The Alphabet  Part II

The set of characters we use today, the so called Roman Alphabet or Latin script, can be traced to letter shapes and phonograms used over 4000 years ago. Given the range of possible variation, the continuity of shape and sound categories is truly amazing. 

The alphabet has been defined as 

While this may describe the situation today, it doesn't explain why we use some of the same shapes and sound categories that were used 4000 years ago.

GRH  DJ  DJW mountain of darkness

Writing sample dating from 3300 B.C. recently unearthed in Abydos,  about 250 miles south of Cairo, Egypt On the left,the lightning bolt spells "grh", or darkness. On the right, the snake is "dj", which with the mountain sign indicates the Eg. word for mountain  "djw." A close phonetic approximation for DJW might be /joo/.  © Times Newspapers

The tablets record linen and oil deliveries made about 5,300 years ago as tithe to King Scorpion I, who reigned before the first dynasty. The tablets have been carbon-dated with certainty to between 3300 B.C. and 3200 B.C. The discovery throws open for debate a widely held belief among historians.  The article appeared on 9/14/98 in the  Sundays Times.  On 12/18/98 related articles were written for  BBC, ABC News,   AP, and  CNN. © Times Newspapers Limited, London The Sunday Times

continued from Alphabet History - The Write Stuff   back

South Arabian Family (by L. Lu)

The South Arabian script went out of fashion as Islam increased the popularity of the Arabic alphabet. However, before its complete disappearance around 300 a.d., it diffused across the Red Sea and into Ethiopia, where it became the predominant script, Ge'ez. In fact, modern Ethiopian is a descendent of Ge'ez, and ultimately South Arabian. The difference between Ethiopian and South Arabian is that Ethiopian writes vowels by adding ligatures to simple consonants, while South Arabian left out the vowels. 

Ugaritic and Letter Order

No one is sure why those particular sequences of letters. Maybe it is some mnemonic device that we no longer understand. We know for sure that by the 1300 B.C. or so these orders have already arisen. The evidence, though, is from a most unlikely source. 

The earliest example of an abecedary (an ordered list of the a, b, g, d, variety) was found in the Syrian coastal city of Ugarit. However, instead of being written in some kind of West Semitic, Proto-Canaanite-derived form (shown in row 2 of Fig. 1), the clay tablet that recorded this abecedary was written in some kind of cuneiform. This cuneiform script was unrelated to any other kinds except only in the shape of its characters, and the total number of symbuls was 30, a good number for a (mostly) alphabetic script. 

Whether the Ugaritic influenced the letter ordering of later West Semitic scripts, or vice-versa, is still an open question. 

(Steve Bett) I believe that the early alphabets and proto-alphabets had a reference in addition to a name, a sound, and a shape. For some reason, no one has bothered to catalog the references or possible references of the letter shapes. If we are dealing with acrophonic phoneticized pictograms, these will be language specific. You can't move a picture name across a linguistic boundary any better than you can a number name. If we can identify what the phonogram shape is a picture of, then we might be able to make some sense out of the sound assignments in Linear B, the Byblos Syllabary, hieroglyphics, and the Semitic letter shapes that don't seem to have a reference. 

The Byblos Syllabary (by Steve Bett)

Nine text stamped on copper plates or spatulas and carved in stone were excavated at the moder site of Jebeil, ancient Byblos, by the French expedition under the direction of Prof. M. Dunand, during the years 1928 to 1932. They were published in 1945 in the monograph titled Byblia Grammata. The language recorded on these 9 texts would have been translated quickly had it been in reasonable conformity to known archaic Semitic dialects. They fall into the category of inscriptions in which both the writing system and the language are unknown. Because of this, it took 37 years for the first translation to appear. 

Mendenhall believes that the language is a primitive one, not crude but rather the source from which subsequent dialects evolved and specialized. Mendenhall thinks that the texts are early bronze age: pre-Hyksos and pre Egyptian Middle Empire: probably around 2400 b.c. 

According to Mendenhall, the thesis that the Canaanite alphabet was derived from the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing system is too simplistic. The derivation was indirect in the sense that the designers of the syllabary were aware of Egyptian and borrowed the pictorial shapes but not the associated name and sound. The snake symbol, for instance, was given the native name, *nahas. The phonetic value was the first syllable of that name, and its epigraphic function was to signal the syllable na instead of the Egyptian word and syllable *ukraeus or *djet. 

