The Mysteries of the Alphabet: The Origins of WritingAbbeville Press, 1999 - 381 pages Why is A the first letter of the alphabet? Why is O round? This work tells how Protosinaic pictograms - derived from Egyptian heiroglyphics and discovered in the Sinai only at the beginning of the 20th century - changed throughout the millennia and left their trace on our alphabet. |
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Expressions et termes fréquents
ACQUIRED MEANINGS PERPETUATED acrophony Akkadian aleph Ancient Hebrew Arabic Aramaic Archaic Greek Archeography ayin Baalat became becomes beth Byblos camel Canaanite CLASSIC FORMS CLASSICAL AND MODERN cuneiform cursive Hebrew Cursive script ORIGINAL daleth DERIVATIVE MEANINGS Dynasty Egyptian hieroglyphics eighth century B.C.E. Etruscan alphabet Février fish FORMS IN PROTO-SINAITIC Gezer gimmel Greek Script Greek Script Greek head Hebraic Hebrew and Phoenician HEBREW LANGUAGE HEBREW Square script Hebrew word horizontal lamed Latin letter Mesha stele MODERN HEBREW Square mouth NUMERIC VALUE ORIGINAL FORMS ostracon phonetic pictogram pronounced proto proto-Canaanite proto-Sinaitic alphabet proto-Sinaitic inscriptions represents resh right to left samekh script ORIGINAL MEANINGS shape shin Sinai sixth century B.C.E. sound Sumerian SUMMARY TABLE tenth century B.C.E. theta tion Transition to Greek tsadeh Ugaritic Ugaritic alphabet variations Western alphabets Western Greek alphabet writing written Yehimilk zayin