rv as I believe you are mistaken - [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_the_alphabet&oldid=18556757] |
Kwamikagami (talk | contribs) m rv: you're arguing with the one who wrote the article, and we've had this debate before. I used an abbreviated BC/CE notation, which was later normalized to standard BCE/CE, & you reverted it then too |
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{{alphabet}} |
{{alphabet}} |
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The [[Middle Bronze Age alphabets|oldest known alphabet]] consists of recently discovered graffiti [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/521235.stm]/[http://www.trussel.com/prehist/news170.htm], scratched onto rocks in central [[Egypt]] around [[1800 BC|1800 |
The [[Middle Bronze Age alphabets|oldest known alphabet]] consists of recently discovered graffiti [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/521235.stm]/[http://www.trussel.com/prehist/news170.htm], scratched onto rocks in central [[Egypt]] around [[1800 BC|1800 BCE]]. It appears to have been used by [[Semitic]] workers or mercenaries partially integrated into Egyptian society. The alphabet had previously been thought to have originated some 300 years later. (See [[Middle Bronze Age alphabets]].) |
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The Egyptians already had an alphabet as part of their [[hieroglyph]]ic script, but only used purely alphabetic writing when transcribing loan words or foreign names. The inventors of the Semitic alphabet, whether Semitic workers or Egyptian bureaucrats, appear to have taken Egyptian hieroglyphs (and not just the Egyptian alphabet) and given them translated [[Semitic]] names. So, for example, ''pr'' ("house") became ''bayt'' ("house"). At this point scholars are still debating whether, when these glyphs were used to write the Semitic language instead of Egyptian, they were purely alphabetic, or whether, for example, the "house" glyph stood for both the consonant ''b'' and the sequence ''byt'', as it had stood for both ''p'' and ''pr'' in Egyptian. However, by the time it was inherited by the [[Canaanite]]s, it was purely alphabetic, standing only for ''b'' (see [[Phoenician alphabet]]). |
The Egyptians already had an alphabet as part of their [[hieroglyph]]ic script, but only used purely alphabetic writing when transcribing loan words or foreign names. The inventors of the Semitic alphabet, whether Semitic workers or Egyptian bureaucrats, appear to have taken Egyptian hieroglyphs (and not just the Egyptian alphabet) and given them translated [[Semitic]] names. So, for example, ''pr'' ("house") became ''bayt'' ("house"). At this point scholars are still debating whether, when these glyphs were used to write the Semitic language instead of Egyptian, they were purely alphabetic, or whether, for example, the "house" glyph stood for both the consonant ''b'' and the sequence ''byt'', as it had stood for both ''p'' and ''pr'' in Egyptian. However, by the time it was inherited by the [[Canaanite]]s, it was purely alphabetic, standing only for ''b'' (see [[Phoenician alphabet]]). |
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All subsequent alphabets around the world have either descended from this first Semitic alphabet, or else been inspired by one of its descendants, with the possible exception of [[Meroitic script|Meroitic]], a seemingly independent [[3rd century BC|3rd century |
All subsequent alphabets around the world have either descended from this first Semitic alphabet, or else been inspired by one of its descendants, with the possible exception of [[Meroitic script|Meroitic]], a seemingly independent [[3rd century BC|3rd century BCE]] alphabetic adaptation of hieroglyphics. The one modern-day national alphabet that cannot be traced to the Canaanite alphabet graphically is the [[Thaana|Maldivian]] script, which is unique in that, although clearly modeled after existing alphabets such as Arabic, it derives its letters from numerals. (However, there is some speculation that the ancestral [[Brahmi numeral]]s above 3 might ultimately derive from the Semitic alphabet as well.) |
