Proto-Canaanite Writing System Influence on Phoenician and Greek Writing Systems - Research Paper Example

 Proto-Canaanite Writing System Influence on Phoenician and Greek Writing Systems A writing system denotes a graphic-linguistic correspondence or orthography, which forms a means of communication through the use of two dimensional symbols or shallow reliefs in three dimensions written into or on some form durable material such as wood, stone, clay, paper, cloth or stone. Writing systems can be generally classified into three types. The classification is done in accordance to the relation between the individual words and signs of the spoken language. Systems in which a single sign is supposed to be read as single word are termed as being logographic. Systems in which a single sign identifies a single syllable are termed as syllabary and in cases where a single sign denotes a phoneme are known as alphabets. Writing systems are distinguishable from and exclude art, which is graphic, and whilst commonly used for communication-lacks a linguistic structure (Lambdin & Cross 45). According to Lecours, the first form of writing dates back to 3300 BC and is credited to the Sumerians (Powell 260). This form of writing was then followed closely by the Egyptians’ hieroglyphics around the 3100 BC, and thereafter in successive progression by Akkadian, Cretan, Proto Canaanite and Chinese forms of writing. The Proto-Canaanite form of writing was the precursor to the Greek form of writing that is credited for a wide array of Middle Eastern and European systems of writing including Latin, Greek and Arabian (Powell 171). Cuneiform is the earliest known form of writing developed by the Sumerians and later improved on by the Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians. This was a wedge shaped form of script which was written by pressing sharp tips of the stylus on to wet clay tablets. This form of writing was flourishing, but then fell from use during the fall of Assyria. The Akkadians made an addition of a partial syllabary to the cuneiform and thus made a highly powerful version of their own system. This addition was made by the use of cuneiform phoneme and phoneme cuneiform converters and this developed a written form of language with a stock of phonograms. This empire had its peak of growth around 1850 BC and thereafter taken to be part of the Babylonian empire. The Akkadian system later evolved to become the Proto-Canaanite. The Proto-Canaanite, also known as Proto-Sinaitic writing system belonged to the Canaanite people from the Canaanite port towns, before they were conquered by the Israelites in the last years of the 1st millennium B.C. The Proto-Canaanite system was heavily influenced by Akkadian and hieroglyphics from the Egyptians. The system is said to have begun its evolution in the 1700 BC in South Levant, but by 1500 BC the system had begun move into Phoenicia, where it led to the development of the Greek Alphabet, Latin, and later Hebrew, Aramaic and the modern western Alphabet (Carboni 1). The Phoenician system of writing began its emergence from the Proto-Canaanite system at around 1500 BC and found its full establishment in 1200 BC among the Semitic civilization of North Levant which emerged after the Cretans’ demise (Lambdin & Cross 49). The system was based on consonantal system with no spoken vowels, but was nevertheless significant as the parent script to Greek, Latin, Etruscan, Aramaic and therefore the mother to all modern Middle Eastern and European systems of writing. The Proto-Canaanite system fell from use as people chose to favor Greek, in the era of Alexander the great in the 4th century BC. This paper critically evaluates the influence of the Proto-Canaanite system of writing on the development of the Phoenician form of writing. Proto-Canaanite or Sinaitic was the initial consonant alphabet. A cursory and quick glance at the signs that make up the system makes apparent the script’s origin which can be traced to the Egyptians. It is thought that the Egyptians conquered Sinai in 1700 BC for the sake of its trades routes and turquoise mines. The influence of Egyptians is thought to have poured into the local Semitic population who decided to adopt a number of hieroglyphic signs (estimated to be 22) to apply in the writing of their language. The adoption process was slightly different and interesting, in that the Egyptian hieroglyphs already have phonetic signs and logograms, however the Sinaitic people did not adopt the phonetic signs. Instead they made random choices of Egyptian pictorial glyphs like the house ox-head etc (Carboni 1). Each adopted sign represented a consonant. There decision on which sign represents a consonant was based on the fact that the signs represented objects and these objects became the sounds that the signs represented-this is termed as the acrophonic principle. For example word representing an ox is /aleph/, and this is the first sign to the left of Proto-Canaanite column. This stood for the sound /’/, which is the glottal stop. The Phoenician system was the immediate off shoot of Proto-Canaanite (Lambdin & Cross 37). It however had a major change which is the more linear and less curvilinear shape of its signs. Apart from this cosmetic difference all else remained similar. The Greek alphabet and its developmental history owe a lot to the Phoenician Proto-Canaanite system developed by the Canaanites. This history can be traced to adoption of Phoenician letter forms up to the present day. The civilization owed this early development was based in Canaan which occupied a large part of the western, coast of the Fertile Crescent in the Mediterranean. The writing system developed in a number of cities build on the coastline of the Mediterranean. The enterprising maritime trading culture that spanned this region of the Mediterranean from the 1550 BC to the 300 BC greatly contributed to the spread of the writing system. The Phoenicians ability to travel widely by see is credited for the spread of their