"The Phoenician Letter"

- CONTENT--
Phoenician writing is one of the first attested phonetic writing systems in human history. It appeared around the X century BC and became the ancestor of most modern alphabetical and some other writing systems.

It had a consonant principle, that is, only consonant sounds were used to write words. The meaning of vowels was left to the understanding of the reader, that is, the basis of this understanding was assumed, as a hidden background, the general life experience of all those who used this writing. The text was written from right to left.

Definition of alphabetic writing
Alphabetic writing is writing where one sign conveys one sound, as opposed to logographic and ideographic writing, where each sign corresponds to a particular concept or morpheme. Syllabary writing can also not be considered alphabetic writing, since each sign in syllabaries corresponds to a separate syllable, but not to a sound.

A History of the Phoenician Writing
Phoenician writing is one of the first alphabetic writings in the world. It gave rise to several branches of alphabetic writing, and today almost all alphabetic writings of the world (with the exception of Japanese Kana and possibly Korean writing) have their roots in Phoenician writing. Other scripts with an alphabetical structure - ancient Persian cuneiform and Meroitic script - did not take root.

The five alphabetic scripts are older than the Phoenician script - the Ugaritic script (about 400 years older), the Old Canaanite script (about 600 years older), the Proto-Sinai script (about 800 years older), the Biblical script (about 800 years older), and the South Arabian script, which is about one century older.

Origin theories

Egyptian theory
According to one of the most popular theories, alphabetic writing originated in Egypt. This theory was proposed by François Lenormann and expounded by Emmanuel de Rouget in 1874. As a rule, supporters of the Egyptian theory are divided into three groups. The first group is inclined to the theory that alphabetic writing comes from hieroglyphic writing, supporters of this theory were Jean-François Champollion, Francois Lenormand and other scientists. The second group of scientists is inclined to the version of the origin of alphabetic writing from hieratic writing, supporters of this version were Isaac Taylor, Pierre Monte, and others. The third theory, accordingly, assumes the origin of alphabetic writing from demotic writing, but this theory is unacceptable, since alphabetic writing appeared before demotic writing. The supporter of this theory was .

However, the Egyptian theory is criticized, because in the presence of such a large number of different forms of signs (more than 700), coincidences with individual signs of the Phoenician script are inevitable. In addition, in Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, special signs were originally used for single-consonant and double-consonant parts of the word, but later single-consonant signs began to be used much more often than not