1.
Logogram
–
In written language, a logogram or logograph is a written character that represents a word or phrase. Chinese characters and Japanese kanji are logograms, some Egyptian hieroglyphs, the use of logograms in writing is called logography. A writing system that is based on logograms is called a logographic system, in alphabets and syllabaries, individual written characters represent sounds rather than concepts. Unlike logograms, phonograms do not necessarily have meaning by themselves, Writing language in this way is called phonemic orthography. Logographic systems include the earliest writing systems, the first historical civilizations of the Near East, Africa, China, a more recent attempt is Zlango, intended for use in text messaging, currently including around 300 icons. The term logosyllabary is used to emphasize the partially phonetic nature of these scripts when the domain is the syllable. For example, Egyptian was used to write both sȝ duck and sȝ son, though it is likely that these words were not pronounced the same apart from their consonants and this can be illustrated with Chinese. Not all Chinese characters represent morphemes, some morphemes are composed of more than one character, for example, the Chinese word for spider, 蜘蛛 zhīzhū, was created by fusing the rebus 知朱 zhīzhū with the bug determinative 虫. Neither *蜘 zhī nor *蛛 zhū can be used separately, in Archaic Chinese, one can find the reverse, a single character representing more than one morpheme. An example is Archaic Chinese 王 hjwangs, a combination of a morpheme hjwang meaning king, in modern Mandarin, bimorphemic syllables are always written with two characters, for example 花儿 huār flower. These logograms, called hozwārishn, were dispensed with altogether after the Arab conquest of Persia, logograms are used in modern shorthand to represent common words. In addition, the numerals and mathematical symbols used in systems are logograms—1 one,2 two, + plus, = equals, and so on. In English, the ampersand & is used for and and et, % for percent, # for number, § for section, $ for dollar, € for euro, £ for pound, ° for degree, @ for at, etc. All historical logographic systems include a dimension, as it is impractical to have a separate basic character for every word or morpheme in a language. In some cases, such as cuneiform as it was used for Akkadian, many logographic systems also have a semantic/ideographic component, called determinatives in the case of Egyptian and radicals in the case of Chinese. In the case of Chinese, the vast majority of characters are a combination of a radical that indicates its nominal category. The Mayan system used logograms with phonetic complements like the Egyptian, Chinese scholars have traditionally classified the Chinese characters hanzi into six types by etymology. The first two types are single-body, meaning that the character was created independently of other characters, single-body pictograms and ideograms make up only a small proportion of Chinese logograms
Logogram
–
Egyptian hieroglyphs, which have their origins as logograms.
2.
Glyph (archaeology)
–
In typography, a glyph /ˈɡlɪf/ is an elemental symbol within an agreed set of symbols, intended to represent a readable character for the purposes of writing. In Turkish, however, it is not a glyph because that language has two versions of the letter i, with and without a dot. In Japanese syllabaries, a number of the characters are made up of more than one separate mark, however, in some cases, additional marks fulfill the role of diacritics, to differentiate distinct characters. In general, a diacritic is a glyph, even if it is contiguous with the rest of the character, two or more glyphs which have the same significance, whether used interchangeably or chosen depending on context, are called allographs of each other. The term has been used in English since 1727, borrowed from glyphe, from the Greek γλυφή, glyphē, carving, and the verb γλύφειν, glýphein, to hollow out, engrave, carve. The word glyph first came to widespread European attention with the engravings, in archaeology, a glyph is a carved or inscribed symbol. It may be a pictogram or ideogram, or part of a system such as a syllable. In 1897 Dana Evans discovered glyphs written on rocks in the Colorado Desert and these ancient characters have been called the most enlightening discovery in Native American History in the 19th Century. In typography, a glyph has a different definition, it is the specific shape, design. The same is true in computing, in computing as well as typography, the term character refers to a grapheme or grapheme-like unit of text, as found in natural language writing systems. The range of glyphs required increases correspondingly, in summary, in typography and computing, a glyph is a graphical unit. In graphonomics, the glyph is used for a noncharacter. Most typographic glyphs originate from the characters of a typeface, in the mobile text input technologies, Glyph is a family of text input methods based on the decomposition of letters into basic shapes. In role-playing games, the glyph is sometimes used alongside the word rune in describing magical drawings or etchings. Runes often refer to placing the image on an object or person to empower it, whereas the magic in a glyph lies dormant and is only triggered when the glyph is read or approached
Glyph (archaeology)
–
The adjacent characters ſi represented as one glyph
Glyph (archaeology)
–
Various glyphs representing the lower case letter "
a "
3.
La Mojarra Stela 1
–
La Mojarra Stela 1 is a Mesoamerican carved monument dating from the 2nd century CE. It was discovered in 1986, pulled from the Acula River near La Mojarra, Veracruz, Mexico, the 4 1⁄2-foot-wide by 6 1⁄2-foot-high, four-ton limestone slab contains about 535 glyphs of the Isthmian script. The right side of the features a full-length portrait of a man in an elaborate headdress and costume. Above the figure,12 short columns of glyphs have been etched into the stone, among these glyphs are two Mesoamerican Long Count calendar dates which correspond to May 143 CE and July 156 CE. The monument is an example of the type of stela which later became common commemorating rulers of Maya sites in the Classic era. The figure engraved onto Stela 1 is complex and not easily interpreted, pool describes the figure as follows, Prof. Philip Arnold has tentatively identified the stylized sharks as the Olmec Fish/Shark Monster, a symbol of rulership. According to Mary Ellen Miller, the figure wears the headdress of the Principal Bird Deity, Bird deities were often featured on stelae of this period, and can be seen on Izapa Stela 4 as well on monuments at Kaminaljuyu, Takalik Abaj, and Zaculeu. The Tuxtla Statuette, a small 6-inch-high greenstone sculpture, also portrays a human dressed as a bird and it comes from the same culture and period as Stela 1, and both feature Isthmian script glyphs. These two artifacts were found roughly 70 km apart and their Long Count dates are separated by only 6 years and they may even refer to the same person. For some years after discovery, the monument was in storage in the Museo de Antropología in Xalapa, in November 1995, as the monument was being prepared for display, a previously neglected series of glyphs was noticed on one side in eroded but still partially recognizable condition. In 1993, and again in 1997, after discovery of the new column of glyphs, John Justeson and this decipherment has been disputed by Michael D. Coe and Stephen D. Houston, among others. Resolution of this debate will likely need to further archaeological discoveries. Detail showing one of the two Long Count dates, the Shark-Monster in Olmec Iconography, in Mesoamerican Voices,2005, v.2. Diehl, Richard Mojarra, La, in Evans, Susan, ed. Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America, Taylor & Francis, London. Guernsey, Julia Ritual and Power in Stone, The Performance of Rulership in Mesoamerican Izapan Style Art, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, a Newly Discovered Column in the Hieroglyphic Text on La Mojarra Stela 1, a Test of the Epi-Olmec Decipherment. Justeson, John S. and Terrence Kaufman Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writing, Kaufman, Terrence Early Mesoamerican Writing Systems on University of Pittsburgh Department of Anthropology website. Koontz, Rex, Annabeth Headrick, Kathryn Reese-Taylor Landscape and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica, pool, Christopher Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-78882-3. Schuster, Angela M. H. Epi-Olmec Decipherment in Archaeology, online
La Mojarra Stela 1
–
Left side image of La Mojarra Stela 1, showing a person identified as "Harvester Mountain Lord".
La Mojarra Stela 1
–
Inscriptions in the
Isthmian or Epi-Olmec script on the right side of La Mojarra Stela 1
4.
