The ancient alphabet of the Phoenicians. Phoenician writing
Sergey Shumakov
Three and a half thousand years ago, a Semitic people lived in the Eastern Mediterranean, which we now know as the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians were skilled seafarers. They sailed around Africa, regularly went to the British Isles for tin, and even, according to some, may have been to America.
However, despite these achievements, the Phoenicians did not have their own written language for a long time: they used the Akkadian language in business and diplomatic correspondence, which created certain difficulties. Akkadian cuneiform required a lot of time to study - it consisted of about 600 characters, each of which had several meanings. To conduct correspondence in a foreign language, it was necessary to maintain a staff of specially trained scribes. But one day, the Phoenicians have a qualitatively new letter - alphabetical. Its advantage was that the letters of this letter could be written in any language.
The fact that all modern alphabets come from the Phoenician is a long-established fact, but what the alphabet itself came from, the learned fraternity failed to find out: none of the writing systems that existed in the Ancient East can be its ancestor, and attempts to prove the origin the Phoenician alphabet from the writing of the Egyptians is clearly far-fetched.
Nevertheless, the answer to the question about the origin of the Phoenician letter is given by the very style of the letters, and the analysis of this style allows us to make an unambiguous conclusion that the alphabet, which they adapted to their language, was brought by the Phoenicians either from those places where the then common Balto-Slavic language lived. people.
But why do we believe that it was the Phoenicians who borrowed the alphabet from our ancestors, and not vice versa?
Let's start with the fact that the Phoenician alphabet has no vowels. This happened because the language in which this alphabet originally existed had excessive consonance, that is, it was a heap of consonants. Our ancient language was just such a language, from which the Germanic, Romance, Aryan, languages, as well as Greek, Armenian and even Albanian originate.
Now, among the descendant languages, only Armenian has partially retained excessive consonance. In this regard, remember the Armenian name Մկրտիչ (Mkrtch), in which there is not a single vowel at all! The only vowel sound in our then language was the sound "s", but not just s, but s-short. This sound, in addition to the will of the speaker, all the time slipped between consonants. This sound in the Old Slavonic language was denoted by the letter “Ъ”, which retained its phonetic meaning only in Bulgarian ezik, where it is characterized as “a semi-closed back unrounded vowel”. For its phonetic designation, the sign [ɣ] is used, and in the Kazakh language - the letter “Ұ”. Over time, its soft version appeared, which now looks like "y". It was formed from the sound, denoted in the present Serbian language by the letter "Љ". In the Glagolitic alphabet, this sound was denoted by the sign "P", and in Cyrillic - by "b".
All vowels in this letter, that is, all of both - "b" and "b" - were denoted by the letter "", which the Phoenicians called yod.
The prerequisites for the creation of an alphabetic system stemmed from the features of the then language of our distant ancestors, which consisted of the same two-letter fundamentals. Today, after many millennia that have passed since the invention of our alphabet, we can easily restore the structure of our then language. Our ancestors, however, understood this structure without any reconstruction, and if one person depicts a curved stick, the other immediately understood that this image means G (K) N - a preposition of direction, meaning 'down'. From this preposition, as you remember, both “bend”, and “horse”, and “knees” originated. The preposition "in" also came from him.
But many people then remembered or understood that the very foundation of GN consists of “G(K)”, meaning our modern preposition “k”, and “n”, meaning ‘down’. Therefore, the image of a bent stick "", called by the Semites the word "gimel", meaning a camel, was associated with us precisely with "G".
If the branch is broken to the end, then the fundamental principle of LM is obtained, in words that are not related to breaking, practically not found. It is the broken branch that is denoted by the letter "" (lamed), the name of which is translated from the Semitic languages as a goad or, speaking in Latin, a stimulus - a sharp stick that drove cattle.
The letter denoted by the sign "" sounded like [m]. This letter was called a meme. Meme in Semitic is ‘water’. This word is used only in the plural, and the wave at the top of the sign also indicates water. In our language, this sign was called the sea. This very sea in many descendant languages sounds the same. In the Armenian sea it is called maўr, and in the Irish - muir. Even in Finnish, the sea is called Mary, because the ancient proto-Finns did not see the sea before they came to the shores of the Baltic, and they had to borrow this word from the ancestors of the modern Slavs and Balts who lived there.
It is the same with the letter named in Semitic by the word "shin", meaning tooth. In our language, this letter comes from the fundamental principle ШВ, meaning ‘to sew/seam/seamstress’. The image of the seam is easily guessed in the sign "".
From the fundamental principle DЎ, from which both two, and the door, and the courtyard, and the verb “move”, come the Phoenician letter “”, which is also called the door in Semitic. This fundamental principle DЎ, like the fundamental principle GN, also had a semi-foundation “D”. It meant the same thing as the preposition "to".