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Among alphabets that ''aren't'' used as national scripts today, a few are clearly independent of other alphabets in their letter forms: the [[Zhuyin]] phonetic alphabet derives from Chinese characters, and the geometric [[Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics|Cree Syllabics]] (which, despite its name, is an [[abugida]]) is derived from British [[shorthand]]. The [[Santali alphabet]], an indigenous true alphabet of India, appears to be based on traditional symbols such as "danger" and "meeting place", as well as pictographs invented by its creator. (The names of the Santali letters are related to the sound they represent through the [[acrophonic]] principle, but it is the ''final'' consonant or vowel that the letter represents: e.g. ''le'' "swelling" represents ''e'', while ''en'' "thresh grain" represents ''n''.) In the ancient world, [[Ogham]] consisted of tally marks, and the monumental inscriptions of the [[Old Persian]] Empire were written in an essentially alphabetic cuneiform script whose letter forms seem to have been created for the occasion. All five of these appear to be graphically independent of the other alphabets of the world, but they were devised from their example. |
Among alphabets that ''aren't'' used as national scripts today, a few are clearly independent of other alphabets in their letter forms: the [[Zhuyin]] phonetic alphabet derives from Chinese characters, and the geometric [[Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics|Cree Syllabics]] (which, despite its name, is an [[abugida]]) is derived from British [[shorthand]]. The [[Santali alphabet]], an indigenous true alphabet of India, appears to be based on traditional symbols such as "danger" and "meeting place", as well as pictographs invented by its creator. (The names of the Santali letters are related to the sound they represent through the [[acrophonic]] principle, but it is the ''final'' consonant or vowel that the letter represents: e.g. ''le'' "swelling" represents ''e'', while ''en'' "thresh grain" represents ''n''.) In the ancient world, [[Ogham]] consisted of tally marks, and the monumental inscriptions of the [[Old Persian]] Empire were written in an essentially alphabetic cuneiform script whose letter forms seem to have been created for the occasion. All five of these appear to be graphically independent of the other alphabets of the world, but they were devised from their example. |
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Changes to a new medium sometimes caused a break in graphical form, or made the relationship difficult to trace. It is not immediately obvious that the cuneiform [[Ugaritic alphabet]] derives from a prototypical Semitic abjad, for example. Although [[manual alphabet]]s are a direct continuation of the local alphabet (both the [[Two-handed manual alphabet|British two-handed]] and the [[French_Sign_Language|French]]/[[American Sign Language alphabet|American one-handed]] alphabets retain the forms of the Latin alphabet, as the [[Indian Sign Language|Indian manual alphabet]] does Devanagari, and the [[Korean Sign Language|Korean]] does Hangul), [[Braille]], [[semaphore (communication)|semaphore]], [[International maritime signal flags|maritime signal flags]], and the [[Morse code]]s are essentially arbitrary geometric forms. The shapes of the Braille and semaphore letters, for example, are derived from the alphabetic order of the Latin alphabet, but not from the letters themselves. Modern [[shorthand]] also appears to be graphically unrelated. If it derives from the Latin alphabet historically, the connection has been lost. |
Changes to a new medium sometimes caused a break in graphical form, or made the relationship difficult to trace. It is not immediately obvious that the cuneiform [[Ugaritic alphabet]] derives from a prototypical Semitic abjad, for example. Although [[manual alphabet]]s are a direct continuation of the local alphabet (both the [[Two-handed manual alphabet|British two-handed]] and the [[French_Sign_Language|French]]/[[American Sign Language alphabet|American one-handed]] alphabets retain the forms of the Latin alphabet, as the [[Indian Sign Language|Indian manual alphabet]] does Devanagari, and the [[Korean Sign Language|Korean]] does Hangul), [[Braille]], [[semaphore (communication)|semaphore]], [[International maritime signal flags|maritime signal flags]], and the [[Morse code]]s are essentially arbitrary geometric forms. The shapes of the Braille and semaphore letters, for example, are derived from the alphabetic order of the Latin alphabet, but not from the letters themselves. Modern [[shorthand]] also appears to be graphically unrelated. If it derives from the Latin alphabet historically, the connection has been lost. |
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However, most alphabets descend directly from the original Semitic script. The [[Aramaic alphabet]], which evolved from Phoenician in the [[7th century BC|7th century |