form of writing to other regions (Powell 261). These Semitic people were credited for the invention of the man powered vessels known as the Galley and the bireme’s invention. Not only were these people famed for their trading but also for the spread of the alphabet that formed the basis of most present day writings. According to the Amarna tablets from the 14th century BC, these people called themselves Kinaani or Kenaani (which is today known as the Canaanites). The Phoenician alphabet for which these people are greatly famed was basically an abjad, which was explicitly consistent specifically about consonants. However, by the 9th century the system had created a matres lectionis to give indication to some mostly final vowels. This later arrangement was more suitable for Semitic languages than for Greek languages, and the matres lectionis and other Phoenician letters that depicted consonants not within the Greek system, were adapted to make representation of vowels in a consistent manner, if not unambiguously (Powell 268). The Greek alphabet development from the Proto-Canaanite form took place with first hand experience of the Phoenician abjad and as quickly as it was established in the mainland of Greece, it was rapidly exported east to Phrygia, where a similar kind of script was developed and westward transfers occurred too with West Greek Traders or Euboeans, where it was later adopted by the Etruscans to their own language (Fischer 228). The Semitic consonant form of writing according to the Northern Semitic scripts was known to be the forerunner of three linguistically and geographically diverse developments: with one moving towards Southern Asia and India and the second-originating from the consonantal script of Aramaic-spreading towards the Manchu and Mongolian Empires. The third development from the Semitic scripts spread towards the western direction in which it led to the development of the full alphabetical system of the Indo-European languages that hold p to modern times. This third and last transfer is what is commonly referred to as the transfer (Powell 267). This took several physical adaptations of the original Phoenician consonantal script. The Phoenician forms were the early forms of writing and these bear greater similarlity to the much developed Greek system according to chronological evidence. This implies that the Greek system was indeed a derivation of the Phoenician system because one preceded the other yet the two predecessor and current systems all portrays great similalrity. Additinionally, writings and names found in both systems of writings such as aleph (alpha) bete (beta) and Gimel (gamma), sin (sigma) and lamed (labda)-just to mention but a few, only have meanings in the Semitic languages or Phoenician and not within the Indo-European or Greek system. This implies that if they had no meaning in the Indo-European or Greek system, then they are less likely to have developed from the same. Instead, it is thus inferred that they may have highly likely developed from the Phoenician system within which they bear meaning. The Greek system is thus a derivative that borrowed from the Phoenician system and adopted the alphabet sounds, and took up the meanings too (Powell 269). The use of writing materials and types of writing materials in which these early forms of writing were found also form a basis of argument upon which the source of the writing system can be inferred. The archaeological findings from the past show that matrials that mainly had the Phoencian forms of writing were found on forms of material that were common in the region and less evident in other regions. These forms of material included stone, leather, papyrus and wood. These were materials that could be used in making inscriptions in the Phoenician region mainly because other early forms of writing that were common such as clay were lacking in this region (Kyle 49). Thus unlike the use of clay in Minoan-Mycenean writing the Phoenicians only had access to materials such as stone, wood, papyrus and leather (Powell 289). These were the only materials that were commonly used in the North Semitic region, because the quality of clay in this region was poor and thus less likely to be applied as writing media on which to make any form of inscriptiuons. The structural innovation within the Greek framework or system also attests to the fact that the Phoenician system must have preceded the Greek system. This is mainly because the changes and adaptations within the Greek system do not exist within the Phoenician system. Their initiation may have also been as a result of the necessity of changes that would ensure that the Phoenician system suited the Greek system which had a need of vowels. Thus the Greeks must have have made the consonantal system fully alphabetic by ensuring that system was adpated to notate both consonants and vowels that were initially missing from the Phoenician form. In the achievement of this innovation in structure and exploitation of the potential in a system in which consonants were made to act as reading aids was developed (Robinson 85). These reading aids is what was referred to as the matres lectionis and these were used to transcribe long vowels. In the initial stage the Phoenician alef represented alpha [a], the Phoenician he for epsilon [e], ayin for o mikron [o] and yod for iota [i]. These structural innovations led to the development of the vowel system which was evidently missing from the Phoenician writing system, where vowels were apparently not basic for the use of the system (Powell 262). A large number of letters from the Phoenician abjad were thus adopted into the Greek alphabet and language with a great retentionof their original sounds from Phoenician. However, being of Semitic origin the Phoecian scripts had a group of consonants known as gutturals, and these were non-existent in Greek. These were: ’aleph [ʔ], hē [h, e, a], ḥēth [ħ], and ‘ayin [ʕ]. In all these gutturals only ḥēth was retained in the Greek consonant