However, many Semitic names of the Phoenician letters did not coincide with ours due to linguistic differences. So, the letter "r", called the Semist word "resh", meaning "head". Our head comes, as you remember, from the fundamental principle G (K) L, from which both the stake and the adjective "naked" come. There is nothing like "r" in our head. True, some supporters of the Nostratic theory suggested that the word “resolve” comes from the word “resh”, but we know that our ancient fundamental principle RSH meant ‘untie/release/release’.
Where does the icon come from?
The icon "" meant the ax, which comes from the fundamental principle of the Republic of Belarus, meaning 'cut', 'frontier' and 'scar'. As a matter of fact, our letters are called Letters for the reason that they were cut down on Beech boards.
If it comes from a ruba-axe, then the sign, called in Semitic kuf, comes from the word "cop". In the Indo-European language, it meant "to prick", and in Russian the word "spear" comes from the word "spear". The Greek word "κόπτω" also comes from the same ancient Indo-European root. However, not only it comes from the word "cop". There is also the word "dig", and the drawing of the letter originally meant nothing more than a shovel.
The origin of the Phoenician letter "" cannot be unequivocally explained by the learned fraternity. According to the most common theory, this is the word "חֵית" [khet], which is translated from Hebrew as living. Some argue that this is שור (shur), which is translated as a bull, a wall or an enemy, but those who claim that it is אסכלה (x askala x) - ‘lattice’, ‘ladder’ and ‘net’ are closest to the truth. Israeli linguists believe that it is from this word that the Greek "σκάλα" and the Latin "scala" - a ladder - came from. However, in fact, this is the same "Hota" network with which, as you remember, they went hunting. It comes from the fundamental principle of HT, from which not only the network and hunting mentioned in this book were obtained, but also what is called the word “hut” in modern Russian, and the word “hut” in New English. What is the connection between the hut and the network? They cover the net, and cover the hut. For everything that is covered and covered, it was used before the invention of the secondary stem KR + OH, where OH, being at the end of the word, then turned not into “e”, but into “s”. After its invention, such words as “roof”, “shelter” or the Greek “κρυπτο” (crypto) appeared. This secondary basis was formed quite late - already after the appearance of diphthongs, approximately in the 24th century BC.
From the same fundamental principle, a wing was formed, now known as a wing, with which birds cover their chicks.
Most of the questions are caused by the sign "", which is very reminiscent of a shanyrak - a hole from a yurt, flaunting on the Kyrgyz flag and on the Kazakh coat of arms. It is from this sign that the Cyrillic “Ө” (fita) comes from, denoting, along with the usual fert, the sound [f]. In Phoenician, this letter was called the word "", which sounded like and meant, presumably, the wheel, to which this letter is extremely similar. True, in Hebrew, very similar to the Phoenician, the wheel is just גלגל (gyl-gyl) - onomatopoeia of its creak, but, nevertheless, our wheels - that ratai, that kўerkdlo - with "t", and even more so with interdental "T" do not start. What is "" really? It's actually a shield. In those days it was called the word "skid". SK turned into the Slavic ShT and the Russian Shch much later. In all descendant languages, SC remained at the beginning of the word: remember Irish sciath, Lithuanian skydas, Icelandic skjoldur and Latin scūtum! And outwardly, this letter looks not so much like a wheel as it looks like a shield - the wheel, as you remember, has a hole in the middle into which the axle is inserted, and there is no such hole in the letter “”.
The appearance of alphabetic writing in Phoenicia was one of the turning points in the history of the Ancient East. According to the studies of historians, it first appeared in the 13th century BC, apparently, it was this letter that became the basis on which the letter of the ancient Greeks and Romans was subsequently created. Latin is used all over the world to this day, so the contribution of the Phoenicians to world culture can be called invaluable.
Phoenician writing was consonant, which means that they used only consonants to write their words, while the reader could decide for himself which vowels to use. The text was written from right to left. It is difficult to say whether the Phoenician alphabet was the very first in the world, but it was the Phoenician script that became the basis on which most of the modern writing systems were formed. Historians cannot yet agree on the issue of the time of origin of this language.
In 1922, archaeologists, conducting investigations in Byblos, discovered the sarcophagus of the ruler Ahiram, on the surface of which an inscription in the Phoenician language was carved. Pierre Monte, who discovered the sarcophagus, and other researchers, considered that it was created in the 13th century BC, but at the end of the last century, Gibson established that the inscription was created in the 11th century BC. At the same time, the sarcophagus also contained dishes dating back to the 7th century BC, so no one can say with certainty exactly when the Phoenician language originated.
The appearance of alphabetic writing in Phoenicia did not mark the appearance of the first phonetic record of writing, this merit was attributed to the Sumerians. At the same time, the symbols of the Phoenicians resemble the Scandinavian runes in their forms, and are completely different from the cuneiform accepted in Western Asia. This phenomenon is associated by some scientists with the so-called resettlement of the so-called "peoples of the sea."
At the end of the 13th century BC. from across the sea, many different peoples arrived in Asia Minor, who weakened the states existing there and created their own. Thanks to this, Phoenicia was able to exist on its own for about four hundred years, although before that, local cities had always been part of a particular state.
