The Phoenician Alphabet: The Ingenious Writing System That Changed History

Are you able to understand this text? Good. That means you recognize that each letter I write can be articulated and that its structure conveys a meaning you can comprehend. The modern alphabet, which consists of all the letters we use today, was not, however, invented by the Ancient Greeks.

The alphabetic writing system was discovered by the Phoenicians, who eventually gave birth to the magnificent civilization of Ancient Carthage in North Africa, which we now know as Tunisia.

The alphabet system is a heritage of the ancient Carthage civilization that we continue to use today. Before Ancient Carthage, scribing was elitist and extremely difficult. Older writing traditions, such as 'cuneiform' (ancient wedge-shaped writing), were developed by the Sumarian civilization thousands of years prior the birth of Phoenicians. There is also the hieroglyphic tradition of Ancient Egypt, which is notoriously difficult to learn. In order to learn such an elitist writing style, ancient people had to attend years of specialized writing classes.

But what makes the Phoenician or ancient Carthage alphabet system unique is that it teaches simplicity and is so straightforward. Their alphabet consists of only 22 letters, and each letter can be pronounced and spelled phonetically. The ingenious aspect of the Phoenician alphabet is that the shape of the letters reveals information about the origin of the letters.

For example, the letter 'B' is spelled 'Bet,' which means house, hence the shape of the word 'Bet' resembles a home with a roof. This alphabet system greatly reduced the amount of time required to learn how to write. With this discovery, the tradition of writing could at last be readily learned by common people, and merchants could finally read and write – particularly to record crucial transactions in their import-export business.

This Phoenician alphabet tradition was so ingenious that the Ancient Greek culture eventually adopted it. Herodotus stated in a similar manner in his notes, "The Phoenicians who accompanied Cadmus to Greece carried with them a great deal of goods. The alphabet is one of these."

According to Herodotus, the Phoenician prince Cadmus was credited with introducing the Phoenician alphabet—phoinikeia grammata, "Phoenician letters"—to the Greeks, who altered it to produce their Greek alphabet. According to Herodotus, the Phoenician alphabet was unknown to the Greeks until the time of Cadmus.

Over time, the sounds and forms of the letters alter. However, when the Phoenicians eventually taught the Greeks the alphabet, the Greeks adapted the letters and slightly altered their shape. In particular by adding vowels. Thus was created the Ancient Greek alphabet system.

The Phoenician writing system became the foundation for the modern Western alphabet. The earliest written works of the Phoenician culture were discovered on the island of Sardinia on tablets known as the Nora Stone.

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Monica JR, 2023