Mesoamerican Long Count calendar
–
The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is a non-repeating, vigesimal and base-18 calendar used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya. For this reason, it is known as the Maya Long Count calendar. The Long Count calendar was used on monuments. The two most widely used calendars in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, were the 260-day Tzolkin and the 365 day Haab, the equivalent Aztec calendars are known in Nahuatl as the tonalpohualli and Xiuhpohualli. The combination of a Haab and a Tzolkin date identifies a day in a combination which does not occur again for 18,980 days, to identify days over periods longer than this, Mesoamericans used the Long Count calendar. There has been debate over the precise correlation between the Western calendars and the Long Count calendars. The August 11 date is based on the GMT correlation, the completion of 13 baktuns marks the Creation of the world of human beings according to the Maya. On this day, Raised-up-Sky-Lord caused three stones to be set by associated gods at Lying-Down-Sky, First-Three-Stone-Place, because the sky still lay on the primordial sea, it was black. The setting of the three stones centered the cosmos which allowed the sky to be raised, revealing the sun, rather than using a base-10 scheme, like Western numbering, the Long Count days were tallied in a modified base-20 scheme. In a pure base-20 scheme,0.0.0.1.5 is equal to 25, the Long Count is not pure base-20, however, since the second digit from the right rolls over to zero when it reaches 18. Thus 0.0.1.0.0 does not represent 400 days, note that the name baktun was invented by modern scholars. The numbered Long Count was no longer in use by the time the Spanish arrived in the Yucatán Peninsula, instead the Maya were using an abbreviated Short Count. Long Count dates are written with Mesoamerican numerals, as shown on this table, a dot represents 1 while a bar equals 5. The shell glyph was used to represent the zero concept, the Long Count calendar required the use of zero as a place-holder, and presents one of the earliest uses of the zero concept in history. On Maya monuments, the Long Count syntax is more complex, the date sequence is given once, at the beginning of the inscription, and opens with the so-called ISIG which reads tzik-a hab’. Next come the 5 digits of the Long Count, followed by the Calendar Round, the supplementary series is optional and contains lunar data, for example, the age of the moon on the day and the calculated length of current lunation. The text then continues with whatever activity occurred on that date, a drawing of a full Maya Long Count inscription is shown below. Interpretations of inscriptions on some artifacts differ, la Mojarra Stela 1, the Tuxtla Statuette, Tres Zapotes Stela C, and Chiapa Stela 2 are all inscribed in an Epi-Olmec, not Maya, style
Mesoamerican Long Count calendar
–
Detail showing three columns of glyphs from a portion of the 2nd century CE
La Mojarra Stela 1. The left column gives a Long Count date of 8.5.16.9.7, or 156 CE. The two right columns visible are glyphs from the
Epi-Olmec script.
Mesoamerican Long Count calendar
–
Maya numerals
Mesoamerican Long Count calendar
–
The back of Stela C from
Tres Zapotes, an Olmec archaeological site. This is the second oldest Long Count date yet discovered. The numerals 7.16.6.16.18 translate to September 1, 32 BCE (Gregorian). The glyphs surrounding the date are what is thought to be one of the few surviving examples of
Epi-Olmec script.
Mesoamerican Long Count calendar
–
Chichen Itza Initial Series inscription. This date (glyphs A2, B2, …, A5) is 10.2.9.1.9 9 Muluk 7 Sak, equivalent to July 28, 878 (GMT Gregorian).
5.
Mesoamerican writing system
–
Mesoamerica, along with Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China, is among the five known places in the world where writing has developed independently. Mesoamerican scripts deciphered to date are a combination of logographic and syllabic values and they are often called hieroglyphs due to the iconic shapes of many of the glyphs, a pattern superficially similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs. The best documented and deciphered Mesoamerican writing system, and the most widely known, is the classic Maya script, an extensive Mesoamerican literature has been conserved partly in indigenous scripts and partly in the postconquest transcriptions in the Latin script. Early Olmec ceramics show representations of something that may be codices, suggesting that amatl bark codices and it was also long thought that many of the glyphs present on Olmec monumental sculpture, such as those on the so-called Ambassador Monument, represented an early Olmec script. This suspicion was reinforced in 2002 by the announcement of the discovery of similar glyphs at San Andres and this block was discovered by locals in the Olmec heartland and was dated by the archaeologists to approximately 900 BCE based on other debris. If the authenticity and date can be verified, this will prove to be the earliest writing yet found in Mesoamerica, another candidate for earliest writing system in Mesoamerica is the writing system of the Zapotec culture. Rising in the late Pre-Classic era after the decline of the Olmec civilization, on a few monuments at this archaeological site, archaeologists have found extended text in a glyphic script. Some signs can be recognized as calendric information but the script as such remains undeciphered, the earliest known monument with Zapotec writing is a Danzante stone, officially known as Monument 3, found in San Jose Mogote, Oaxaca. It has a relief of what appears to be a dead, first dated to 500–600 BCE, this was earlier considered the earliest writing in Mesoamerica. However doubts have been expressed as to dating and the monument may have been reused. The Zapotec script went out of use only in the late Classic period, a small number of artifacts found in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec show examples of another early Mesoamerican writing system. They can be seen to contain calendric information but are otherwise undeciphered, the longest of these texts are on La Mojarra Stela 1 and the Tuxtla Statuette. The writing system used is very close to the Mayan script, using affixal glyphs and Long Count dates and it has been suggested that this Isthmian or Epi-Olmec script is the direct predecessor of the Mayan script, thus giving the Mayan script a non-Mayan origin. Another artifact with Epi-Olmec script is the Chiapa de Corzo stela which is the oldest monument of the Americas inscribed with its own date, in a 1997 paper, John Justeson and Terrence Kaufman put forward a decipherment of Epi-Olmec. In the highland Mayan archaeological sites of Abaj Takalik and Kaminaljuyú writing has been dating to Izapan culture. It is likely that in this area in late Pre-Classic times an ancient form of a Mixe–Zoquean language was spoken, some glyphs in this scripts are readable as they are identical to Mayan glyphs but the script remains undeciphered. The advanced decay and destruction of archaeological sites make it improbable that more monuments with these scripts will come to light making possible a decipherment. The earliest inscriptions in an identifiably Maya script date back to 200–300 BCE, early examples include the painted inscriptions at the caves of Naj Tunich and La Cobanerita in El Petén, Guatemala
Mesoamerican writing system
–
Monument 3 at San Jose Mogote. The two shaded
glyphs between his legs are likely his name, Earthquake 1
Mesoamerican writing system
–
The 62 glyphs of the
Cascajal block.
Mesoamerican writing system
–
Detail showing three columns of glyphs from 2nd century CE
La Mojarra Stela 1 currently located at the Museum of Anthropology of Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico. The two right columns are glyphs from the
Epi-Olmec script. The left column gives a Long Count date of 8.5.16.9.9, or 162 CE.
Mesoamerican writing system
–
Maya glyphs in stucco at the Museo de sitio in
Palenque, Mexico
6.
Isthmus of Tehuantepec
–
The Isthmus of Tehuantepec is an isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, prior to the opening of the Panama Canal, it was a major shipping route known simply as the Tehuantepec Route. The name is taken from the town of Santo Domingo Tehuantepec in the state of Oaxaca, the isthmus includes the part of Mexico lying between the 94th and 96th meridians west longitude, or the southeastern parts of Veracruz and Oaxaca, including small areas of Chiapas and Tabasco. The states of Tabasco and Chiapas are east of the isthmus, with Veracruz, at its narrowest point, the isthmus is 200 km across from gulf to gulf, or 192 km to the head of Laguna Superior on the Pacific coast. The Sierra Madre breaks down at this point into a broad, plateau-like ridge, whose elevation, the northern side of the isthmus is swampy and densely covered with jungle, which has been a greater obstacle to railway construction than the grades in crossing the sierra. The whole region is hot and malarial, except for the open elevations, the annual rainfall on the Atlantic or northern slope is 3,960 mm and the maximum temperature about 35 degrees Celsius in the shade. The Pacific slope has a light rainfall and dryer climate, the narrowness of the isthmus, and the gap in the Sierra Madre, allow the trade winds from the Gulf of Mexico to blow through to the Pacific. This wind is known as the Tehuano, the region has one of the best wind resources in Mexico, with several wind farms. The population is composed almost wholly of indigenous Zapotec peoples, the women are the traders in Tehuantepec and do little menial work. The cuisine of the region is based upon traditional foods and ingredients, dishes may range from simple to elaborate, most dishes incorporate maize and moles. Common items include tamales made with iguana, chicken, beef or armadillo, guetabingui, Garnachas topped with dried queso Oaxaca, and pozol, a maize-based soup. Since the days of Hernán Cortés, the Tehuantepec isthmus has been considered a favorable route, first for an interoceanic canal and its proximity to the axis of international trade gives it some advantage over the Panama route. The Isthmus of Panama, however, is narrower, making for a shorter traversal. The 1853 Gadsden Purchase treaty included a provision allowing the U. S. to transport mail and trade goods across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec via a plank road and railroad. The 1859 McLane-Ocampo Treaty, which Benito Juárez signed but was never ratified by the United States Congress, when the great cost of a canal across the isthmus compelled engineers and capitalists to give it up as impracticable, James B. Eads proposed to construct a quadruple track ship-railway, and the scheme received serious attention for some time, then came projects for an ordinary railway, and several concessions were granted by the Mexican government for this purpose from 1857 to 1882. In the latter year the Mexican government resolved to undertake the construction on its own account. In 1888 this contract was rescinded, after 108 km of road had been completed, the next contract was fruitless because of the death of the contractor, and the third failed to complete the work within the sum specified
Isthmus of Tehuantepec
–
Map showing the relief of the isthmus
Isthmus of Tehuantepec
–
Map of the
Straits of Florida and Gulf of Mexico. To accompany a report from the Treasury Department to the Senate by Israel D. Andrews, per the resolution of the Senate of March 8, 1851.