However, most alphabets descend directly from the original Semitic script. The [[Aramaic alphabet]], which evolved from Phoenician in the [[7th century BC|7th century BCE]] and was used by the [[Persian Empire]], appears to be the ancestor of nearly all of the modern alphabets of Asia. The modern [[Hebrew alphabet]] started out as a local variant of Aramaic. (The original Hebrew alphabet has been retained by the [[Samaritan alphabet|Samaritans]].) The [[Arabic alphabet]] descended from Aramaic via the [[Nabatean]] alphabet of what is now southern [[Jordan]]. The [[Syriac alphabet]] used after the [[3rd century|3rd century CE]] evolved, through [[Pahlavi]] and [[Sogdian alphabet|Sogdian]], into the alphabets of northern Asia, such as [[Orkhon script|Orkhon]] (probably), [[Uyghur alphabet|Uyghur]], [[Mongolian alphabet|Mongolian]], and [[Manchu alphabet|Manchu]]. The [[Georgian alphabet]] is of uncertain provenance, but appears to be part of the Persian-Aramaic family. |
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The Aramaic alphabet is also the most likely ancestor of the [[Brahmic family|Brahmic alphabets]] of India, which spread to [[Tibet]], [[Southeast Asia]], and [[Indonesia]] with the [[Hinduism|Hindu]] and [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] religions. [[China]] and [[Japan]], while absorbing [[Buddhism]], maintained their own [[logogram|logographic]] and [[syllabary|syllabic]] scripts. |
The Aramaic alphabet is also the most likely ancestor of the [[Brahmic family|Brahmic alphabets]] of India, which spread to [[Tibet]], [[Southeast Asia]], and [[Indonesia]] with the [[Hinduism|Hindu]] and [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] religions. [[China]] and [[Japan]], while absorbing [[Buddhism]], maintained their own [[logogram|logographic]] and [[syllabary|syllabic]] scripts. |
Revision as of 07:14, 28 October 2005
The oldest known alphabet consists of recently discovered graffiti [1]/[2], scratched onto rocks in central Egypt around 1800 BCE. It appears to have been used by Semitic workers or mercenaries partially integrated into Egyptian society. The alphabet had previously been thought to have originated some 300 years later. (See Middle Bronze Age alphabets.)
The Egyptians already had an alphabet as part of their hieroglyphic script, but only used purely alphabetic writing when transcribing loan words or foreign names. The inventors of the Semitic alphabet, whether Semitic workers or Egyptian bureaucrats, appear to have taken Egyptian hieroglyphs (and not just the Egyptian alphabet) and given them translated Semitic names. So, for example, pr ("house") became bayt ("house"). At this point scholars are still debating whether, when these glyphs were used to write the Semitic language instead of Egyptian, they were purely alphabetic, or whether, for example, the "house" glyph stood for both the consonant b and the sequence byt, as it had stood for both p and pr in Egyptian. However, by the time it was inherited by the Canaanites, it was purely alphabetic, standing only for b (see Phoenician alphabet).
All subsequent alphabets around the world have either descended from this first Semitic alphabet, or else been inspired by one of its descendants, with the possible exception of Meroitic, a seemingly independent 3rd century BCE alphabetic adaptation of hieroglyphics. The one modern-day national alphabet that cannot be traced to the Canaanite alphabet graphically is the Maldivian script, which is unique in that, although clearly modeled after existing alphabets such as Arabic, it derives its letters from numerals. (However, there is some speculation that the ancestral Brahmi numerals above 3 might ultimately derive from the Semitic alphabet as well.)
Among alphabets that aren't used as national scripts today, a few are clearly independent of other alphabets in their letter forms: the Zhuyin phonetic alphabet derives from Chinese characters, and the geometric Cree Syllabics (which, despite its name, is an abugida) is derived from British shorthand. The Santali alphabet, an indigenous true alphabet of India, appears to be based on traditional symbols such as "danger" and "meeting place", as well as pictographs invented by its creator. (The names of the Santali letters are related to the sound they represent through the acrophonic principle, but it is the final consonant or vowel that the letter represents: e.g. le "swelling" represents e, while en "thresh grain" represents n.) In the ancient world, Ogham consisted of tally marks, and the monumental inscriptions of the Old Persian Empire were written in an essentially alphabetic cuneiform script whose letter forms seem to have been created for the occasion. All five of these appear to be graphically independent of the other alphabets of the world, but they were devised from their example.