The earliest traces of the use of alphabetic linear writing systems have been dated back to the 19th century BC, historians have been able to discover the Proto-Canaanite and Proto-Sinaitic alphabets. The authors of these alphabets tried to improve the ancient pictographic writing, they use simplified pictographic models, but each character received a phonetic content. To record sound, a simplified pictogram was used, depicting an object whose name begins with one letter or another.
The writing of Phoenicia was a kind of revolution in the ancient world, thanks to it, writing became accessible to most of the population. In the first version, readers had a kind of hints that made it easier to understand. The simplicity of such writing allowed it to become widespread throughout the vast territories inhabited by the peoples of the West Semitic group. In addition, such writing could be written on various types of surfaces, while cuneiform in most cases was written only on clay tablets. The flexibility of the phonetic system created by the Phoenicians makes it possible to use it to write texts in languages belonging to other language groups. The Greeks quickly adapted such a system to their needs, and then the Romans began to use a similar one.
Part 1. Trojan War
Phoenician writing became one of the first systems of syllabic phonetic writing recorded in history. From the Phoenicians, the Greeks learned about the production of glass and adopted the alphabet. According to Herodotus, Cadmus, the legendary founder of Thebes in Boeotia, the son of the Phoenician king Agenor, a Phoenician by birth, first introduced letters and writing in Greece.
The Roman writer Justin, processing the "World History" of Pompey Trogus 1 c. before. r.h. wrote: “For just as the people of the Etruscans, who live on the coast of the Tuscan Sea, came from Lydia, so Veneti , known as the inhabitants of the Adriatic Sea, were expelled from the captured Athenor Troy». (for Vyatichi, see).
Other facts:
Lomonosov M.V. "Ancient Russian History..."
Firstly, we have a satisfied and almost obvious assurance of antiquity in the majesty and power of the Slavic tribe, which for more than one and a half thousand years have stood almost on the same measure; and for this it is impossible to conceive that in the first century after Christ it would suddenly breed to such a great multitude that it is contrary to the natural existence of the human current and examples of the return of great nations. This reasoning is consistent with many testimonies of the great ancient writers, of which the first will be offered about the ancient habitation of the Slavs of the Wends in Asia, who were of the same tribe as the Europeans who descended from them.
Pliny writes that "beyond the river Willia, the country of Paphlagonia, Pilimenskaya from some, is surrounded by Galatia. The Milesian city of Mastia, then Kromna. At this place, Cornelius Nepos adds the Aenetes and the Venetians of the same name in Italy to be descended from them."
Ptolemy later agreed to Nepos, although he had previously been of a different opinion. Curtius agreed, Solinus. Cato understands the same when the Veneti, as Pliny testifies, from the Trojan breed produces. All this the great and dignified historian Livy shows and explains in detail. “Antenor,” he writes, “came through many wanderings to the inner end of the Adriatic Gulf with a lot of enetes, who, in indignation, were expelled from Paphlagonia and lost their king Pilimen at Troy: they were looking for a place for the settlement and a leader. After the expulsion of the Euganeans, between who lived by the sea and the Alpine mountains, the Enets and the Trojans conquered these lands. From here the name of the village -Troy; the whole people are called venets".
Egor Klassen. "Ancient history of the Slavs..."
It is known from history that The Trojans were called first Pelasgians, then Thracians, after that Teucres, then Dardani, and finally Trojans., and their remains after the fall of Troy by the Pergamans and Kemeans; for Kem and Pergamon were built by Aeneas after the fall of Troy, and the Trojans settled in them, having escaped death in Ilion. These facts are borrowed both from Greek and Roman historians and from the Iliad itself. The Greeks call the Troyans, Macedonians and Phrygians Thracians, and the Trojans themselves also call themselves, and at the same time the Phrygians subject to themselves and the allied Macedonians. Even if we didn't know that The Thracians are descended from the Pelasgians, then even then the question of who the Thracians were, we would answer according to historical facts as follows: among the Thracians, as well as among the Pelasgians, we meet many purely Slavic tribal names, between which, according to Herodotus, there are Russes and Russins. Besides, The Thracians wore forelocks, like the Little Russians; their graves were made in an embankment, as in general among all Slavs; during the burial of the dead, all Slavic rites were observed and even mourners were hired. They went out to battle mostly on foot; their weapons were Slavic. This is confirmed by all ancient historians; hence, The Thracians were supposed to be Slavs. But now, having Apendini's findings that Thracians and Macedonians spoke Slavonic, and the most detailed conclusions of G. Chertkov about the Pelasgo-Thracian tribe, we are undoubtedly convinced that The Thracians were Slavs, therefore, andTrojans too. Regarding the Slavic nature of the latter, we note in addition that two sons of Priam bore purely Slavic names, namely Troilus and Diy. The first name has been preserved with us on a cannon standing in the Moscow Kremlin; the other is known from Slavic mythology.