Isthmus of Tehuantepec
–
Garnachas
7.
Common Era
–
Common Era or Current Era is a year-numbering system for the Julian and Gregorian calendars that refers to the years since the start of this era, i. e. since AD1. The preceding era is referred to as before the Common or Current Era, the Current Era notation system can be used as a secular alternative to the Dionysian era system, which distinguishes eras as AD and BC. The two notation systems are equivalent, thus 2017 CE corresponds to AD2017 and 400 BCE corresponds to 400 BC. The year-numbering system for the Gregorian calendar is the most widespread civil calendar used in the world today. For decades, it has been the standard, recognized by international institutions such as the United Nations. The expression has been traced back to Latin usage to 1615, as vulgaris aerae, the term Common Era can be found in English as early as 1708, and became more widely used in the mid-19th century by Jewish academics. He attempted to number years from a reference date, an event he referred to as the Incarnation of Jesus. Dionysius labeled the column of the table in which he introduced the new era as Anni Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, numbering years in this manner became more widespread in Europe with its usage by Bede in England in 731. Bede also introduced the practice of dating years before what he supposed was the year of birth of Jesus, in 1422, Portugal became the last Western European country to switch to the system begun by Dionysius. The first use of the Latin term vulgaris aerae discovered so far was in a 1615 book by Johannes Kepler, Kepler uses it again in a 1616 table of ephemerides, and again in 1617. A1635 English edition of that book has the title page in English – so far, a 1701 book edited by John LeClerc includes Before Christ according to the Vulgar Æra,6. A1716 book in English by Dean Humphrey Prideaux says, before the beginning of the vulgar æra, a 1796 book uses the term vulgar era of the nativity. The first so-far-discovered usage of Christian Era is as the Latin phrase aerae christianae on the page of a 1584 theology book. In 1649, the Latin phrase æræ Christianæ appeared in the title of an English almanac, a 1652 ephemeris is the first instance so-far-found for English usage of Christian Era. The English phrase common Era appears at least as early as 1708, a 1759 history book uses common æra in a generic sense, to refer to the common era of the Jews. The first-so-far found usage of the phrase before the era is in a 1770 work that also uses common era and vulgar era as synonyms. The 1797 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica uses the terms vulgar era, the Catholic Encyclopedia in at least one article reports all three terms being commonly understood by the early 20th century. Thus, the era of the Jews, the common era of the Mahometans, common era of the world
Common Era
–
Key concepts
8.
Maya script
–
The earliest inscriptions found which are identifiably Maya date to the 3rd century BCE in San Bartolo, Guatemala. Maya writing was in use throughout Mesoamerica until the Spanish conquest of the Maya in the 16th and 17th centuries. Maya writing used logograms complemented by a set of syllabic glyphs, modern Mayan languages are written using the Latin alphabet rather than Maya script. It is now thought that the codices and other Classic texts were written by scribes, usually members of the Maya priesthood, there is also some evidence that the script may have been occasionally used to write Mayan languages of the Guatemalan Highlands. However, if languages were written, they may have been written by Ch’olti’ scribes. Mayan writing consisted of an elaborate set of glyphs, which were laboriously painted on ceramics, walls or bark-paper codices, carved in wood or stone. Carved and molded glyphs were painted, but the paint has rarely survived, about 90% of Mayan writing can now be read with varying degrees of certainty, enough to give a comprehensive idea of its structure. The Mayan script was a logosyllabic system, individual glyphs could represent either a word or a syllable, indeed, the same glyph could often be used for both. For example, the calendaric glyph MANIK’ was also used to represent the syllable chi, there was polyvalence in the other direction as well, different glyphs could be read the same way. For example, half a dozen apparently unrelated glyphs were used to write the common third person pronoun u-. However, in the case of Mayan, each tended to correspond to a noun or verb phrase such as his green headband. Also, glyphs were sometimes conflated, where an element of one glyph would replace part of a second, conflation occurs in other scripts, For example, in medieval Spanish manuscripts the word de of was sometimes written Ð. Another example is the ampersand which is a conflation of the Latin et, in place of the standard block configuration, Mayan was also sometimes written in a single row or column, L, or T shapes. These variations most often appeared when they would fit the surface being inscribed. For example, the logogram for fish fin, came to represent the syllable ka, for example, balam jaguar could be written as a single logogram, BALAM, complemented phonetically as ba-BALAM, or BALAM-ma, or ba-BALAM-ma, or written completely phonetically as ba-la-ma. Phonetic glyphs stood for simple consonant-vowel or bare-vowel syllables, when these final consonants were sonorants or gutturals they were sometimes ignored, but more often final consonants were written, which meant that an extra vowel was written as well. This was typically an echo vowel that repeated the vowel of the previous syllable and that is, the word fish fin would be underspelled ka or written in full as ka-ha. A more complex spelling is ha-o-bo ko-ko-no-ma for they are the guardians, a minimal set is, ba-ka ba-ki ba-ku = ba-ke ba-ke-le Despite depending on consonants which were frequently not written, the Mayan voice system was reliably indicated
Maya script
–
Pages 6, 7, and 8 of the
Dresden Codex, showing letters numbers and the images that often accompany Maya writing.
Maya script
–
Maya civilization
Maya script
–
Tikal or "Mutal" Emblem Glyph, Stela 26 in Tikal's Litoteca Museum
Maya script
–
An inscription in Maya glyphs from the site of
Naranjo, relating to the reign of king Itzamnaaj K'awil, 784–810
9.
Logograms
–
In written language, a logogram or logograph is a written character that represents a word or phrase. Chinese characters and Japanese kanji are logograms, some Egyptian hieroglyphs, the use of logograms in writing is called logography. A writing system that is based on logograms is called a logographic system, in alphabets and syllabaries, individual written characters represent sounds rather than concepts. Unlike logograms, phonograms do not necessarily have meaning by themselves, Writing language in this way is called phonemic orthography. Logographic systems include the earliest writing systems, the first historical civilizations of the Near East, Africa, China, a more recent attempt is Zlango, intended for use in text messaging, currently including around 300 icons. The term logosyllabary is used to emphasize the partially phonetic nature of these scripts when the domain is the syllable. For example, Egyptian was used to write both sȝ duck and sȝ son, though it is likely that these words were not pronounced the same apart from their consonants and this can be illustrated with Chinese. Not all Chinese characters represent morphemes, some morphemes are composed of more than one character, for example, the Chinese word for spider, 蜘蛛 zhīzhū, was created by fusing the rebus 知朱 zhīzhū with the bug determinative 虫. Neither *蜘 zhī nor *蛛 zhū can be used separately, in Archaic Chinese, one can find the reverse, a single character representing more than one morpheme. An example is Archaic Chinese 王 hjwangs, a combination of a morpheme hjwang meaning king, in modern Mandarin, bimorphemic syllables are always written with two characters, for example 花儿 huār flower. These logograms, called hozwārishn, were dispensed with altogether after the Arab conquest of Persia, logograms are used in modern shorthand to represent common words. In addition, the numerals and mathematical symbols used in systems are logograms—1 one,2 two, + plus, = equals, and so on. In English, the ampersand & is used for and and et, % for percent, # for number, § for section, $ for dollar, € for euro, £ for pound, ° for degree, @ for at, etc. All historical logographic systems include a dimension, as it is impractical to have a separate basic character for every word or morpheme in a language. In some cases, such as cuneiform as it was used for Akkadian, many logographic systems also have a semantic/ideographic component, called determinatives in the case of Egyptian and radicals in the case of Chinese. In the case of Chinese, the vast majority of characters are a combination of a radical that indicates its nominal category. The Mayan system used logograms with phonetic complements like the Egyptian, Chinese scholars have traditionally classified the Chinese characters hanzi into six types by etymology. The first two types are single-body, meaning that the character was created independently of other characters, single-body pictograms and ideograms make up only a small proportion of Chinese logograms
Logograms
–
Egyptian hieroglyphs, which have their origins as logograms.