Alphabets Family Tree (from Lawrence Lu's page on ancient scripts)
indexed by region

Sumerian (3200 b.c.) Cuneiform (illustration)

• Akkadian (2300 b.c.)

• Byblos Pseudo Hieroglyphic Semitic Syllabary (2000 b.c.)
• Linear A (Cretan) Syllabary, Linear B (Greek) Syllabary (1500 b.c.)
• Ugaritic (1500 B.C.)
• Proto-Canaanite (1700 B.C. )
• Proto-Arabian 
• South-Arabian 
• Ethiopian 
• Ge'ez 
• Amharic 
• Phoenician (1100 b.c.)
• Punic
• Old Hebrew (Canaanite)
• Samaritan 
• Aramaic 
• Mesopotamian 
• Elymaic 
• Mandaic 
• Hatran 
• Seleucid 
• Palmyrene 
• Syriac 
• Jewish 
• Modern Hebrew
• Nabatean 
• Early Arabic 
• Modern Arabic
• Iranian scripts (???) 
• Arsacid 
• Avestan 
• Armenian 
• Georgian 
• Brahmi 
• Devanagari 
• Archaic Greek 
• Greek 
• Coptic (300 b.c.) Hybrid of Eg. demotic and Greek
• Cyrillic 
• Venetic (?) 
• Ogham(alt. link) 
• FutharkRunes could have come directly from Phoenician

Four letters show some Roman influence. In England, the script disappeared after the Norman conquest in 1066
• Etruscan 
• Oscan 
• Roman 


Include a alphabet tree graphic here.

The purpose of this expositon was to take some of the misplaced mystery out of the development of the alphabet. The real mystery remains but the pattern of development from Egyptian to Semitic seems to be understandable. 

Iconic acrophonic alphabets cannot be adapted in the same way that the Greeks adapted the Semitic script (Cadmean letters). If the goals it to develop a pictographic alphabet that uses familar words as the bridge between shape and sound, one is limited in terms of what can be borrowed from another culture. The sound categories and shapes can be borrowed, but not the way they fit together. New links have to be forged between the native language and the shapes to be used for sound signs. 

The Semitic alphabet developers borrowed at least 90% of their sound categories and 90% of their shapes from the Egyptians. In a number of cases, they reinterpreted the meaning and reference of the shape. K the symbol for hill slope becomes the symbol for a hand, *kaf. In well over 50% of the cases, however, the link between shape and sound was original. 

The Greeks retained the same shape to sound links for 12 of the letters they borrowed but introduced 12 new sounds (6 vowels) and 12 new or highly modified shapes. One must conclude, based on the numbers, that the Semites were as indebted to the Egyptians as the Greeks were to the Phoenicians. 

The Semites discarded the regional bird references but, at least initally, kept some animal references (snake (nahas), fish (dag, dig), ox ('alef)). They dropped the references to some regional plants but kept references to body parts (hand, arm, eye, head). 

References

Albright, Wm. F. (1950?) The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and their Decipherment.

Albright, Wm. F. (1950?) The Phonology of Ancient Egyptian...

Arvin, Leila. (1990) Scribes, Scripts, and Books. American Library 

Baron, Naomi S. (1981) Speech, Writing, and Sign. Bloomington, Indiana University     Press.

Bernal, M. (1990) Cadmean Letters. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns
   See also Black Athena (1987) New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press

Bett, Steve T. (1996) Pictionary Hieroglyphics. LA Middle School Journal

Bett, Steve T. (1996) The Origin of the Alphabet.  unpublished manuscript.

Bett, Steve T. (1996) Pictographic Monofon. unpublished manuscript.

Bett, Steve T. (1996) Sign Design. unpublished. An extension of an obscure book, Sign and Design: Psychogenic Source of Alphabets by

Bett, Steve T. (1995) The Origin and Development of Sound Signs. unpublished MS
     CD |/scratch/4_steveb/htdogpro/sndsign.htm

Carpenter, Rhys. (1933) The Antiquity of the Greek Alphabet. 
    American Journal of Archaeology, 37: 8-29.   (in electronic format at UT) 

700 B.C.-Phoen. alphabet to Rhodes & Crete, Athens, Delos, 
670 B.C., Etruscan inscriptions,  600 B.C.Lycian & Lydian alphabets adopted,   Illiad written down. After 600 B.C., Phrygian alphabet adapted from Greek. The civilization of 9th and 8th century Greece overestimated. A people devoid of architecture, painting, etc. were not likely to be literate. Homer ca. 800 b.c.and other story tellers were illiterate but the principals in the stories were not.

