Phoenician alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet is an <a href="/facts/Abjad/Hn50ebWn">abjad</a> (consonantal <a href="/facts/Alphabet/vqfRpS3E">alphabet</a>) used across the Mediterranean civilization of <a href="/facts/Phoenicia/6GXLneNU">Phoenicia</a> for most of the 1st millennium BC. It was one of the first alphabets, attested in <a href="/facts/Canaanite_and_Aramaic_inscriptions/9RNgQJpX">Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions</a> found across the <a href="/facts/Mediterranean_region/azjFD5mW">Mediterranean region</a>. In the <a href="/facts/History_of_writing_systems/AX0eC1vr">history of writing systems</a>, the Phoenician script also marked the first to have a fixed <a href="/facts/Writing_direction/ABG251A0">writing direction</a>—while previous systems were multi-directional, Phoenician was written horizontally, from right to left. It developed directly from the <a href="/facts/Proto-Sinaitic_script/aqPygGcT">Proto-Sinaitic script</a> used during the <a href="/facts/Late_Bronze_Age/c09qWcTt">Late Bronze Age</a>, which was derived in turn from <a href="/facts/Egyptian_hieroglyphs/qXRpprLe">Egyptian hieroglyphs</a>.
The Phoenician alphabet was used to write <a href="/facts/Canaanite_languages/S0NzB50W">Canaanite languages</a> spoken during the <a href="/facts/Early_Iron_Age/mpQYShI0">Early Iron Age</a>, sub-categorized by historians as <a href="/facts/Phoenician_language/KFcxz467">Phoenician</a>, <a href="/facts/Biblical_Hebrew/yCJ3bh30">Hebrew</a>, <a href="/facts/Moabite_language/TLwNcDwz">Moabite</a>, <a href="/facts/Ammonite_language/Eg8Uhpza">Ammonite</a> and <a href="/facts/Edomite_language/6CkoIvGg">Edomite</a>, as well as <a href="/facts/Old_Aramaic/JMK0kG0D">Old Aramaic</a>. It was widely disseminated outside of the Canaanite sphere by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean, where it was adopted and adapted by other cultures. The Phoenician alphabet proper was used in <a href="/facts/Ancient_Carthage/5BFU7yB5">Ancient Carthage</a> until the 2nd century BC, where it was used to write the <a href="/facts/Punic_language/gXdkxFcd">Punic language</a>. Its direct descendant scripts include the <a href="/facts/Aramaic_alphabet/hoqRfbYP">Aramaic</a> and <a href="/facts/Samaritan_alphabet/eKcXDvKe">Samaritan</a> alphabets, several <a href="/facts/Alphabets_of_Asia_Minor/GLJcPChb">Alphabets of Asia Minor</a>, and the <a href="/facts/Archaic_Greek_alphabets/hkBDo1WD">Archaic Greek alphabets</a>.
The Phoenician alphabet proper uses 22 <a href="/facts/Consonant/81X2SGS6">consonant</a> letters—as an abjad used to write a Semitic language, the vowel sounds were left implicit—though late varieties sometimes used <a href="/facts/Matres_lectionis/PxIH86t9">matres lectionis</a> to denote some <a href="/facts/Vowel/BNhCeFtH">vowels</a>. As its letters were originally incised using a <a href="/facts/Stylus/71P3StMj">stylus</a>, their forms are mostly angular and straight, though cursive forms increased in use over time, culminating in the <a href="/facts/Neo-Punic_alphabet/gXdkxFcd">Neo-Punic alphabet</a> used in <a href="/facts/Roman_North_Africa/MIYYrhIF">Roman North Africa</a>.

Phoenician alphabet open-in-new

Phoenician alphabet