10.
Syllabary
–
A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or moras which make up words. This loosely corresponds to shallow orthographies in alphabetic writing systems, most syllabaries only feature one or two kinds of syllabograms and form other syllables by graphemic rules. Otherwise they are synthetic, if they vary by onset, rime, nucleus or coda, or systematic, some scholars, e. g. Daniels, reserve the general term for analytic syllabaries and invent other terms as necessary. Some system provides katakana language conversion, in addition, the undecoded Cretan Linear A is also believed by some to be a syllabic script, though this is not proven. Chinese characters, the script used for Sumerian, Akkadian and other languages. They are therefore referred to as logosyllabic. The contemporary Japanese language uses two syllabaries together called kana, namely hiragana and katakana, which were developed around 700. They are mainly used to some native words and grammatical elements, as well as foreign words. Because Japanese uses mainly CV syllables, a syllabary is well suited to write the language, as in many syllabaries, however, vowel sequences and final consonants are written with separate glyphs, so that both atta and kaita are written with three kana, あった and かいた. It is therefore called a moraic writing system. Languages that use syllabaries today tend to have simple phonotactics, with a predominance of monomoraic syllables, few syllabaries have glyphs for syllables that are not monomoraic, and those that once did have simplified over time to eliminate that complexity. For example, the Vai syllabary originally had separate glyphs for syllables ending in a coda, the modern script has been expanded to cover all moras, but at the same time reduced to exclude all other syllables. g. Ko-no-so for Κνωσός Knōsos, pe-ma for σπέρμα sperma, the Cherokee syllabary generally uses dummy vowels for coda consonants, but also has a segmental grapheme for /s/, which can be used both as a coda and in an initial /sC/ consonant cluster. The languages of South Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as the Ethiopian Semitic languages, have a type of alphabet called an abugida or alphasyllabary, in the 19th century these systems were called syllabics, a term which has survived in the name of Canadian Aboriginal syllabics. In a true syllabary there may be graphic similarity between characters that share a common consonant or vowel sound, but it is not systematic or close to regular. For example, the characters for ke, ka, and ko in Japanese hiragana have no similarity to indicate their common k sound, compare abugida, where each grapheme typically represents a syllable but where characters representing related sounds are all similar graphically. For example, in Devanagari, an abugida, the characters for ke, ka and ko are के, का and को respectively. English, along many other Indo-European languages like German and Russian, allows for complex syllable structures
Syllabary
–
Writing systems
Syllabary
–
Each
syllable (σ) branches into
consonantal onset (ω) and
rime (ρ) that is divided into
nucleus (ν) and
coda (κ), non-/supra-segmental parameters like
tone (τ) affect the syllable as a whole
11.
Tuxtla Statuette
–
The Tuxtla Statuette is a small 6.3 inch rounded greenstone figurine, carved to resemble a squat, bullet-shaped human with a duck-like bill and wings. Most researchers believe the statuette represents a shaman wearing a bird mask and it is incised with 75 glyphs of the Epi-Olmec or Isthmian script, one of the few extant examples of this very early Mesoamerican writing system. The human face carved into the stone is unremarkable except for the bill that extends down his chest. This bill has been identified as belonging to the boat-billed heron, raised wings or a wing-like cape envelop the body while feet have been incised into the base. The Tuxtla Statuette is particularly notable in that its glyphs include the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar date of March 162 CE, which in 1902 was the oldest Long Count date discovered. A product of the century of the Epi-Olmec culture, the statuette is from the same region and period as La Mojarra Stela 1. Similarities between the Tuxtla Statuette and Cerro de las Mesas Monument 5, a boulder carved to represent a figure with a duckbill-like buccal mask, have also been noted. The Tuxtla Statuette was discovered in 1902 by a farmer plowing his field in the west foothills of the Tuxtlas mountains in the Mexican state of Veracruz and it was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution shortly thereafter, reputedly smuggled into New York hidden in a shipment of tobacco leaf. At the time, several Mayanists including Sylvanus Morley, could not believe that the statuette pre-dated the Maya and suggested that the date, however, later discoveries, such as La Mojarra Stela 1 and Tres Zapotes Stela C, confirmed the antiquity of the statuette. The Tuxtla Statuette is in the collections of the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. It was on loan for exhibit in 50 Years of Pre-Columbian Art, January 15,2013 - January 5,2014 at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, photo of boat-billed heron looking quite similar to the Tuxtla Statuette
Tuxtla Statuette
–
A side view of the Tuxtla Statuette
Tuxtla Statuette
–
Frontal view of the Tuxtla Statuette. Note the
Mesoamerican Long Count calendar date of March 162
CE (8.6.2.4.17) down the front of the statuette.
Tuxtla Statuette
–
A black jade duckbill pendant from the Olmec culture, dated from 1000 BCE to 300 BCE, or at least 400 years earlier than the Tuxtla Statuette.
12.
Tres Zapotes
–
Tres Zapotes is a Mesoamerican archaeological site located in the south-central Gulf Lowlands of Mexico in the Papaloapan River plain. The 2000-year existence of Tres Zapotes as a center is unusual, if not unique. The site is located near the village of Tres Zapotes, west of Santiago Tuxtla. Scarcely 10 km to the east stands Cerro el Vigía, a volcano and important source of basalt and other volcanic stone, sandstone. Some of these boulders are more than 3 meters in diameter, the earliest public architecture yet detected has been dated to the end of the Middle Formative, perhaps 500 BCE. It is thought that the two colossal heads date from this period and it was near Tres Zapotes that the first colossal head was discovered in 1862 by José Melgar. To date, two have been found locally, labeled Monument A and Monument Q, smaller than the colossal heads at San Lorenzo, they measure slightly less than 1.5 m high. Most of the sculpture at Tres Zapotes is epi-Olmec, dating from the Late Formative period. These sculptures show, as do Tres Zapotes ceramics, a continuity with, despite similarities with earlier Olmec sculptures, though, Tres Zapotes Epi-Olmec sculpture appears to lack the artisanship, refinement, and detail of its San Lorenzo and La Venta predecessors. This is only partially attributable to the coarser local Cerro El Vigía basalt and it was during this Epi-Olmec period that a new Mesoamerican writing system appeared at Tres Zapotes, the Isthmian script, as well as some of the earliest dates in the Long Count calendar format. Tres Zapotes may have been abandoned by 900 CE, although there was a smaller and later occupation, in 1939, archaeologist Matthew Stirling discovered at Tres Zapotes the bottom half of Stela C. This stela was carved from basalt, with one showing a Olmec-style engraving that has been variously characterized as an abstract were-jaguar or a ruler on a throne. On other side was the oldest Mesoamerican Long Count calendar date yet unearthed and her judgment was validated in 1969 when the top half of the stela was found. Since 1939, only one older long-count date has been discovered, Stela 2 from Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, the back of Stela C is engraved with one of the few surviving examples of Epi-Olmec script. Over 160 mounds, platforms, and similar structures have been identified at Tres Zapotes, the major Epi-Olmec period structures are the prosaically-named Groups 1,2, and 3, and the similarly structured Nestepe Group. Group 2 is more or less in the center of the core with the other three spaced almost 1 km away from Group 2 and from each other. This equidistant spacing likely reflects a political structure, each mound group the creation of a separate faction within Tres Zapotes society. This is in contrast to La Venta, for example, where the heavily centralized public architecture reflected a centralized rulership
Tres Zapotes
–
A vessel from Tres Zapotes' Epi-Olmec period, 300
BCE to 250 CE.