The history of the conquest of Troy was written by Ditus, a Greek, and Darius, and according to others, Daret, a Phrygian. Both of them were personal witnesses of this battle and both claim that T Royans did not know Greek and while landing on the Shores of their Jason. This clearly defines that Trojans are not a Greek tribe. According to the same chroniclers, the Trojans called the Greeks beast-like; this testifies that the enlightenment of the Trojans was higher than that of the Greeks. However, this latter opinion is also confirmed by the fact that the Trojans already knew painting, mechanics, music, comedy and tragedy, when the Greeks knew only one predatory war, its brutality and cunning.The mentioned historians write that in Troy there were separate streets for each skill, such as, for example, armored, boiler room, tagannaya, leather, bast, purse, usmar (which means shoe in the Little Russian language), etc. We meet the same thing in the ancient large cities of Russians; let's take Moscow as an example; in it we find streets or former separate settlements of industrialists with similar names: for example, you see the armored one, boiler workers, taganka, leather workers, Rogozhskaya, purses, boots, as well as cheese houses, bell ringers, and so on.
Diana was the Trojan goddess of hunting, which is confirmed by the Trojan priest Kolchas, who advised the Greeks to sacrifice to her in order to obtain victory. Among the modern Scythians Trojans and their later descendants - the Slavs, the goddess of hunting was under the same name. The Greeks called her Artemis; Aeneas transferred her Slavic name to Italy. But if the Greek wrote the Iliad, why did he not call his goddess by her Greek name? Because at the time of the fall of Troy the Greeks had neither Diana nor Artemis.
Embalming of corpses was known and used, except for the Egyptians, only among the Scythians and Troyans. The historians of Phrygia and the Iliad relate that the Troyans had a custom of weeping for the dead, and mourners with loose hair usually walked behind the coffin, accompanying the deceased with sobs and lamentations. This rite exists in Rus' to this day..
The Russians during the siege of Troy were allies of the Trojans, for Antiph (Antip, Antyphos) brought Rus' to the Trojans; he commanded 30 ships, with peoples from Nisyros, Karpathos, Kasos, and Ros, i.e. Nizhans-Russ, Croats, Kazami (Kazars) and Rus.
Let us add to this that the Italian tombstone of Aeneas clearly says that the Trojans were Russians.
Scandinavian legends, analyzed by us in the 4th issue, also confirm the connection Slavic-Russian north with the Trojans; Besides, many Franks argued that they were deportees from Troy (Franks = Thracians); Among them, the Frankish Duke Otto and his brother Bruno, later Pope Gregory V, claimed their origin from Troy. And since the Franks also built the city of Roussilion, the very name of the city testifies that it was built by Russia of Ilion.
We note here that we are not alone in recognizing the Troyans as Slavic-Russians, back in the last century R. Ch. Levesque (born 1736) argued that the Latins owe the roots of their words to the Slavs and the ancestors of the Latins and Slavs too early, i.e. before the origin of Troyan and Venetov from them, divided.
Part 3. Phoenician writing
From the book by Alexander Volkov "Mysteries of Phoenicia":
Few ancient peoples can boast as many inventions that changed the fate of mankind as the Phoenicians: ships and purple, transparent glass and the alphabet. Although they themselves were not always their authors, it was they who introduced these discoveries and improvements into life, and also popularized them.
They spoke in a language that no longer exists. The Phoenician language is one of the Semitic languages, and its closest relatives are Hebrew (Hebrew) and Moabite, about which we know only from one surviving inscription. Usually these three languages, also called "Canaanite", are contrasted with Aramaic. At the same time, together with the Aramaic language, they constitute the northwestern branch of the Semitic language family, which also includes the eastern (Akkadian) and southern, or Arab-Ethiopian, branches.
Almost all Canaanite languages are dead. The only exception is Hebrew, the official language of Israel. We can judge related languages only from the surviving texts.
The Phoenician language was spoken by the inhabitants of the coastal regions of Lebanon, Palestine and southern Syria, as well as part of the population of Cyprus. It is known to us only from inscriptions, the oldest of which dates back to about 1000 BC. Literature in the Phoenician language, the existence of which both Greek and Roman authors speak of, has been completely lost.
The creation of the alphabet is the greatest cultural achievement of the Phoenicians. From their homeland, from a narrow coastal strip in the territory of modern Lebanon, the alphabet began its triumphal procession around the world. Gradually, the Phoenician alphabet and related writing systems replaced almost all other ancient forms of writing, except for Chinese and its derivatives. Cyrillic and Latin, Arabic and Hebrew letters - they all go back to the Phoenician alphabet. Over time, the letter font became known in India, Indonesia, Central Asia and Mongolia. The Phoenicians created “a universal writing system, the perfection of which has been proven by the entire subsequent history of mankind, because since then he has not been able to come up with anything better,” wrote G.M. Bauer.
To create their original system, the Phoenicians used as letters, according to most experts, modified Egyptian hieroglyphs. The oldest inscriptions, reminiscent of the later Phoenician script, have been found in Palestine and the Sinai Peninsula, where the Egyptians and the Semites were in fairly close contact.
