Fun fact: all (non-Cherokee?) alphabets in use today stem from an ancient Canaanite alphabet called the proto-Sinaitic script [1]. This is why Hebrew's alphabet near-perfectly phonetically represents the spoken language: Hebrew is just a dialect of Canaanite, and all Canaanite dialects are mutually intelligible, and alphabets were invented to represent spoken Canaanite. As the alphabet was cribbed by the Greeks (who were taught a simplified version by seafaring Canaanites — the Phoenicians — and termed it the "Phoenician alphabet" [2] despite the Phoenicians not specifically inventing it), significant alterations had to be made and it's been an imperfect match for most Western languages ever since.<p>1: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script</a><p>2: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet</a>
At least one counter-example: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul</a> is technically an alphabet, and is non-Canaanite derived.
It wasn't <i>directly</i> cribbed (unlike Western alphabets), but given that Hangul was invented in the 1400s after exposure to Western alphabets, most scholars still consider alphabets to have only been invented once [1] and then copied, much like the wheel. Although I suppose that's true of Cherokee too!<p>1: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet</a>
It's not quite in the same category, but there's also Zhuyin Fuhao:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bopomofo</a>
I think the idea is that since the inventers of bopomofo were exposed to other alphabets, it's still considered a descendant alphabet. I usually think of descendant as something that visibly manifests its ancestry, so for example modern traditional characters look somewhat like the earliest Chinese characters, or, all romance languages sharing some sounds or even words. So maybe we need a different way to describe things like wheels and alphabets.
My understanding is it’s the earliest known alphabet but not the ancestor to all alphabetic languages as there are Asian and other alphabetic languages that are not derived from western or Arabic alphabets. Specifically Greek and Latin alphabets and their descendants are based on it. Specifically Japanese Hiragana and Katakana are syllabic alphabets derived from kanji (and Chinese pictograms) as a simplification of the pictographic language and not derived from proto sinaitic. Others are possibly linked, like Thai, Khmer, etc through an Aramaic -> Brami-> Pallava->Khmer linkage but the Brami link is not fully established to be true.
No: most scholars believe alphabets were only invented once, much like the wheel. All Western alphabets are direct descendants, and the non-Western alphabets were directly inspired by it. [1]<p>Phonetic alphabets were introduced to most of Asia by various Brahmic scripts; the most widely-used (albeit briefly-used) one being the Mongolian Phags-pa script [2], derived from Tibetan, derived from various Brahmic scripts, derived from Aramaic, derived from Phoenician, derived from — sure enough — proto-Sinaitic. Thai and Khmer are derived from Pallava [3], which is derived from Tamil-Brahmi, derived from other Brahmic scripts, again derived from Aramaic and thus eventually from proto-Sinaitic; etc etc.<p>1: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet</a><p>2: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BCPhags-pa_script" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BCPhags-pa_script</a><p>3: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallava_script" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallava_script</a>
The wheel was independently invented in the Americas, it just seems to have been used exclusively for toys:
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel#/media/File:Remojadas_Wheeled_Figurine.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel#/media/File:Remojadas_Wh...</a>
Syllabaries are not alphabets.
Technically, the proto-Sinaitic script is an abjad, with the Greek alphabet being the first true alphabet (symbols for both consonants and vowels).<p>Proto-Sinaitic/Phoenician can be described as the “first alphabetic system,” Greek the “first true alphabet.”<p>Fun fact: Greek is the world’s oldest recorded living language.<p>The Greek alphabet has been in use for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary.
Canaanite and its abjad have been in continuous use, in various versions, for more than 2,800 years. It's true there's no Linear B.
