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The Phoenician alphabet[b] is an abjad (consonantal alphabet) [2] used across the Mediterranean civilization of Phoenicia for most of the 1st millennium BC. It was one of the first alphabets, and attested in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. In the history of writing systems, the Phoenician script also ...
Phoenician. The history of the alphabet goes back to the consonantal writing system used to write Semitic languages in the Levant during the 2nd millennium BCE. Nearly all alphabetic scripts used throughout the world today ultimately go back to this Semitic script. [ 1 ] Its first origins can be traced back to a Proto-Sinaitic script developed ...
The history of the Greek alphabet starts with the adoption of Phoenician letter forms in the 9th–8th centuries BC during early Archaic Greece and continues to the present day. The Greek alphabet was developed during the Iron Age, centuries after the loss of Linear B, the syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek until the Late ...
The Phoenician alphabetic script was easy to write on papyrus or parchment sheets, and the use of these materials explains why virtually no Phoenician writings – no history, no trading records – have come down to us. In their cities by the sea, the air and soil were damp, and papyrus and leather moldered and rotted away.
The Canaanite-Phoenician alphabet consists of 22 letters, all consonants. [41] It is believed to be one of the ancestors of modern alphabets. [42] [43] Through their maritime trade, the Phoenicians spread the use of the alphabet to Anatolia, North Africa, and Europe, where it likely served the purpose of communication and commercial relations. [30]
Phoenicia (/ fəˈnɪʃə, fəˈniːʃə /), [4] or Phœnicia, or the Phoenician city-states, were an ancient Semitic maritime civilization originating in the coastal strip of the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. [5][6] The territory of the Phoenicians expanded and contracted throughout history ...
The Phoenician alphabet is the continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet into the Iron Age; it in turn gave rise to the Aramaic and Greek alphabets. To date, most of the writing systems used throughout Afro-Eurasia descend from either Aramaic or Greek. The Greek alphabet was the first to introduce letters representing vowel sounds. [48]
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. [3] [4] It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, [5] and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as well as consonants.