However, as I.Sh. Shifman, “signs of the Sinai and Phoenician writing proper, which served to designate the same sounds, were very different from each other. This makes it impossible to consider the Sinai script as the direct ancestor of the Phoenician script., despite the seductiveness of such assumptions, which are widespread in the scientific literature.
For a long time, different writing systems coexisted in Phoenicia: Akkadian cuneiform, pseudo-hieroglyphics, and linear. It was not until the end of the 2nd millennium BC that the more accessible linear writing won out. The Phoenician linear writing consisted of only 22 consonant letters... Another inconvenience is connected with the fact that the Phoenicians eventually abandoned the so-called word dividers (in our language their role is played by a space separating words). The oldest inscriptions had vertical lines or dots that marked where a word ended. Starting from the 8th century BC, these icons fell into disuse. Now the words in the inscriptions merge with each other.
The earliest Phoenician inscriptions known to us date only to the 11th century BC. Made on arrowheads, they indicated the names of the owners. They were found in the Bekaa Valley and near the Palestinian Bethlehem. Five inscribed arrowheads are the most important writing monuments of the 11th century BC. The longest example of early alphabetic writing is the inscription on the sarcophagus of King Ahiram from Byblos.
When the Phoenicians entered the Aegean basin, the Greeks got acquainted with their alphabet and, realizing its advantages, borrowed. Apparently, this happened in the 9th century BC. Obviously, the Greeks, who lived on the islands of the Aegean Sea next to the Phoenicians, were the first to adopt the new writing system. They did not forget to whom they owe this script, and for a long time they called it "Phoenician signs". Over time, the Greeks changed the direction of writing. They began to write from left to right, in contrast to the right-to-left direction adopted by the Phoenicians and Jews. The form of their writing became standard by the 9th century BC at the latest. The colonists took this type of writing with them to the west. Therefore, classical Phoenician writing was almost the same in all areas of the Mediterranean. It was this form of writing that the Greeks adopted, as well as Etruscans.
Phoenician alphabet:
It is hard not to notice the similarity of the Phoenician alphabet with the Cyrillic alphabet: Below is a comparative table of alphabets.
- Phoenician alphabet 23rd century BC
- Phoenician alphabet with letter rotation/reflection
- Etruscan alphabet 8th century BC
- Byzantine unival of the 9th-10th centuries AD
- Cyrillic 11th century AD
Coincidence with the Phoenician alphabet (taking into account the rotation / reflection of letters):
- Etruscan alphabet. 17 letters are similar in spelling, 17 of them are similar in pronunciation.
- Byzantine alphabet. 18 letters are similar in spelling, of which 16 letters are similar in pronunciation.
- Cyrillic. 22 letters are similar in spelling (i.e., all!), of which 18 letters are similar in pronunciation.
If we accept the official version of the creation of the Slavic alphabet by the forces of two Byzantine enlighteners, then it is absolutely impossible to explain the disappearance in the Byzantine alphabet, and then the inexplicable, miraculous appearance again, but already in the Slavic alphabet of the Phoenician letters B, AND, W, C, and almost unchanged and with the same phonetics. The most cursory analysis allows us to conclude that the Slavic alphabet is more related to the Phoenician alphabet than to the Byzantine unique.
Part 4. Slavic roots of the Phoenicians or Phoenician roots of the Slavs?
Tatishchev V.N. "Russian History":
Below from Diodorus Siculus and other ancients it will be quite obvious that Slavs first lived in Syria and Phoenicia , Ch. 33, 34, where in the neighborhood a Hebrew, Egyptian or Chaldean letter could freely be had. Passing from there lived near the Black Sea in Colchis and Paphlagonia, and from there during the Trojan War with the name of Genetes, Gauls and Meshina, according to Homer, moved to Europe and seized the coast of the Mediterranean Sea to Italy, built Venice, etc., as many ancient people, especially Strykovsky, Belsky and others, tell.
So far, it has been argued that most of the alphabets in common use are derived from Phoenician. But is it right? The Egyptian culture adjacent to Phoenicia was characterized by ideographic-rebus writing, hieroglyphs. The Semitic-Hamitic cultures, to which Phoenicia itself belonged, were characterized by cuneiform writing. Alphabetical, alphabetic-sound writing had no "historical roots" here. Moreover, it contradicted the traditions that had developed among the peoples of this region. The theory about the origin of the Phoenician alphabet from the Sinai script seems artificial: the Sinai script was also hieroglyphs, and not the slightest similarity between the characters, in general, is found.
However, as already mentioned, during the excavations of Thebes, where Cadmus, a Phoenician presence is indeed established. And indeed discovered Phoenician writing. But again, it's cuneiform! Characteristic of the early Phoenician cultures of Syria and Palestine! Samples of another writing were also found here - but again, not the alphabet, but the same linear, syllabic, which was found in all other centers of the Achaean civilization!