"and all Canaanite dialects are mutually intelligible": That is the definition of a dialect.<p>Also, I don't know how you can claim Hebrew is phonetically represented by its alphabet rather than the other way around, as a revived language the pronunciations are largely a matter of convention based on Yiddish. It would be more accurate to say that modern Hebrew uses an ancient writing system, which happens to be closely related to the ancestor of modern European alphabets.<p>See <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revival_of_the_Hebrew_language" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revival_of_the_Hebrew_language</a>
Hebrew is not based on Yiddish, lol; only Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation was influenced by Yiddish. Modern Israeli Hebrew uses primarily Sephardi pronunciation, and Ashkenazi is mocked (i.e. Shabbat is Sephardi, Shabbos is Ashkenazi; modern Israeli Hebrew uses Shabbat). I grew up around Ashkenazi pronunciation in America, and had to unlearn it when I spent time in Israel. Nonetheless, Yemenite, Sephardi, and Ashkenazi Hebrew — the three major extant pronunciations, only <i>one</i> of which was ever influenced by Yiddish (Ashkenazi) — are all extremely similar and mutually intelligible, and thus all of them are extremely well mapped to the alphabet. Yemenite is most likely closest to the original spoken language, specifically the ע, but there are very few differences. And a modern Hebrew speaker can easily understand Biblical Hebrew — they're closer than even Modern English and Shakespearean.<p>Also, not <i>all</i> colloquial dialects are mutually intelligible. Different Chinese dialects are still often referred to as "dialects," despite not being mutually intelligible (e.g. Cantonese vs Mandarin). While that's typically <i>mostly</i> the case for Western languages, there's a spectrum even there.
> And a modern Hebrew speaker can easily understand Biblical Hebrew — they're closer than even Modern English and Shakespearean.<p>Of course, because modern Hebrew was constructed based on (the modern understanding of) Biblical Hebrew around the 1920s or slightly earlier, whereas Modern English naturally evolved for ~400 years from Shakespearean English and other forms of English.
> That is the definition of a dialect.<p>I dunno, some English dialects don't seem particularly intelligible to me, and I'm a natively fluent speaker of it.
This is like speciation but for languages: there's no "ah-ha!" moment, but we know a lemur can't produce viable offsprings with a zebra. Likewise we know Italian isn't French even though some words are kinda similar. If you want to be technical about it, it's a spectrum: I understand British people and people from the American deep South, but it's far from certain they will understand each other. Hard to be precise with social sciences.<p>That said, two people who understand each other are, by any reasonable definition, speaking dialects of the same tongue (if not, obviously, the very same dialect).
Very enjoyable documentary on this alphabetic development with relevant on-site visits.<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/A-to-Z-Season-1/dp/B0CWCHTM3B" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/A-to-Z-Season-1/dp/B0CWCHTM3B</a><p>Episode 2 then covers the printing press.
Egyptian hieroglyphics already had alphabetic elements, and the canaanites borrowed those: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_hieroglyphs" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_hieroglyphs</a> (“Egyptian hieroglyphs are the ultimate ancestor of the Phoenician alphabet, the first widely adopted phonetic writing system”).
Egyptian heiroglyphs were not an alphabet, even if they had alphabetic elements (in addition to pictographic ones). Scholars generally agree that proto-Sinaitic was the first alphabet, and all subsequent alphabets used today are either direct descendants or directly inspired by it. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet</a>
> all (non-Cherokee?) alphabets in use today stem from an ancient Canaanite<p>Counterexample: Korean Hangul [0]<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul</a>
"This is why Hebrew's alphabet near-perfectly phonetically represents the spoken language" - nonsense. That's just because modern Hebrew is based on the written language and thus reflects spelling pronunciation rather than historical pronunciation.<p>Also, proto-Sinaitic is not an alphabet. That's why Persian writing became harder to read when they switched from the nearly alphabetic Old Persian cuneiform to Aramaic abjad descended from proto-Sinaitic.
No, modern Hebrew and ancient Hebrew mapped similarly well to the written script — the primary difference between the two is just consonant drift. Both used the same structure of triconsonant roots with affixed patterns, and modern Hebrew morphology is identical to ancient Hebrew (phonemes changed primarily due to consonant drift, but not its structure). Arabic, for example, is similar and similarly well-mapped to its script, as are other Semitic languages that are closely related to ancient Canaanite.
> nonsense<p>Can you please make your substantive points without directing pejoratives at the other? This is covered in the site guidelines (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html">https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html</a>):<p>"<i>When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3.</i>"<p>Your comment would be just fine (indeed, excellent) without that bit.
Another counter-example is Phags Pa Script.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BCPhags-pa_script" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BCPhags-pa_script</a>