Changes to a new medium sometimes caused a break in graphical form, or made the relationship difficult to trace. It is not immediately obvious that the cuneiform Ugaritic alphabet derives from a prototypical Semitic abjad, for example. Although manual alphabets are a direct continuation of the local alphabet (both the British two-handed and the French/American one-handed alphabets retain the forms of the Latin alphabet, as the Indian manual alphabet does Devanagari, and the Korean does Hangul), Braille, semaphore, maritime signal flags, and the Morse codes are essentially arbitrary geometric forms. The shapes of the Braille and semaphore letters, for example, are derived from the alphabetic order of the Latin alphabet, but not from the letters themselves. Modern shorthand also appears to be graphically unrelated. If it derives from the Latin alphabet historically, the connection has been lost.
However, most alphabets descend directly from the original Semitic script. The Aramaic alphabet, which evolved from Phoenician in the 7th century BCE and was used by the Persian Empire, appears to be the ancestor of nearly all of the modern alphabets of Asia. The modern Hebrew alphabet started out as a local variant of Aramaic. (The original Hebrew alphabet has been retained by the Samaritans.) The Arabic alphabet descended from Aramaic via the Nabatean alphabet of what is now southern Jordan. The Syriac alphabet used after the 3rd century CE evolved, through Pahlavi and Sogdian, into the alphabets of northern Asia, such as Orkhon (probably), Uyghur, Mongolian, and Manchu. The Georgian alphabet is of uncertain provenance, but appears to be part of the Persian-Aramaic family.
The Aramaic alphabet is also the most likely ancestor of the Brahmic alphabets of India, which spread to Tibet, Southeast Asia, and Indonesia with the Hindu and Buddhist religions. China and Japan, while absorbing Buddhism, maintained their own logographic and syllabic scripts.
The Hangul alphabet was invented in Korea in the 15th century. The traditional view holds that it was an independent invention; however, it may be based on half a dozen letters derived from Tibetan via the imperial Phagspa alphabet of the Yuan dynasty in China. Uniquely, the rest of the alphabet is derived from this core.
Besides Aramaic, the Phoenician alphabet gave rise to the Berber and Greek alphabets. Whereas separate letters for vowels would have actually hindered the legibility of Egyptian, Berber, or Semitic, their absence was problematic for Greek, which had a very different morphological structure. However, there was a simple solution. The alphabet was based on the acrophonic principle, where a letter represented the first sound of its name. Thus bayt (Greek beta) stood for b. All of the names of the letters of the Phoenician alphabet started with consonants. However, several of these were rather soft, and unpronounceable by the Greeks. For example, the Greeks had no glottal stop or h, so the Phoenician letters ’alep and he became Greek alpha and e (later renamed epsilon). By the acrophonic principle, these now stood for the vowels a and e rather than the consonants ʔ and h. As this didn't provide for all twelve Greek vowels, the Greeks later created digraphs and other modifications, such as ei, ou, o (which became omega), to complete their script, or simply ignored the deficiency, as in long a, i, u.
Greek is in turn the source for all the modern scripts of Europe. Eastern Greek, where the letter eta stood for a vowel, gave rise to Cyrillic and probably Armenian; the western dialects of Greek, where eta remained an h, produced the Roman alphabet and even the runes.
Although this description presents the evolution of scripts in a linear fashion, this is a simplification. For example, the Manchu alphabet, descended from the abjads of West Asia, was also influenced by Korean hangul, which was either independent (the traditional view) or derived from the abugidas of South Asia. Georgian apparently derives from the Aramaic family, but was strongly influenced in its conception by Greek. The Greek alphabet, itself ultimately a derivative of the Egyptian hieratic hieroglyphs, later more directly adopted half a dozen demotic hieroglyphs when it was used to write Coptic Egyptian.