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The Phoenician alphabet is a consonantal alphabet (or abjad) used across the Mediterranean civilization of Phoenicia for most of the 1st millennium BCE. It was the first mature alphabet, and attested in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region .
- Our Knowledge of The Language Is Based Upon only A Few Texts
- Its Rules Were More Regulated Than Other Language Forms
- Merchants Introduced The Language to Common People
- It Formed The Basis For The Greek and Then Latin Alphabets
Only a few surviving texts written in the Phoenician language survive. Before around 1000 BC, Phoenician was written using cuneiform symbols that were common across Mesopotamia. Closely related to Hebrew, the language appears to be a direct continuation of ‘proto-Canaanite’ script (the earliest trace of alphabetic writing) of the Bronze Age collaps...
The Phoenician alphabet is also notable for its strict rules. It has also been called the ‘early linear script’ because it developed pictographic (using pictures to represent a word or phrase) proto or old Canaanite script into alphabetic, linear scripts. Crucially, it also made a transfer away from multi-directional writing systems and was strictl...
The Phoenician alphabet had significant and long-term effects upon the social structures of civilisations that came into contact with it. This was in part because of its widespread use because of the maritime trading culture of Phoenician merchants, who spread it into parts of Northern Africa and Southern Europe. Its ease of use compared to other l...
The Phoenician alphabet ‘proper’ was used in ancient Carthage by the name of the ‘Punic alphabet’ right up until the 2nd century BC. Elsewhere, it was already branching off into different national alphabets, including the Samaritan and Aramaic, several Anatolian scripts and early Greek alphabets. The Aramaic alphabet in the Near East was especially...
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Aug 4, 2023 · One of the most notable contributions of the Phoenicians is the development of the first alphabet, a significant leap in the evolution of writing systems. This simplified script was easier to learn and use than the complex hieroglyphs and cuneiform characters of earlier civilizations.
Mar 15, 2022 · Our first examples of the Phoenician alphabet—technically an abjad, containing only consonants—appear around the 11th century B.C.E. It was not the first writing system of this kind: 200 years earlier, the people of Ugarit a little further up the Syrian coast used a cuneiform alphabet (including some indication of vowels) to write their ...
Aug 12, 2019 · The alphabet employed by the Phoenicians was the inheritor of a long tradition of alphabetic writing and was itself adapted for use throughout the Mediterranean basin by numerous populations speaking many languages. The present contribution traces the origins of the alphabet in Sinai and the Levant before discussing different alphabetic ...
Scholarly interest increased in 1758, when Jean-Jacques Barthélémy deciphered the Phoenician alphabet, and the number of known Phoenician inscriptions began to increase – the 1694 publication of the Cippi of Melqart was the first Phoenician inscription to be identified and published in modern times.
Nov 21, 2023 · The Phoenician alphabet was developed by the Phoenician Prince Cadmus to improve communication in order to more easily facilitate trade with other surrounding cultures. The alphabet of the...