Tres Zapotes
–
The
Olmec heartland.
Tres Zapotes
–
The back of Stela C The bars and circles show the Mesoamerican Long Count date of 7.16.6.16.18. The
glyphs surrounding the date are one of the few surviving examples of
Epi-Olmec script.
13.
Teotihuacan
–
Additionally, Teotihuacan exported fine obsidian tools that garnered high prestige and widespread usage throughout Mesoamerica. The city is thought to have been established around 100 BC, the city may have lasted until sometime between the 7th and 8th centuries AD, but its major monuments were sacked and systematically burned around 550 AD. Teotihuacan began as a new center in the Mexican Highlands around the first century AD. This city came to be the largest and most populated center in the pre-Columbian Americas, Teotihuacan was even home to multi-floor apartment compounds built to accommodate this large population. The term Teotihuacan is also used for the civilization and cultural complex associated with the site. The later Aztecs saw these magnificent ruins and claimed a common ancestry with the Teotihuacanos, the ethnicity of the inhabitants of Teotihuacan is also a subject of debate. Possible candidates are the Nahua, Otomi, or Totonac ethnic groups, scholars have also suggested that Teotihuacan was a multi-ethnic state. The city and the site are located in what is now the San Juan Teotihuacán municipality in the State of México. The site covers a surface area of 83 square kilometres and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. It is the most visited site in Mexico. The name Teōtīhuacān was given by the Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs centuries after the fall of the city around 550 A. D, the term has been glossed as birthplace of the gods, or place where gods were born, reflecting Nahua creation myths that were said to occur in Teotihuacan. Nahuatl scholar Thelma D. Sullivan interprets the name as place of those who have the road of the gods and this is because the Aztecs believed that the gods created the universe at that site. The name is pronounced in Nahuatl, with the accent on the syllable wa, by normal Nahuatl orthographic conventions, a written accent would not appear in that position. Both this pronunciation and Spanish pronunciation, are used, and both appear in this article. The original name of the city is unknown, but it appears in texts from the Maya region as puh. This naming convention led to confusion in the early 20th century. It now seems clear that Tollan may be understood as a generic Nahua term applied to any large settlement, the early history of Teotihuacan is quite mysterious, and the origin of its founders is uncertain. Around 300 BC, people of the central and southeastern area of Mesoamerica began to gather into larger settlements, Teotihuacan was the largest urban center of Mesoamerica before the Aztecs, almost 1000 years prior to their epoch
Teotihuacan
–
View of the Avenue of the Dead and the
Pyramid of the Sun, from the
Pyramid of the Moon.
Teotihuacan
–
Teotihuacan
Teotihuacan
–
The view from the
Pyramid of the Sun
Teotihuacan
–
Platform along the Avenue of the Dead showing the
talud-tablero architectural style
14.
Stela
–
A stele is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in ancient Western culture as a monument. Grave steles were often used for funerary or commemorative purposes, Stelae as slabs of stone would also be used as ancient Greek and Roman government notices or as boundary markers to mark borders or property lines. The surface of the stele usually has text, ornamentation, or both, the ornamentation may be inscribed, carved in relief, or painted. Traditional Western gravestones may technically be considered the equivalent of ancient stelae. The most famous example of an inscribed stela leading to increased understanding is the Rosetta Stone, an informative stele of Tiglath-Pileser III is preserved in the British Museum. Two steles built into the walls of a church are major documents relating to the Etruscan language, unfinished standing stones, set up without inscriptions from Libya in North Africa to Scotland were monuments of pre-literate Megalithic cultures in the Late Stone Age. The Pictish stones of Scotland, often carved, date from between the 6th and 9th centuries. An obelisk is a kind of stele. The Insular high crosses of Ireland and Britain are specialized steles, totem poles of North and South America that are made out of stone may also be considered a specialized type of stele. Gravestones, typically with inscribed name and often with inscribed epitaph, are among the most common types of stele seen in Western culture. Most recently, in the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, the memorial is meant to be read not only as the field, but also as an erasure of data that refer to memory of the Holocaust. Steles have been the medium of stone inscription in China since the Tang dynasty. Chinese steles are generally rectangular stone tablets upon which Chinese characters are carved intaglio with a funerary, commemorative and they can commemorate talented writers and officials, inscribe poems, portraits, or maps, and frequently contain the calligraphy of famous historical figures. During the Han dynasty, tomb inscriptions containing biographical information on deceased people began to be written on stone tablets rather than wooden ones, erecting steles at tombs or temples eventually became a widespread social and religious phenomenon. Emperors found it necessary to promulgate laws, regulating the use of funerary steles by the population, Steles are found at nearly every significant mountain and historical site in China. The First Emperor made five tours of his domain in the 3rd century BC and had Li Si make seven stone inscriptions commemorating and praising his work, of which fragments of two survive. One of the most famous mountain steles is the 13 m high stele at Mount Tai with the calligraphy of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang commemorating his imperial sacrifices there in 725. A number of stone monuments have preserved the origin and history of Chinas minority religious communities
Stela
–
Stele N from
Copán,
Honduras, depicting King K'ac Yipyaj Chan K'awiil ("Smoke Shell"), as drawn by
Frederick Catherwood in 1839
Stela
–
The
funerary stele of Thrasea and Euandria, c. 365 BC
Stela
–
Chinese ink rubbings of the 1489 (left) and 1512 (right) steles left by the
Kaifeng Jews.
Stela
–
Grave Stela of Nehemes-Ra-tawy, ca. 760-656 B.C.E.,37.588E,
Brooklyn Museum
15.
Cerro de las Mesas
–
Cerro de las Mesas, meaning hill of the altars in Spanish, is an archaeological site in the Mexican state of Veracruz, in the Mixtequilla area of the Papaloapan River basin. It was a prominent regional center from 600 BCE to 900 CE, located about 50 km due south of Veracruz City, Cerro de las Mesas is on the west edge of what had been the Olmec heartland. The site contains a man-made lagoon as well as hundreds of mounds, usually in groups, often clustered with a long. These mound groups were built during the epi-Olmec period,400 BCE to 300 CE. It was also during this period that the influence of Teotihuacan appears in the archaeological record, Cerro de las Mesas is home to many stele — artistic stone slabs — several of which contain portrait carvings. Four of these stele — numbers 5,6,8, coe, Michael, Snow, Dean, Benson, Elizabeth, Atlas of Ancient America, Facts on File, New York. The Olmecs, Americas First Civilization, Thames & Hudson, London, justeson, John S. and Kaufman, Terrence Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writing and Texts. Pool, Christopher Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica, Cambridge University Press, stark, Barbara L. Cerro de las Mesas, in Evans, Susan, ed. Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America, Taylor & Francis, London
Cerro de las Mesas
–
Stela 6, from Cerro de las Mesas. Note the
Long Count date of 9.1.12.14.10 (April 468
CE) at the lower left. The glyphs above the date are one of the few, and latest,
Epi-Olmec script texts yet discovered.
Cerro de las Mesas
–
Cerro de las Mesas and other important Classic Era settlements.
16.