Finally, in Europe we find the Ogham script of the ancient Irish and Picts, which has absolutely nothing in common with any of the known alphabets: the characters in it differ in the number of dashes and their location relative to the horizontal dash-line. But it is also alphabetic-sound! So, for the entire European region, all Indo-Aryan cultures are characterized by alpha-sound alphabets. Practically among all the peoples of Europe, the most ancient written monuments are immediately associated with alphabets! It should also be noted that the Aryan peoples of Central Asia and the steppe ancient Turkic peoples who had a written language, also used only alphabets. The question arises - are there any facts that would suggest a different, non-Phoenician origin of the alphabetic writing? It turns out there is.
For example, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus in the 1st century BC. wrote: “Although in general these letters are called Phoenician, because they were brought to the Hellenes from the country of the Phoenicians, they could be called Pelasgian because they were used Pelasgians". He also talked about Etruscans: "They invented writing, zealously studied the science of the gods, mastered the skills in observing lightning." Maybe they invented it, or maybe they brought it from some of their ancestral homeland. In this regard, the writing of the Elims who lived in Sicily attracts attention, which all ancient authors unanimously called people from Troy, and Pausanias calls Phrygians.
But the oldest finds of writing in mainland Italy belong to Etruscans, who also came from somewhere in Asia Minor, and according to a number of versions, they even appeared, like the Elims, people from Troy. Is it not logical to assume that both of them brought their alphabets from there? After all, Phrygians(by the way, according to many versions of related Pelasgam, to which Diodorus Siculus refers) writing also existed, and according to the inscriptions found on the rocks and tombstones, it is concluded that their alphabet was “based on the Greek” - and although these inscriptions are usually dated to the same VIII century. BC, but again not strictly, but only on the basis of subjective conclusions.
By the way, while producing Greek writing according to the Hellenic mythological tradition “from Cadmus”, scientists for some reason do not pay attention to another myth, also Greek, according to which the inventor of writing is called Palamed. He was also credited with the introduction of Greek measures of weight, length, time, and the development of the calendar. Apparently, this is due to the fact that Cadmus in legends - an older figure, attributed to the 15th century. BC. And Palamedes is a participant ... of the same Trojan War. Dating back to the 13th century. BC. But just to this time, the oldest samples of the “Phoenician” alphabet found are dated!
Yes, and yourself Phoenicians were not pure Semites — they came from a mixture of Canaanite Semites with the Philistines (Pelasgians) and other Indo-Aryan "peoples of the sea" who actively explored the Mediterranean in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. It seems that it was from them that the Phoenicians received the art of shipbuilding and navigation, some religious rites. The possibility of continuity of writing is not excluded.
And in this regard, I want to move forward a couple of millennia and touch on another mystery of writing. How and when did she come to the territory of Rus'? Touching on the prevailing historical ideas, we will again come across a very strong, well-established stereotype that the Slavs learned writing only when they converted to Christianity, and before that it, it seems, did not exist. However, this version is refuted by strict facts - and the facts are far from isolated. Take at least numerous finds of "Slavic runes"- on a ritual vessel from the village of Voiskovoe on the Dnieper, on a clay shard from Ripnev, on the Mikorzhinsky stone, on the stones of Valaam Island, etc. Russian chronicles mention some ancient writing in the form of "features and cuts"- and various examples of these "features and cuts" are indeed found on some archaeological finds. The inscriptions that existed in the pagan temples of the Baltic Slavs are reported in their writings by Dietmar of Merseburg, Adam of Bremen, Saxo Grammatik, Helmgold. And in the memoirs of the Arab traveler Ibn Fadlan, the pagan Rus sign the name of the deceased and the name of “their king” on the tombstone. Some signs that clearly represent writing - say, those found in the Ryazan region - are so ancient that they not only cannot be deciphered, but generally do not allow them to be attributed to the culture of some peoples known to us.
Note that Pope John VIII, in one of his messages, directly stated that Slavic writings existed before St. Cyril - he only improved and streamlined them. By the way, The Life of St. Cyril speaks of the same thing - during his stay in Chersonese, he saw two books made by "Russian letters", studied them and developed his own Cyrillic alphabet on their basis.
