date, for a number of these letters show a remarkable influence of non-Semitic tongues." The facts are that there is still uncertainty as to the original language spoken by the first inhabitants of Canaan. Such a change would be no greater than that of other ancient nations, such as the ancient Persians, who, though of Indo-Europeanc origin, later adopted the Semitic Aramaean language & writing. [unsigned by 72.38.211.144, 20:32, 2007 November 15]
Tradition shows is that Moses recorded Job expirences basically his lifestory, the book of Job dates to possibly 1473 B.C.E. It is accurate it would mean that even 40 years before the Exodus there an alphabet. Some suggest the sign given to Cain was a letter.
Actually as far as we know, Canaanites were Semites, with Canaanite being a Semitic language. --Preceding unsigned comment added by Melchiord ( talk o contribs) 00:20, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
Okay, not all so-called "arabs", are Canaanite descend. Genesis 10, shows the ancestor of the Canaanites, are Canaan son of Ham. Most of Arab people come from Joktan, or Ishmael, both descenants of Shem.
linguistic speaking there no evidence a Canaanite language father the Hebrew language period. It show a similar language exist in the area Hebrew migranted to and only that.
Canaanite formed their own adopted and adapted language, Languages around them were, Akkadian, Aramaic, Urgatic, Arabic, Israelite Hebrew, non-Israelite Hebrew as Edomite, Moabite, Ammonite. Abraham children Zim'ran, Mid'i·anite, Me'dan, Shu'ah, Jok'shan father of Sheba and Dedan, Ish'bak - Genesis 25:1-3; 1Ch 1:32. See a picture Semite influence their language not the other around.
Quoting one refenece book, The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (edited by G. A. Buttrick, 1962, Vol. 1, p. 495) that "the Amarna Letters contain evidence for the opinion that non-Semitic ethnic elements settled in Palestine and Syria at a rather early date, for a number of these letters show a remarkable influence of non-Semitic tongues." (Italics ours.)
What a silly racialist babble. We are talking about taxonomies of language, not fascism. Canaanite is not only Semitic, it is THE Semitic considering that Yehudit/Hebrew is a renaming of QNN for cultural and religious purposes. The Torah tells us what language it's written in and guess what it ain't Hebrew Historiaantiqua ( talk) 22:35, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
The article needs to treat the various alphabets developed in India and their descendants in Southeast Asia. Achar Sva ( talk) 21:35, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, this article started with mixed forms, before settling on BCE/CE so that is the style to retain. The split of two uses to one use at start doesn't establish anything. This really shouldn't be something worth quibbling over, both styles are equally valid. 74.73.224.126 ( talk) 11:00, 8 July 2023 (UTC)