Proto-Canaanite alphabet
The
Proto-Canaanite alphabet is the linear (
i.e., non-
Cuneiform)
abjad of twenty-plus
acrophonic glyphs. It is found in
Levantine texts of the
Late Bronze Age (from ca. the
15th century), by convention taken to last until a cut-off date of
1050 BC, after which it is called
Phoenician.
This was the ancestor of nearly every alphabet in use today, from
Greek,
Hebrew,
Roman and
Berber in the West to
Thai,
Mongol, and perhaps
Hangul in the East. Hebrew being the one that contains the exact amount of letters and each letter is nearly identical in the Hebrew alphabet to the Proto-Canaanite alphabet since Hebrew is a
Canaanite language.
Predecessors, possibly still partly logographic, were discovered in central Egypt in 1905 and 1999 (see Wadi El Hol) (see
Middle Bronze Age alphabets). These early scripts may have had more letters than are found later, and may also have included letter variants (different letters that could be used to express the same phoneme).
The names of the letters, which survive in the Greek and Hebrew alphabets, were probably already present. The names are based on an acrophonic principle, presumably from Semitic translations of the names of
Egyptian hieroglyphs. For example, Egyptian
nt (water) became Semitic
mu (water), ultimately evolving into Latin
M, while Egyptian
drt (hand) became Semitic
kapp (hand), and ultimately Latin
K.
The alphabetic order is unknown; the related but cuneiform
Ugaritic alphabet had two alphabetic orders, an ABGD order similar to that of the
Latin alphabet, and an HLĦM otherwise attested in the
South Arabian and
Ge'ez alphabets.
 |
20 reconstructed glyphs (read from right to left); compared with the list of 22 glyphs below, á¹Ä"t and samek are missing. |
One reconstruction of 22 letters, based on Proto-Canaanite's better-attested successors Phoenician, and its sibling South Arabian, follows, along with the Latin descendants,
#[ʾ]
ʾalp "ox" (
A)#[b]
bet "house" (
B)#[g]
gaml "throwstick" (
C,
G)#[d]
digg "fish" (
D)#[h]
haw / hll "jubilation" (
E)#[w]
waw "hook" (
F,
U,
V,
W,
Y)#[z]
zen /ziqq "manacle" (
Z)#[ḥ]
ḥet (
H)#[á¹]
á¹Ä"t (
Θ) "wheel" #[y]
yad "arm" (
I,
J)#[k]
kap "hand" (
K)#[l]
lamd "goad" (
L)#[m]
mem "water" (
M)#[n]
naḥš "snake" (
N)#[s]
samek "fish" #[Ê¿]
Ê¿en "eye" (
O)#[p]
piʾt "corner" (
P)#[á¹£ ]
á¹£ad "plant"#[q]
qup (
Q)#[r]
raʾs "head" (
R)#[Å¡]
šimš "sun, the
Uraeus" (
S)#[t]
taw "signature" (
T)
*
*Cross, F.M. (1979) The Invention and Development of the Alphabet in Senner, Frank (ed.) The Origins of Writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press
*Diringer, David and Freeman, Hilda (1983) A History of the Alphabet. Headley: Gresham Books.
*Healey, John. (1990) The Early Alphabet. London: British Museum.
*Neveh, Joseph. (1982) The Early History of the Alphabet. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
*
Alphabet*
Abjad*
Middle Bronze Age alphabets (including Sinaitic)
*
Byblos syllabary*
Ugaritic alphabet*
South Arabian alphabet*
Phoenician alphabet*
Egyptian hieroglyphics*http://victorian.fortunecity.com/vangogh/555/Spell/alfabet2.html
*http://www.cedarseed.com/water/alphabet.html
*http://www.crystalinks.com/phoenician.html
*http://www.biblescripture.net/Hebrew.html