Coulmas, F. (1989) The Writing Systems of the World. Oxford. Basil Blackwell. 

Cross, F.M. (1979) Early Alphabetic Scripts. Cambridge: American Schools of Oriental 
    Research.

Cross, F.M. (1979) The Invention and Development of the Alphabet in Senner, Frank (ed.)    The Origins of Writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press 

Crystal, David (1987) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge University Press.

Crystal, David (1989?) Encyclopedia of Linguistics (and of the English language) 

Dewey, Godfrey. (1971) Spelling, roadblock to reading. Columbia, Teacher's College

Diringer, David. (1960) The Story of the 'Aleph-Bet. New York 
    Primary focus on Semitic and Jewish scripts

Diringer, David. (1962) Writing. London: Thames and Hudson. 

Diringer, David (1968) The Alphabet. 3rd. ed. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. 

Diringer, David and Freeman, Hilda (1983) A History of the Alphabet. 
    Headley: Gresham Books. 

Diringer, David. (1980?) Article on writing in the Encyclopedia Britanica
    see also the 11th (1910) and 14th (1929) editions. 

de Rouge, Manuel. (1874) Memorire sur l'origine Egyptienne de l'alphabet 
    Phenicien. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. 

Driver, G.R. (1976) Semitic Writing: From Pictograph to Alphabet. London: 
    Oxfrord University Press. (first edition, 1948) 

Drucker, Johanna. (1995) The Alphabet Labyrinth. Thames & Hudson, London.
    (This book, subtitled the alphabet and the imagination, is very good at including sections from
     many old out of print books on the subject) 

Firmage, Richard A. (1993) The Alphabet Abecedarium. 

Friedman, Renée. (1999)  Egypt. British Museum Press
Friedman, was director of an American expedition to Hierakonpolis, the site of Egypt's first capital. 

Gardiner, Sir Alan H. (1957) Egyptian Grammar Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Gardiner, Sir Alan H. (1916) The Egyptian Origin of the Semitic Alphabet. 
    Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 3: 1-16. 

Gardiner, Sir Alan H. (1961) Egypt of the Pharaohs. 

Gaur, A. (1984-7) A History of Writing. London, The British Library. 

Gelb, I.J. (1963) A Study of Writing. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 
   First published in 1952 by Routledge & Keagan Paul. Ltd. London

Healey, John. (1990) The Early Alphabet. London: British Museum. 
    Cf. Reading the Past Series, Univ. of CA. (1990). 

Jensen, Hans. (1969) Sign, Symbol, and Script. New York. 
    Originally published as Geschiche der Schrift (1925) Hanover. See also 
    Die Schrift in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (1935) Hamburg.

Kallir, Alfred. (1961) Sign and Design. London: James Clarke & Co. Ltd. 
    An attempt to disclose the symbolism of the letters - the psychogenic sources. Using ABC to refer to the entire alphabet is an instance of pars prima pro toto.Kallir's acrocratic principle. Symbolic comes from symballein, to throw together. Symballic, Kallir's term, is less inclusive an refers to the persistent concurrence of features, hints and meanings in the acoustic or phonetic signal. Kallir refers to his form of alphabetic research as bispheric semantology.

Loprieno, Antonio. (1995) Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge 
    University Press 

Mendenhall, George E. (1985) The Syllabic Inscriptions from Byblos. Lebanon: 
    American University of Beirut. 

Miller, D. Gary. (1994) Ancient Scripts and Phonological Knowledge. 
    John Benjamins Publishing Co. Ch. 4. The Greek Alphabet - 33 preclassical 

Neveh, Joseph. (1982) The Early History of the Alphabet. Leiden: E.J. Brill. 

Olson, David R. (1994). The World on Paper. Cambridge University Press 

Ray, John D. (1986) The Emergence of Writing in Egypt. World Archaeology, 
    17 (3) 390-398. 

Robinson, Andrew. (1995) The Story of Writing. Thames & Hudson, London. 

