Phoenician Alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet is an ancient alphabet type abjad used by the Phoenicians to write their language. It was borrowed by many peoples Mediterranean to provide include:

• the Greek alphabet old (unicameral), which in turn are derived:
  • the Etruscan alphabet , which resulted in:
    • the Latin alphabet, Roman ( unicameral , better suited to monumental inscriptions), which are derived from:
      • Alternative medieval (scriptural) as the uncial Latin (which gave the variant broken Germanic and Celtic variant), which gave
        • Alternative Carolingian minuscule Latin has reunited some (in conjunction with using the Roman script, she was writing a script Bicameral Latin), which gave:
          • the modern variant of the Latin alphabet (bicameral);
  • Variant of Greek polytonic , which are derived variants similar to those of the Latin alphabet to give then:
    • the current variant of the alphabet Modern Greek ( bicameral );
  • the Cyrillic alphabet old (unicameral), which are derived from variants similar to Greek and Latin alphabets, which gave:
    • the current variant of the Cyrillic alphabet (bicameral);
  • the Gothic alphabet , which gave the Scandinavian rune ;
  • the Coptic alphabet , which gave the Ge'ez alphabet ;
• the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet , which resulted in:
  • the Samaritan alphabet , still used by the Samaritans ;
• the Aramaic alphabet , which are derived:
  • the Hebrew alphabet ;
  • the Syriac alphabet ;
  • the Nabataean alphabet
  • the Arabic alphabet , Persian and its variants;
  • the Mandaean alphabet.

It is probable that the Phoenician alphabet was derived from a model known as linear alphabet used to write and idioms proto-Canaanite , and come from the simplifications of hieroglyphic Egyptian. The earliest inscriptions probably date from the ^fifteenth century before the Christian era but are still regarded as the linear. The Phoenician city of Byblos appears to have played a decisive role in the dissemination of the alphabet, the ^eleventh century , is well established (which can put the date of separation, all things artificial, from 1050 BCE between the linear model and the model Phoenician).

The Phoenician alphabet follows the Levantine order and send it to all his descendants.

List of graphemes

Letter	Name	Meaning	Transliteration	Value	Corresponding letter in
					Hebrew	Arabic	Greek	Latin	Cyrillic
	Aleph	ox	'	/ /			Alpha alpha	A has
	beth	Home ( Hebrew : ) ( Arabic : )	b	/ B /			Beta beta	B b	, B B
	Gimel	camel ( Hebrew : ) ( Arabic : )	g	/ G /			Gamma gamma	C c , g G
	daleth	door ( Hebrew : )	d	/ D /			Delta delta	D
	he	flying	h	/ H /			Epsilon epsilon	E e	,
	waw	hook ( Hebrew : )	w	/ W /			( ),	F f , U u , V v , W w , Y y	( )
	zayin	weapon ( Hebrew : )	z	/ Z /			Zeta zeta	Z z
	Heth	Wall ( Arabic : )		/ /				H h
	Teth	wheel	T	/ T /			Theta theta		( )
	yodh	hand ( Hebrew : ) ( Arabic : )	y	/ J /				I i , , J j	U u, outlines what outlines what
	kaph	palm ( Hebrew : ) ( Arabic : )	k	/ K /			Kappa kappa	K k	K K
	lmedh	stick	l	/ S /			Lamda lamda	L l
	Member	water ( Hebrew : ) ( Arabic : )	m	/ M /			Mu mu	M m
	nun	snake ( Arabic : )	n	/ N /				N n
	samech	fish ( Arabic : )	s	/ S /			, / , chi	X x	( )
	ayin	eye ( Hebrew : ) ( Arabic : )		/ /				O o
	pe	mouth ( Hebrew : ) ( Arabic : )	p	/ P /				P p
	Sade	papyrus		/ S /			( , )		,
	Qoph	monkey ( Hebrew : ) ( Arabic : )	q	/ Q /			( )	Q q
	res	head ( Hebrew : ) ( Arabic : )	r	/ R /				R r
	Sin	sun ( Hebrew : ) ( Arabic : ) cf. tooth		/ /			/	S s	C c,
	taw	mark ( Hebrew : )	t	/ T /			Tau tau	T t

The name of the Phoenician letters we are not directly known. We chose here of possible values returned from the Hebrew. The "meaning of the letters is a reminder of what the symbol hieroglyphic character originally represented. Many meanings given here are the assumptions, often motivated by the meaning that the corresponding letter in Hebrew.

The transliteration follows the usual conventions for the Semitic languages. Values phonological data are API. The " emphatic "Semitic languages are interpreted as former ejective , they were here analyzed as such.

In the Arabic alphabet , there are more letters , , , , ,.

All Greek letters do not appear. Indeed, the Greek letters , , , and were added after the borrowing of the Phoenician letters. They also appear at the end of the Greek alphabet in order. All Greek letters were not used in the same way in the Greek world and regional disparities existed.

Memory of the World

Since 2005 , the UNESCO has ranked on the World List , which lists since 1997 the documentary heritage of universal value, the alphabet inscribed on the sarcophagus of Ahiram king of Byblos ( XII ^centuryBC. J .- C. ), which is the oldest known example of alphabetic writing , as opposed to writing cuneiform and hieroglyphic. This writing system, consisting only of consonants , gave its base in the Greek alphabet which would make the vowels and served as a model for the development of a large number of alphabets thereafter, including the Aramaic alphabet , which itself gives rise to the Hebrew and the Arabic. The sarcophagus is at the National Museum of Beirut , in Lebanon.

Bibliography

• The World's Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996;
• John Healey, "The Early Alphabet," in Reading the Past, collective work, British Museum Press, 1990;
• Andr Martinet , "palatalization" g "in Arabic," in Language Evolution and Reconstruction, Presses Universitaires de France, collection "Sup," section "linguist", Paris, 1975.
• Jean-Pierre Thiollet , My name is Byblos, with a foreword by Guy Gay-Para , H & D, Paris. ISBN 2914266 April 9
• Georges Ifrah , Universal History of Numbers, chap. 17 "The alphabet and counting," Mouthpieces, Robert Laffont, 1981, 1984

Related articles

• Phoenician
• Phoenicians
• Samaritan alphabet

External link

• The Phoenician alphabet and the sky

Miscellaneous

• Code ISO 15924 : Phnx

• Portal of writing
• Portal of the Ancient Near East
• Portal of the Phoenicians and the Punic world

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