Chiapa de Corzo (Mesoamerican site)
–
Chiapa de Corzo is an archaeological site of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica located near the small town Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas. It rose to prominence around 700-500 BC, during the Middle Formative period, by then, its public precinct had reached 18-20 ha in size, with total settlement approaching 70 ha. Because of its position near Grijalva River in the Central Depression of Chiapas, the modern township of Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, founded in Colonial times and after which the site was named, is nearby. The site shows evidence of occupation since the Early Formative period. The mounds and plazas at the site, however, date to approximately 700 BCE with temples and palaces constructed at the end of the Late Formative or Protoclassic period, between 100 BCE and 200 CE. In 2008, archaeologists discovered a massive Middle Formative Olmec axe deposit at the base of Chiapa de Corzos Mound 11 pyramid and this deposit dates to around 700 BCE and is the second one of its kind found in Chiapas after nearby San Isidro. It is associated with one of the earliest E-Group astronomical complexes in Mesoamerica, in April 2010, archaeologists discovered the 2, 700-year-old tomb of a dignitary within Mound 11 that is the oldest pyramidal tomb yet discovered in Mesoamerica. According to archaeologist Bruce Bachand, the tomb exhibits Olmec rather than Maya affinities and this tomb predates by 600 years any other such tomb found in Mesoamerica, such as those at Tikal, and at Kaminaljuyu. The site is believed to have settled by Mixe–Zoquean speakers, bearers of the Olmec culture that populated the Gulf. Starting around 100 BCE, during its Guanacaste phase, Chiapa de Corzo played the role of the regional capital, the city was linked with other areas across the Maya Lowlands, Maya Highlands, Pacific Coast, and Oaxaca. This is the time when the first hieroglyphic writing appeared on stamps, pottery vessels, stelae. Maya pottery types began to be included in burials, although utilitarian ceramics retained traditional patterns. It was during this time that the ancient platform mounds were covered with limestone, big changes occurred in the area during the Istmo phase. There was a decline, as craft activity diminished and long-distance ties contracted. The Chiapanec chose to occupy the adjacent floodplain of the Grijalva River where the town is now located. The abandoned city now became a place of pilgrimage, the site has been heavily encroached upon over the last 70 years with the construction of roads, homes, businesses, utility systems, and a cemetery. The Nestlé company constructed a large processing plant in the center of the ruin in the late 1960s, removing Mound 17. In recent years, the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia has purchased sections of the site from local land owners, INAH officially opened a small portion of the ruin to tourists on December 8,2009
Chiapa de Corzo (Mesoamerican site)
–
Mound 1, Chiapa de Corzo, looking south toward the Grijalva River.
Chiapa de Corzo (Mesoamerican site)
–
Stela 2, showing the date of 7.16.3.2.13, or December 36 BCE, the earliest
Mesoamerican Long Count calendar date yet found.
Chiapa de Corzo (Mesoamerican site)
–
Skeleton from Mound 5 on display at the
Regional Museum of Anthropology and History of Chiapas.
17.
Zoquean languages
–
The Zoque languages form a primary branch of the Mixe–Zoquean language family indigenous to southern Mexico. They are spoken by around 70,000 indigenous Zoque people, the Zoques call their language Ode püt. Zoque-language programming is carried by the CDIs radio station XECOPA, broadcasting from Copainalá, there are about 100,000 speakers of Zoque languages. 63,000 people reported their language to be Zoque in the 2010 census, an additional 41,000 reported their language to be Popoluca, probably 90% of these are Sierra Popoluca and thus Zoque. The Relationship Among the Mixe–Zoquean Languages of Mexico, ISBN 0-87480-487-6 Sierra Popoluca Collection of Lynda Boudreault at the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America. Contains audio recordings and transcriptions of Zoque and Soteapan in a range of genres. Some files are restricted but may be available upon request
Zoquean languages
–
Locations (green) where Zoquean languages are spoken
18.
Stephen D. Houston
–
As of 2008 Houston holds an endowed chair as Dupee Family Professor of Social Science at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, and is also a professor in Browns Department of Anthropology. Houston has collaborated with many of his students and colleagues on projects and he has led investigations at Piedras Negras, Kaminaljuyu and El Zotz, Guatemala. These projects have resulted in new information on the ancient cultures of Mesoamerica, Stephen Douglas Houston was born in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. In 1976 he commenced studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia in anthropology. Returning to Penn, Houston graduated summa cum laude in 1980 with a B. A. in Anthropology and he then entered the graduate studies program at Yale University, undertaking a Master of Philosophy research degree, which was awarded in 1983. During this time he took a position of assistant at the Peabody Museum of Natural History. Houston worked towards completing his Ph. D in Anthropology at Yale, the work at Dos Pilas was expanded into his dissertation, The Inscriptions and Monumental Art of Dos Pilas, Guatemala, A Study of Classic Maya History and Politics. Prior to joining Brown Universitys faculty Houston held the Jesse Knight chair at Brigham Young University, the Directory of Research and Researchers at Brown. Works by or about Stephen D. Houston in libraries Stephen D. Houston, entry at faculty of Anthropology, Stephen Houston, entry on the MacArthur Foundation website
Stephen D. Houston
–
Stephen Houston
19.
W. Andrew Robinson
–
Andrew Coulthard Robinson is a British author and former newspaper editor. He is the son of Neville Robinson, an Oxford physicist, Robinson first visited India in 1975, and has been involved with the countrys culture ever since. He has authored books and articles, the most recent being India. Until 2006, he was the Literary Editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement and he has also been a Visiting Fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge. He is based in London and is now a full-time writer, the Coasts of India with Ashvin Mehta. Maharaja, The Spectacular Heritage of Princely India with Sumio Uchiyama, the Shape of the World with Simon Berthon. Earth Shock, Hurricanes, Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Tornadoes & Other Forces of Nature, Rabindranath Tagore, The Myriad-minded Man with Krishna Dutta. Rabindranath Tagore, An Anthology with Krishna Dutta, Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore with Krishna Dutta. The Story of Writing, Alphabets, Hieroglyphs and Pictograms, the Man Who Deciphered Linear B, The Story of Michael Ventris. Lost Languages, The Enigma of the Worlds Great Undeciphered Scripts, satyajit Ray, The Inner Eye, The Biography of a Master Film-Maker. Satyajit Ray, A Vision of Cinema with Nemai Ghosh, einstein, A Hundred Years of Relativity. The Last Man Who Knew Everything, Thomas Young, The Anonymous Polymath Who Proved Newton Wrong, Explained How We See, Cured the Sick, cracking the Egyptian Code, The Revolutionary Life of Jean-Francois Champollion. The Scientists, An Epic of Discovery, Andrew Robinson website Selected Books by Andrew Robinson
W. Andrew Robinson
–
Andrew Robinson delivering a talk on the history of
India at the
Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford, in 2014.
20.
Cascajal block
–
Archaeologists Carmen Rodriguez and Ponciano Ortiz of the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico examined and registered it with government historical authorities. It weighs about 11.5 kg and measures 36 cm ×21 cm ×13 cm, details of the find were published by researchers in the 15 September 2006 issue of the journal Science. The Olmec flourished in the Gulf Coast region of Mexico, ca, the evidence for this writing system is based solely on the text on the Cascajal Block. The block holds a total of 62 glyphs, some of which resemble plants such as maize and pineapple, or animals such as insects, many of the symbols are more abstract boxes or blobs. The symbols on the Cascajal block are unlike those of any writing system in Mesoamerica, such as in Mayan languages or Isthmian. The Cascajal block is also unusual because the symbols apparently run in horizontal rows, the sequences appear to be conceived as independent units of information. All other known Mesoamerican scripts typically use vertical rows, stephen D. Houston, who also worked on the study, said the text, if decoded, will decipher earliest voices of Mesoamerican civilization. Some of the signs were frequently repeated, particularly ones that looked like an insect or a lizard. Houston suspected that these might be signs alerting the reader to the use of words that sound alike but have different meanings—as in the difference between I and eye in English. He concluded, the sequencing, the regularity of signs. But we dont know what it says, weve known they have very elaborate art, and iconography, but this is the first strong indication that they had visually recorded speech. For Richard Diehl of the University of Alabama, the discovery announced in the journal Science amounted to rock-solid proof that the Olmecs had a form of writing, Diehl has believed all along that the Olmecs possessed the ability to write and discovery of the stone corroborates my gut feelings. Thats full-blown, legitimate text—written symbols taking the place of words, said Saturno. Mary Pohl at Florida State University is an expert on the Olmec and she said One sign looks actually like a corn cob with silk coming out the top. Other signs are unique, and never seen, like one of an insect. And all of this is occurring in the context of the emergence of early kings, david Stuart, a University of Texas at Austin expert in Mesoamerican writing, was not connected with the discovery, but reviewed the study for Science. He said To me, this really does bring us back to this idea that at least writing. Lisa LeCount, a professor of archaeology at the University of Alabama, theorized that, if it is a crown
Cascajal block
–
The 62 glyphs of the
Olmec Cascajal Block
21.