Moscoti, Sabotino. (ed.) (1988)The Phoenicians. NY: Abbeville Press. 
    (See Giovanni Garbrini, The Question of the Alphabet, pp. 86-103) 

Sampson, G. (1985) Writing Systems. London: Hutchinson. 

Sass, Benjamin. (1988) The Genesis of the Alphabet and its Development 
    in the 2nd Millenium B.C.

Sass, Benjamin. (1992) Alphabetica?

Saussure, Ferdinand de (1959) Course in General Linguistics. New York: 
    Philosophical Library. 

Schmandt-Besserat, Denise. (1978) The Earliest Precursors to Writing, 
    Sc. Amer. 238:50-59. 

Schmandt-Besserat, Denise. (1992) Before Writing. Austin: University of Texas Press. 

Taylor, Isaac. (1899) The History of the Alphabet: An account of the origin and 
    development of the letters, 2 vol. London: Edw. Arnold. 

Ullman, B.L. (1927) The Origin and Development of the Alphabet,
    American Journal of Archaeology, 31, 311-328. 

Ullman, B.L. (1932) Ancient Writing and Its Influence. Amer. J. of Archaeology
    31, 311-328. 
 

Notes

1. The quote could be called a paraphrase of statements made by Saussure regarding any recognizable likeness between that which is being represented (the signifie) and that which is doing the representing (the significant). It was Saussure who enunciated the modern dictum that "the bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary." (Saussure, 1959) "The dictum of arbitrariness of the linguistic sign has so pervaded linguistic analysis that any discussion must reaffirm this dictum whenever the data themselves are at all suggestive of iconic sources of signs." (Baron, 1981, p. 32). The notion that a symbol is purely a convention certainly represents the central tenet of the semiotics movement.

2. Unfortunately, while Egyptologists have the object pictures and usually know the first letter, they often don't know the common ancient Egyptian name was for the object. What was the name for a jar stand? g... What was the name for leg? b... What was the name for hill slope? k.. Did all the words start with a consonat (CV format) or was the consonant just the most prominant feature? e.g. foot might have been /..b/ instead of /b../

3. According to Ullman (1963) , the oldest Semitic inscription, ca. 1300 BC, is on the sarcophogus of King Ahiram of Byblos (Gebal). The oldest inscription, the date fixed by its contents, is the Moabite stone of King Mesha (1000 BC). Some of the letter shapes on the Mobite stone are closer to S. Semitic. S. Semitic was not derived from Phoenician but from a common ancestor.

Only when the meaning of the letter is uncertain do we have difficulty in finding the appropriate Egyptian form. In addition to the letter shapes, the Semites got something even more important from the Eg. Script, the acrophonic principle. The picture comes to be used as a permanent representation of the initial letter of the word for that object.

There is some indication, namely the forms of beth, he, vau, cheth, lamed, and pe which are close to S. Semitic, that the script reached Greece before the Phoenicians.

4. While the Semites borrowed 91% of their shapes from hieroglyphics, they borrowed less than 6 shapes from Eg. uniliteral phonograms. B, W(fv), H, I, K, O.   The Greeks borrowed 12 of the Phoenician phonograms, most with their names intact: , 'aleph=alpha, bayit=beta, gimel=gamma, daleth=delta, kaph=kappa, lamed=lambda, mem (mu)=mu, nun=nu, etc. The Greeks introduced 12 new shape sound links, the same as the Semites. 

4. Gaur does a good job of tracing the origins of the different letters. Most people miss the connection between the Eg. k and q and the modern forms. Most of the early attempts to trace the Semitic forms back to Egyptian missed at least 30% of the connections. 

5. note: Add visuals of the god Toth and goddess Mnemosyne. 

Other sites on Egyptian Hieroglyphs

• http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/4482/glyphs.html#4
• Rosetta Stone - links to sites on decipherment
• Links to Egyptian History sites created by students
• Tour Egypt
• Mark Millmore's Ancient Egyptian Page. 
• The Pronunciation of Ancient Egyptian. 
• List of Online Hieroglyphic "Translators" at Yahoo.  "Your Name in Hieroglyphics".
• Web Translators for hieroglyphics

Letter matrix project    pmf-romanji

phonology Course   writing systems

An Egyptian inspired pictographic acrophonic script for English.

Michael Everson - Different character sets including Celtic, Ogham, Coptic, Hieroglyphics.