Phoenician, Punic, Old Aramaic, Ammonite, Moabite, Edomite, Old Arabic
Related scripts
Parent systems
Egyptian hieroglyphs[1]
Proto-Sinaitic
Phoenician script
Child systems
Paleo-Hebrew
Aramaic
Greek
Paleohispanic
Libyco-Berber
Sister systems
South Semitic
ISO 15924
ISO 15924
Phnx(115), Phoenician
Unicode
Unicode alias
Phoenician
Unicode range
U+10900–U+1091F
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
This article contains special characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols.
History of the alphabet
Graphical descent from Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs 32nd c. BCE
Hieratic 32nd c. BCE
Demotic 7th c. BCE
Meroitic 3rd c. BCE
Proto-Sinaitic 19th c. BCE
Ugaritic 15th c. BCE
Epigraphic South Arabian 9th c. BCE
Geʽez 5–6th c. BCE
Phoenician 12th c. BCE
Paleo-Hebrew 10th c. BCE
Samaritan 6th c. BCE
Aramaic 8th c. BCE
Kharosthi 3rd c. BCE
Brahmi 3rd c. BCE
Brahmic family (see)
Pallava 4th c. CE
Cham 4th c. CE
Dhives Akuru 6th c. CE
Khmer 611 CE
Tibetan 7th c. CE
Phagspa 1269 CE
Devanagari 10th c. CE
Canadian Aboriginal 1840
Hebrew 3rd c. BCE
Square Aramaic Alphabet 2007
Pahlavi 3rd c. BCE
Avestan 4th c. CE
Palmyrene 2nd c. BCE
Nabataean 2nd c. BCE
Arabic 4th c. CE
N'Ko 1949 CE
Syriac 2nd c. BCE
Sogdian 2nd c. BCE
Orkhon (old Turkic) 6th c. CE
Old Hungarian c. 650 CE
Old Uyghur
Mongolian 1204 CE
Mandaic 2nd c. CE
Greek 8th c. BCE
Etruscan 8th c. BCE
Latin 7th c. BCE
Cherokee (syllabary; letter forms only) c. 1820 CE
Vai (syllabary) c. 1832 CE
Deseret 1854 CE
Great Lakes Algonquian 19th c. CE
Blackfoot (influence from Canadian) 1888 CE
Fraser (Old Lisu) 1915 CE
Saanich 1978 CE
Osage 2006 CE
Runic 2nd c. CE
Ogham (origin uncertain) 4th c. CE
Lycian 5th c. BCE
Coptic (influence from Demotic) 3rd c. CE
Gothic 3rd c. CE
Armenian 405 CE
Caucasian Albanian (origin uncertain) c. 420 CE
Georgian (origin uncertain) c. 430 CE
Glagolitic 862 CE
Cyrillic c. 940 CE
Old Permic 1372 CE
Libyco-Berber 10th c. BCE
Tifinagh 4th c. CE
Neo-Tifinagh 1970 CE
Paleohispanic (semi-syllabic) 7th c. BCE
Graphically independent
Hangul 1443 CE (proposed connection to Phagspa)
Thaana c. 1601 CE
Adlam 1989 CE
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The Phoenician alphabet[b] is a consonantal alphabet (or abjad)[2] 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. In the history of writing systems, the Phoenician script also marked the first to have a fixed writing direction—while previous systems were multi-directional, Phoenician was written horizontally, from right to left.[3] It developed directly from the Proto-Sinaitic script[4][3] used during the Late Bronze Age, which was derived in turn from Egyptian hieroglyphs.[5][6]
The Phoenician alphabet was used to write Canaanite languages spoken during the Early Iron Age, sub-categorized by historians as Phoenician, Hebrew, Moabite, Ammonite and Edomite, as well as Old Aramaic. It was widely disseminated outside of the Canaanite sphere by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean, where it was adopted and adapted by other cultures. The Phoenician alphabet proper was used in Ancient Carthage until the 2nd century BCE, where it was used to write the Punic language. Its direct descendant scripts include the Aramaic and Samaritan alphabets, several Alphabets of Asia Minor, and the Archaic Greek alphabets.
The Phoenician alphabet proper uses 22 consonant letters—as an abjad used to write a Semitic language, the vowel sounds were left implicit—though late varieties sometimes used matres lectionis to denote some vowels. As its letters were originally incised using a stylus, their forms are mostly angular and straight, though cursive forms increased in use over time, culminating in the Neo-Punic alphabet used in Roman North Africa.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
^Himelfarb, Elizabeth J. (Jan–Feb 2000). "First Alphabet Found in Egypt". Archaeology. Vol. 53, no. 1.
^Fischer, Steven R. (2004). A History of Writing. London: Reaktion. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-861-89101-3.
^ abCite error: The named reference Cross1980 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Beyond Babel: A Handbook for Biblical Hebrew and Related Languages, article by Charles R. Krahmalkov (ed. John Kaltner, Steven L. McKenzie, 2002). "This alphabet was not, as often mistakenly asserted, invented by the Phoenicians but, rather, was an adaptation of the early West Semitic alphabet to the needs of their own language".
^Howard, Michael C. (2012). Transnationalism in Ancient and Medieval Societies: The Role of Cross-Border Trade and Travel. McFarland. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-786-49033-2.
^Beyond Babel: A Handbook for Biblical Hebrew and Related Languages, article by Charles R. Krahmalkov (ed. John Kaltner, Steven L. McKenzie, 2002). "This alphabet was not, as often mistakenly asserted, invented by the Phoenicians but, rather, was an adaptation of the early West Semitic alphabet to the needs of their own language".
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