- The essence of writing, its relation to language and thinking
- Question about the essence of the letter
- The first feature of the letter
- The first feature of the letter - page 2
- The second feature of the letter
- The third feature of the letter
- The relation of writing to other means of communication
- Questions of terminology and classification
- The concept of "writing system"
- Pictographic letter
- Ideographic writing
- Ideographic letter - page 2
- syllabary
- Sound letter
- Intermediate writing systems
- The origin of the original letter and its features
- Theories on the origin of writing
- Primitive art as a source of writing
- Periodization of the appearance of pictographic images
- Periodization of the appearance of pictographic images - page 2
- Periodization of the appearance of pictographic images - page 3
- "Objective" ways of conveying messages
- "Objective" ways of conveying messages - page 2
- Patterns of the emergence and development of logographic writing
- Formation of rudimentary pictorial-synthetic writing
- The monogenesis theory of logographic writing
- Egyptian logographic script
- Egyptian logographic script - page 2
- Aztec logographic script
- Sumerian logographic script
- Sumerian logographic script - page 2
- The initial stages of the development of Chinese writing
- Development of logographic methods of speech transmission
- Development of logographic methods of speech transmission - page 2
- Phonetic logograms
- Application of phonetic logograms in Chinese
- State consolidation of the basic principles of Chinese writing
- Benefits of Logographic Writing
- Simplification of the graphic form of signs
- Simplification of the graphic form of signs - page 2
- Patterns of the emergence and development of syllabic writing
- Syllabic writing systems
- Benefits of syllabary
- Sumerian syllabary
- Assyro-Babylonian syllabary
- Elamite, Hittite, and Urartian writing systems
- Old Persian syllabary
- Cretan syllabary
- Cretan syllabary - page 2
- Mayan syllabary
- Indian writing systems
- Indian writing systems - page 2
- Ethiopian syllabary
- Japanese syllabary system
- Japanese syllabary - page 2
- Korean ligature-sound system
- The emergence of alphabetic-sound writing
- The emergence of consonant-sound signs
- Ancient West Semitic writing systems
- The emergence of alphabetic-sound writing among the West Semitic peoples
- The emergence of alphabetic-sound writing among the West Semitic peoples - page 2
- The emergence of alpha-sound writing among the West Semitic peoples - page 3
- The emergence of alpha-sound writing among the West Semitic peoples - page 4
- Patterns of development of alpha-sound writing
- Origins of Oriental letter-sound writing systems
- Hebrew and Iranian branches of alphabetic-sound writing
- Syriac branch of the alpha-sound script
- Arabic branch of the alphabetic-sound script
- Greek letter
- Greek letter - page 2
- Latin alphabet
- Development of Latin and Greek writing
- The development of Latin and Greek writing - page 2
- The emergence and development of Slavic-Russian writing
- The emergence of Slavic writing
- The question of the originality of the Cyrillic alphabet
- Activities of Cyril and Methodius
- The existence in the pre-Konstantinov period of writing among the Slavs
- The existence of writing among the Slavs in the pre-Konstantinov period - page 2
- Chronicles and literary sources of the 9th-10th centuries.
- Archaeological monuments of writing
- Archaeological monuments of writing - page 2
- original alphabet
- Initial alphabet - page 2
- Development of Cyrillic writing in Russia
- Soviet writing systems
- Special types of written characters
- Numbers
- Numbers - page 2
- Numbers - page 3
- Numbers - page 4
- Special scientific marks
- Punctuation marks (punctuation)
- Punctuation marks (punctuation) - page 2
- Lowercase and uppercase letters
- Diacritics and ligatures
- General patterns of writing development
- General patterns of writing development - page 2
- General patterns of writing development - page 3
- The development of writing systems of individual peoples
- The development of writing systems of individual peoples - page 2
- Factor in the different content of the original writing
- Influence on the development of the writing of neighboring peoples
- Class influences on the development of writing
- Writing materials and tools as a factor
- Influence on the schedule of appointment of written monuments
- Features of the fine arts of various peoples
- Genealogical groups of writing systems
- Some Perspectives on the Development of Writing
- Numbers
Features of Phoenician writing
The creation of the first purely sound writing system fell to the lot of the Phoenicians and other West Semitic peoples. The alphabetic-sound writing they created, due to its simplicity and accessibility, first became widespread among the neighbors of the Phoenicians, and then served as the initial basis for all subsequent alphabetic-sound systems.
The most ancient monuments of the Phoenician writing that have come down to us are currently referred by most experts to the 10th-11th centuries. BC. Almost all the oldest inscriptions made in the Phoenician script are found mainly not in Phoenicia itself, but in the Phoenician colonies, in particular in Cyprus. Most of the inscriptions date from the 5th c. BC. according to II-III centuries. AD In the future, the Phoenician letter is supplanted by the Aramaic letter that arose on its basis.
Phoenician writing consisted of 22 characters. Each of them denoted a separate sound of speech; no other signs - logographic, syllabic - were used in this letter. Thus, the Phoenician writing was (along with similar cuneiform Ugaritic, Proto-Sinaitic and Proto-Canaan) one of the very first purely sound writing systems in the history of mankind. The second feature of the Phoenician writing was that all its signs denoted consonants or semivowels (for example, waw - semivowel w, jod - semivowel j) sounds; as for the vowels, they were skipped and not indicated when writing. Thus, the Phoenician writing was a typical consonant-sound system.
The third feature was that the Phoenician letters had a linear, simple, easy-to-remember and write form.
The fourth feature was the presence of an alphabet, i.e. a certain order of enumeration and arrangement of letters. It should be noted that the alphabets of the Phoenician letter have not come down to us. Until the 30-40s of the XIX century. the order of letters in the Phoenician alphabet was established on the basis of the coincidence of the order of letters in the ancient Etruscan alphabets (the oldest - Marceline's alphabet - about 700 BC) with the Hebrew acrostics of the Old Testament; both of them preserved the 22 letters of the Phoenician script.