forms, because it was taken to represent the [h] sound in dialects that had the [h] and the rest of the consonants were turned into vowels. The later development of this system is indeed an indicator that the Phoenician system that was devoid of vowels came before the Greek adoption which made these new structural innovations in order to fit its own use. The Greek’s structural innovation involving the consonants was a great step within the history of the development of the writing sytem from the earlier Phoenician form. This innovation made possible a comprehensive denotation of the of the linear sequences of segments of sound that constitute a message (Carboni 1). This enabled the formation of a continuous reading of the text, without the requriement of any supplemental information from the reader. The prevalence of archaelogical evidence of inscriptions of the Phoencian alphabet in terms of regional distribution also seems to attest to the origin and localities of development of this early form of writing before it could have reached the Greek for modification. The oldest discovered inscriptions of the Phoenician alphabet that preceded the Greek alphabet are found on the Sarcophagus of Byblos King Ahiram, which dates back to the 11th century B.C. at lastest (Powell 228). Other Phoenician inscriptions are found in Cyprus, Lebanon, Israel, Syria and other locations, which are as late as the Christian era early centuries. Most of these regions where the inscriptions mainly feature were well under what was the known Phoenician territory in the era within which the writing systems developed, thus implying this would have been only done by the people (Phoenician’s) within these localities. The fact that these regions were in constant trade and communication also provides an allusion to how the transmission may have been facilitated and the reasons that may have actually fostered the transfer of the writing system. (Fischer 331) The close proximity of the Greeks and Phoenician may also be another reason that may actually lead scholars to agree to the fact that such a transfer would have been possible. Conclusion Writing is referred to as a non-artistic two dimensional or three dimensional relief form of symbols which serve the purpose of communication. These are distnguishable from art because they have a linguistic structure. The first writing system was developed by Sumerians in 3300 B.C and it was later followed by Egyptian Hieroglyphics in 3100 BC, and these were succesively followed by Akkadian, Cretan, Proto Canaanite and Chinese forms of writing. The most famous and most significant form of these writing was the Proto-Canaanite which acted as a precursor to the Greek writing which is credited for wide range of European and Middle Eastern systems of writing which include Arabian and Latin. The earliest form of writing developed by the Sumerians was known as the Cuneiform. Akkadians made a partial syllabary to the Cuneiform and therefore made a powerful system of their own writing, which would later evolve to become the Proto-Canaanite system of writing. The Proto-Canaanite system was heavily influenced by Akkadian and hieroglyphics from the Egyptians. The Proto-Canaanite system is said to have begun its evolution in the 1700 BC in South Levant, but by 1500 BC the system had begun move into Phoenicia, where it led to the development of the Greek Alphabet, Latin, and later Hebrew, Aramaic and the modern western Alphabet. The Phoenician system of writing began its emergence from the Proto-Canaanite system at around 1500 BC and found its full establishment in 1200 BC among the Semitic civilization of North Levant. The system was based on consonantal system with no spoken vowels, but was nevertheless significant as the parent script to Greek, Latin, Etruscan, Aramaic and therefore the mother to all modern Middle Eastern and European systems of writing. The Proto-Canaanite system fell from use as people chose to favor Greek, in the era of Alexander the great in the 4th century BC. However, its influence on the development of the Greek language is still evident in terms of structure and symbol shaping that represent letters. There are various forms of structural and archaeological evidences that support this evolutionary channel of the Greek alphabet from the Proto-Sinaitic abjad of the Phoenicians. The symbols used in the Greek alphabet bear a lot of similarity to those in the Phoenician alphabet which was chronologically older than the Greek one and thus implying that it was a derivative of the Phoenician form. Additionally, the fact that the names and writings found in both systems on similar symbols find meaning only in Phoenician implies that a Phoenician source was the most probable origin. For example aleph (alpha) bete (beta) and Gimel (gamma), sin (sigma) and lamed (labda)-just to mention but a few all occur in both systems, but the words only find meaning in Phoenician thus implying a direct infleunce. The use of writing material only common to these regions to document what has been archaeologically proven to be early Phoenician writing found exclusively in the regions occupied by Phoenicians shows that the influence of the development of the alphabet must have originated from this zone. References Carboni, G. The history of writing, retrieved on 30th November 2011 from http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/writing/writing.htm#2.8, 2010, Web Fischer, R. S. A history of writing, Reaktion Books, 2004, Print Robinson, A. The story of writing; London: Thames & Hudson, 1995, print. Kyle, P. M. The Antiquity of the Greek Alphabet and the Early Phoenician Scripts: Missoula Mont. Scholars Press, 1975, Print Lambdin, O. T. and Cross, M. F. Ugaritic Abecedary and the Origins of the Proto-Canaanite Alphabet. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, volume number 160 (1); 1960, Web < http://www.jstor.org/pss/1355644.> Powell, B. B. Homer and the origin of the Greek alphabet, Cambridge University Press, 1996, print Read More