Epi-Olmec culture
–
Epi-Olmec was a successor culture to the Olmec, hence the prefix epi- or post-. Tres Zapotes and eventually Cerro de las Mesas were the largest Epi-Olmec centers though neither would reach the size, other Epi-Olmec sites of note include El Mesón, Lerdo de Tejada, La Mojarra, Bezuapan, and Chuniapan de Abajo. The Epi-Olmec culture represented a transformation of, rather than a sharp break with. Many Olmec motifs, for example, were employed by its successor culture, Tres Zapotes, one of the largest Olmec sites, continued as a regional center under the Epi-Olmec culture. And daily life for the non-elites continued much the same, subsistence farming with hunting and fishing, wattle-and-daub houses, thatched roofs. It has been proposed these exotic trade goods were replaced as prestige items by locally created luxury goods, such cotton cloth, in contrast to earlier Olmec art, Epi-Olmec art displays a general loss of detail and quality. Ceramic figurines were less detailed, and the basalt monuments and stelae at Tres Zapotes lacked the artisanship, refinement. In contrast, Epi-Olmec monuments show an increasing concern with historicity. These dated transcriptions were made possible by the Epi-Olmec cultures very early use of the Long Count calendar as well as an early writing system. The Isthmian script appears on several Epi-Olmec sculptures including La Mojarra Stela 1, the Tuxtla Statuette and these Epi-Olmec texts were the most detailed of this era in Mesoamerica. While neither the Isthmian script nor the Long Count calendar were confined to the Epi-Olmec culture, their use, whereas contemporaneous Izapan monuments, some 330 miles to the southeast, display mythic and religious subjects, Epi-Olmec monuments glorified rulers. La Mojarra Stela 1, for example, shows a ruler in an elaborate outfit, similar Epi-Olmec monuments featuring finely dressed figures with towering, flowing headdresses include the Alvarado Stela and El Mesón Stela 1. Unlike the La Mojarra Stela 1, these two monuments also show a subordinate, and likely intimidated, smaller figure, some badly eroded Isthmian script glyphs may appear on the Alvarado Stela. El Mesón Stela 1 has no text and this exalted ruler monumental art later became common in the Maya lands to the east during the Classic era. By 250 CE, Cerro de las Mesas, Remojadas, although Tres Zapotes would continue into the Classic era, its heyday had passed and Epi-Olmec had given way to the Classic Veracruz culture. The Olmecs, Americas First Civilization, Thames & Hudson, London, Justeson, John S. and Terrence Kaufman Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writing and Texts. Pérez de Lara, Jorge and John Justeson Photographic Documentation of Monuments with Epi-Olmec Script/Imagery at Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, pool, Christopher Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-78882-3. Schuster, Angela M. H. Epi-Olmec Decipherment in Archaeology, stark, Barbara L. Framing the Gulf Olmec in Olmec Art and Archaeology in Meosamerica, National Gallery of Art, pp. 31–53
Epi-Olmec culture
–
Left side image of La Mojarra Stela 1 showing a person identified as "Harvester Mountain Lord"
Epi-Olmec culture
–
Important Epi-Olmec sites
22.
International Standard Book Number
–
The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
International Standard Book Number
–
A 13-digit ISBN, 978-3-16-148410-0, as represented by an
EAN-13 bar code
23.
List of writing systems
–
This is a list of writing systems, classified according to some common distinguishing features. There are at least 3866 writing systems, the usual name of the script is given first, the name of the language in which the script is written follows, particularly in the case where the language name differs from the script name. Other informative or qualifying annotations for the script may also be provided, ideographic scripts, and pictographic scripts are not thought to be able to express all that can be communicated by language, as argued by the linguists John DeFrancis and J. Marshall Unger. Unger disputes claims made on behalf of Blissymbols in his 2004 book Ideogram, Although a few pictographic or ideographic scripts exist today, there is no single way to read them, because there is no one-to-one correspondence between symbol and language. Hieroglyphs were commonly thought to be ideographic before they were translated, in some cases of ideographic scripts, only the author of a text can read it with any certainty, and it may be said that they are interpreted rather than read. Such scripts often work best as mnemonic aids for oral texts, aztec – Nahuatl – Although some proper nouns have phonetic components. Mixtec – Mixtec Dongba – Naxi – Although this is supplemented with syllabic Geba script. Ersu Shābā – Ersu Míkmaq hieroglyphic writing – Míkmaq – Does have phonetic components, nsibidi – Ekoi, Efik/Ibibio, Igbo Testerian – used for missionary work in Mexico Other Mesoamerican writing systems with the exception of Maya Hieroglyphs. There are also symbol systems used to represent things other than language, some of these are Blissymbols – A constructed ideographic script used primarily in Augmentative and Alternative Communication. IConji – A constructed ideographic script used primarily in social networking Isotype Sona language A wide variety of notations Linear B, in logographic writing systems, glyphs represent words or morphemes, rather than phonetic elements. Note that no logographic script is composed solely of logograms, all contain graphemes that represent phonetic elements as well. These phonetic elements may be used on their own, or may serve as phonetic complements to a logogram, in the case of Old Persian, all vowels were written regardless, so it was effectively a true alphabet despite its syllabic component. In Japanese a similar system plays a role in foreign borrowings, for example, is written +. Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries behaved as a syllabary for the consonants and as an alphabet for the rest of consonants. The Tartessian or Southwestern script is typologically intermediate between a pure alphabet and the Paleohispanic full semi-syllabaries, Although the letter used to write a stop consonant was determined by the following vowel, as in a full semi-syllabary, the following vowel was also written, as in an alphabet. Some scholars treat Tartessian as a redundant semi-syllabary, others treat it as a redundant alphabet, zhuyin is semi-syllabic in a different sense, it transcribes half syllables. That is, it has letters for syllable onsets and rimes rather than for consonants, eskayan – Bohol, Philippines Bamum script – Bamum A segmental script has graphemes which represent the phonemes of a language. Note that there need not be a one-to-one correspondence between the graphemes of the script and the phonemes of a language, Linear alphabets are composed of lines on a surface, such as ink on paper
List of writing systems
–
Writing systems
List of writing systems
List of writing systems
–
A
Palaung manuscript written in a Brahmic abugida
24.
Writing system
–
A writing system is any conventional method of visually representing verbal communication. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a form of information storage. The processes of encoding and decoding writing systems involve shared understanding between writers and readers of the meaning behind the sets of characters that make up a script, the general attributes of writing systems can be placed into broad categories such as alphabets, syllabaries, or logographies. Any particular system can have attributes of more than one category, in the alphabetic category, there is a standard set of letters of consonants and vowels that encode based on the general principle that the letters represent speech sounds. In a syllabary, each symbol correlates to a syllable or mora, in a logography, each character represents a word, morpheme, or other semantic units. Other categories include abjads, which differ from alphabets in that vowels are not indicated, alphabets typically use a set of 20-to-35 symbols to fully express a language, whereas syllabaries can have 80-to-100, and logographies can have several hundreds of symbols. Systems will also enable the stringing together of these groupings in order to enable a full expression of the language. The reading step can be accomplished purely in the mind as an internal process, writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, which used pictograms, ideograms and other mnemonic symbols. Proto-writing lacked the ability to capture and express a range of thoughts. Soon after, writing provided a form of long distance communication. With the advent of publishing, it provided the medium for a form of mass communication. Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that a system is always associated with at least one spoken language. In contrast, visual representations such as drawings, paintings, and non-verbal items on maps, such as contour lines, are not language-related. Some other symbols, such as numerals and the ampersand, are not directly linked to any specific language, every human community possesses language, which many regard as an innate and defining condition of humanity. However, the development of writing systems, and the process by which they have supplanted traditional oral systems of communication, have been sporadic, uneven, once established, writing systems generally change more slowly than their spoken counterparts. Thus they often preserve features and expressions which are no current in the spoken language. One of the benefits of writing systems is that they can preserve a permanent record of information expressed in a language. In the examination of individual scripts, the study of writing systems has developed along partially independent lines, thus, the terminology employed differs somewhat from field to field
Writing system
–
Writing systems
Writing system
–
Predominant national and selected regional or minority scripts
Writing system
–
Chinese characters (漢字) are morpho-syllabic. Each one represents a syllable with a distinct meaning, but some characters may have multiple meanings or pronunciations
Writing system
–
A Specimen of typefaces and styles, by
William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728
Cyclopaedia
25.
