The Proto-Canaanite (also Proto-Sinaitic) alphabet is identified as the prototype of the Semitic alphabets that, mostly via the successful Phoenician alphabet became the ancestor of most scripts in use today. It was derived from Egyptian hieroglyphics in the early 2nd millennium BC. Defined as the latest common ancestor of the Phoenician and South Arabian alphabets, it dates to roughly the 14th century BC.
It consisted of about 20–23 characters, hieroglyphs adapted to express a single consonant. It was thus the first abjad or consonantal alphabet. It was probably developed by a Semitic speaking population in Egypt itself.
An immediate predecessor, or an early form of the script, possibly still partly logographic, was discovered near Wadi el-Holi in the 1990s by John Darnell [1] in rock carvings which point to an origin with Semitic workers within Egyptian society (Sacks, 2004). This early script may have had more letters than those reconstructed from its successor, and may also have included letter variants (different letters that could be used to express the same phoneme). These inscriptions were dated to about 1800 BC, thus predating Proto-Sinaitic properly by some four centuries.
The letter sequence, and the letter names, part of which were to survive down into the Latin and Greek alphabets (but which were lost in other descendends such as the Arabic alphabet and the Brahmic family), were probably already present. The letter names are based on the acrophonic principle, referring to Semitic translations of the names of Egyptian hieroglyphs. For example, Egyptian net ("water") became Semitic mem, ultimately evolving into Latin M, and Egyptian dert ("hand") became Semitic kap, ultimately evolving into Latin K.
The 20 letters reconstructed from the alphabet's historical successors (Phoenician and South Arabian alphabets) are:
- [ʾ] ʾalp "ox" (A)
- [b] bet "house" (B)
- [g] gaml "throwstick" (Γ)
- [d] digg "fish" (D)
- [h] haw / hll "jubilation" (E)
- [w] waw "hook" (Y)
- [z] zen /ziqq "manacle" (Z)
- [ḥ] ḥet (H)
- [y] yad "arm" (I)
- [k] kap "hand" (K)
- [l] lamd "goad" (L)
- [m] mem "water" (M)
- [n] naḥš "snake" (N)
- [ʿ] ʿen "eye" (O)
- [p] piʾt "corner" (Π)
- [ṣ ] ṣad "plant"
- [q] qup (Ϙ)
- [r] raʾs "head" (R)
- [š] šimš "sun, the Uraeus" (Σ)
- [t] taw "signature" (T)
Thus, the sequences A, B, G, D, E - H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P - R, S, T of the Greek and Latin alphabets have been in existence since at least the mid- 2nd millennium BC.
The Ugaritic alphabet is an abjad based on cuneiform characters, but the letter sequence, and the transition from a syllabary to a consonantal alphabet, suggests influence of the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet.
Literature
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- Sacks, David (2004). Letter Perfect: The Marvelous History of Our Alphabet from A to Z. Broadway Books. ISBN 0-7679-1173-3.
- Albright, Wm. F. (1950?) The Proto-Sinaitic Inscriptions and their Decipherment.
- 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.
See also
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