In the 1930s and 1940s, additional sources were discovered confirming the supposed order of the letters of the Phoenician alphabet. Such sources are: found in 1938 in Lagish (Palestine) a tablet with the Hebrew alphabet of the beginning of the 9th century. BC. and a tablet with the Ugaritic cuneiform alphabet discovered in 1949 in Ugarit.
The fifth feature of Phoenician writing was that each of its letters had a name; these names were built according to the acrophonic principle, i.e. the sound value of a letter always corresponded to the first sound in the name of the letter (for example, b-bet, d-dalet, g-gimel, w-waw, etc.). Just like the order of the letters in the alphabet, the actual names of the Phoenician letters have not come down to us.
The names of the Phoenician letters are judged on the basis of: the Hebrew names of these letters, which came down in Greek transcription and in the later Talmudic tradition; the names of the corresponding Greek letters that have come down from the 6th-5th centuries. BC.; names of letters in the Syriac alphabets of the 7th-8th centuries. AD From the Phoenicians, the custom of assigning names to letters, also built according to the acrophonic principle, passed to the Arameans, Jews, Greeks, then to the Slavs, Arabs and other peoples.
The sixth feature was that the names of the Phoenician letters were associated not only with the sound meaning of the letters, but also with their graphic form; for example, the letter called waw, which means “nail” in Semitic, not only denoted the sound w, but also resembled a nail in shape. Some scholars deny the connection of the names of many Phoenician letters with their form. So, according to V. Georgiev, the names of the Phoenician letters fully correspond to their form only in four cases (mem, ain, res, taw) and partly in four more cases (alef, waw, jod, sin). As for the other letters, V. Georgiev either denies the connection of their names with the form or considers the Semitic etymology of the names disputable.
The direction of Phoenician writing was horizontal, from right to left. Words, as a rule, were not separated from each other.
A late form of Phoenician writing was Punic writing, which was used in the 4th-2nd centuries. BC. in Carthage and the Carthaginian colonies. After the fall of Carthage, the Punic script was partly supplanted by Latin, and partly switched to the New Punic script, which was used until the beginning of our era. The consonantal systems of the peoples of North Africa (Libyan, used from the 2nd century BC) and Spain (Iberian) come from the New Punic writing; the latest offshoot of the Libyan script is the modern letter of the Tuareg of Central Sahara - "tifinak".
Type: consonant-alphabetic
language family: Proto-Sinaitic
Localization: West Asia, North Africa
Propagation time: 1100 BC e. - 300 AD e.
In the 2nd millennium, Phoenicia was a conglomerate of city-states on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, due to its convenient geographical position, actively participated in land trade with Mesopotamia and cities in the Nile Valley, and owned sea routes in the Mediterranean Sea.
And although at the beginning of the II millennium BC. e. the country was under the rule of the Egyptian pharaohs, this did not prevent the Phoenician kings from maintaining diplomatic relations with neighboring states - their economic policy was completely independent.
The Phoenicians were considered very enterprising people. From ancient times they mined purple and made purple wool; metal casting and chasing, glass production, and shipbuilding were widely used among them. But the main invention of the Phoenicians were letter and alphabet. It was they who came up with the idea of dividing the sound of human speech into letters (they decided not to designate vowels at all, limiting themselves to 22 consonants), and then each of them was assigned its own special, not similar to the neighboring icon. The point was small - to arrange the icons in order, assigning the first letter the bull icon Aleph (or the letter A), followed by Bet (the letter B) ... So the alphabet turned out!
This Phoenician alphabet is the origin of almost all letter-sound writing systems. The Samaritan, Aramaic letters go back to it (and from it - the Hebrew, Nabataean, Arabic letters and other alphabets of the world).
Phoenician letter, the ancestor of all European alphabets, some mystics associate with the legacy of Atlantis. Phoenician legend attributes the creation of the alphabet and the art of writing to the Phoenician god Taut (Egyptian Thoth). It can be concluded that the letter was invented by the Phoenicians in a purely practical way.some, but by no means sacred, as in Egypt, purposes - not for praising the gods, but for conducting commercial accounting. This becomes clear with all evidence if we compare the Egyptian hieroglyph depicting a man with the second letter of the Phoenician alphabet - "bet".
Phoenician letter
It is obvious that they are similar, especially if we take the trouble to flip one of the drawings.
At the same time, followers of Judaism believe that it was the Hebrew alphabet, Alefbet, which includes twenty-two letters and five “final” forms used to write at the end of words, was the most ancient and laid the foundation for all other alphabets in the world. “All signs of the Hebrew alphabet are a symbolic reflection of the original “writing” underlying the universe,” writes D. Palant in the book “Secrets of the Hebrew Alphabet”.
However, the names of the letters of the Phoenician alphabet coincide with the names and number of Hebrew letters, so there is no need to argue about antiquity here.
Nevertheless, the Hebrew alphabet played such a significant role in the development of world esoteric and philosophical thought that we simply have no right to deviate from its symbolic meaning, and when interpreting the meaning of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, we turn to recognized authorities.