History of writing
–
The history of writing traces the development of expressing language by letters or other marks and also the study and description of these developments. One of the earliest forms of expression is cuneiform. Writing numbers for the purpose of record keeping began long before the writing of language, see History of writing ancient numbers for how the writing of numbers began. It is generally agreed that true writing of language was conceived and developed in at least two places and possibly more. Egyptian script is dissimilar from Mesopotamian cuneiform, but similarities in concepts, similar debate surrounds the Indus script of the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization in Ancient India. In addition, the script is still undeciphered and there is debate whether the script is true writing at all. An additional possibility is the undeciphered Rongorongo script of Easter Island and it is debated whether this is true writing, and if it is, whether it is another case of cultural diffusion of writing. The oldest example is from 1851,139 years after their first contact with Europeans, one explanation is that the script was inspired by Spains written annexation proclamation in 1770. Recent examples are the Cherokee syllabary, invented by Sequoyah, symbolic communication systems are distinguished from writing systems in that one must usually understand something of the associated spoken language to comprehend the text. In contrast, symbolic systems such as signs, painting, maps. Every human community possesses language, a feature regarded by many as an innate, however the development of writing systems, and their partial supplantation of traditional oral systems of communication, have been sporadic, uneven and slow. Once established, writing systems on the change more slowly than their spoken counterparts. Writing allows societies to transmit information and share knowledge, scholars make a reasonable distinction between prehistory and history of early writing, but have disagreed concerning when prehistory becomes history and when proto-writing became true writing. Writing, in its most general terms, is a method of recording information and is composed of graphemes, the emergence of writing in a given area is usually followed by several centuries of fragmentary inscriptions. Historians mark the historicity of a culture by the presence of coherent texts in the writing system. The invention of writing was not an event, but a gradual process initiated by the appearance of symbols. A conventional proto-writing to true writing system follows a series of developmental stages, Picture writing system. Transitional system, graphemes refer not only to the object or idea which it represents, phonetic system, graphemes refer to sounds or spoken symbols, and the form of the grapheme is not related to its meanings
History of writing
–
Writing systems
History of writing
–
Sumer, an ancient civilization of southern
Mesopotamia, is believed to be the place where
written language was first invented around 3200 BC
History of writing
–
Middle Babylonian legal tablet from Alalah in its envelope
History of writing
–
Sequence of ten Indus signs discovered near the northern gate of the Indus site
Dholavira
26.
Grapheme
–
In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest unit of a writing system of any given language. An individual grapheme may or may not carry meaning by itself, graphemes include alphabetic letters, typographic ligatures, Chinese characters, numerical digits, punctuation marks, and other individual symbols. The word grapheme, coined in analogy with phoneme, is derived from Greek γράφω, meaning write, the study of graphemes is called graphemics. The concept of graphemes is an one and similar to the notion in computing of a character. By comparison, a shape that represents any particular grapheme in a specific typeface is called a glyph. For example, the corresponding to the abstract concept of the Arabic numeral one has two distinct glyphs in the fonts Times New Roman and Helvetica. Graphemes are often notated within angle brackets, as ⟨a⟩, ⟨B⟩ and this is analogous to the slash notation used for phonemes, and the square bracket notation used for phonetic transcriptions. Hence a grapheme can be regarded as an abstraction of a collection of glyphs that are all semantically equivalent, for example, in written English, there are many different physical representations of the lowercase letter a, such as a, ɑ, etc. But because the substitution of any of these for any other cannot change the meaning of a word, they are considered to be allographs of the same grapheme, italic and bold face are also allographic. There is some disagreement as to whether capital and lower-case letters are allographs or distinct graphemes, some linguists consider digraphs like the ⟨sh⟩ in ship to be distinct graphemes, but these are generally analyzed as sequences of graphemes. Ligatures, however, such as ⟨æ⟩, are distinct graphemes, as are letters with distinctive diacritics. For a full discussion of the different types, see Writing system § Functional classification, there are additional graphemic components used in writing, such as punctuation marks, mathematical symbols, word dividers such as the space, and other typographic symbols. As mentioned in the section, in languages that use alphabetic writing systems. In practice, however, the orthographies of such languages entail at least an amount of deviation from the ideal of exact grapheme–phoneme correspondence. A phoneme may be represented by a multigraph, as the digraph sh represents a sound in English. Multigraphs representing a single phoneme are normally treated as combinations of separate letters, for more examples, see Alphabetical order § Language-specific conventions. Conversion of scripts Character Grapheme–color synesthesia Grapheme–color ideasthesia Sign
Grapheme
–
Writing systems
27.
List of languages by first written accounts
–
This is a list of languages arranged by the approximate dates of the oldest existing texts recording a complete sentence in the language. It does not include undeciphered scripts, though there are various claims without wide acceptance and it also does not include inscriptions consisting of isolated words or names from a language. An oral tradition of poetry may typically bridge a few centuries. An extreme case is the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda, the earliest parts of text may date to c.1500 BC, while the oldest known manuscript dates to the 11th century AD. Similarly the oldest Avestan texts, the Gathas, are believed to have been composed before 1000 BC, because of the way languages change gradually, it is usually impossible to pinpoint when a given language began to be spoken. In many cases, some form of the language had already been considerably earlier than the dates of the earliest extant samples provided here. For languages that have developed out of a predecessor, dates provided here are subject to conventional terminology. For example, Old French developed gradually out of Vulgar Latin, similarly, Danish and Swedish separated from common Old East Norse in the 12th century, while Norwegian separated from Old West Norse around 1300. Writing first appeared in the Near East at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, in East Asia towards the end of the second millennium BC, the Sino-Tibetan family was represented by Old Chinese. In the Early Iron Age, alphabetic writing spread across the Near East, with the emergence of the Brahmic family of scripts, languages of India are attested from after about 300 BC. There is only evidence for languages such as Iberian, Tartessian, Galatian, Thracian and Messapian. The North Picene language of the Novilara Stele from c.600 BC has not been deciphered, the earliest examples of the Central American Isthmian script date from c.500 BC, but a proposed decipherment remains controversial. From Late Antiquity, we have for the first time languages with earliest records in manuscript tradition, thus, Old Armenian is first attested in the Armenian Bible translation. The Vimose inscriptions in the Elder Futhark runic alphabet appear to record Proto-Norse names, some scholars interpret the Negau helmet inscription as a Germanic fragment. The Cambridge History of Ancient China, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 124–231, baldi, Philip, The Foundations of Latin, Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-017208-9. The Shang, Chinas first historical dynasty, in Loewe, Michael, Shaughnessy, the Cambridge History of Ancient China, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 232–291, ISBN 978-0-521-47030-8. Krishnamurti, Bhadriraju, The Dravidian Languages, Cambridge University Press, cretan Writing in the Second Millennium B. C. Pollock, Sheldon, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men, Sanskrit, Culture, Language in ancient Europe, an introduction, in Woodard, Roger D
List of languages by first written accounts
–
Seal impression from the tomb of
Seth-Peribsen, containing the oldest known complete sentence in
Egyptian, c. 2690 BC
List of languages by first written accounts
–
Letter in
Sumerian cuneiform sent by the high-priest Lu'enna, informing him the king of
Lagash of his son's death in battle, c. 2400 BC
List of languages by first written accounts
–
Greek
Linear B tablet from
Pylos, recording the distribution of hides, c. 1200 BC
List of languages by first written accounts
–
Ox scapula inscribed with three records of divinations in the reign of
Wu Ding of the Chinese
Shang dynasty, c. 1200 BC
28.
Abjad
–
An abjad is a type of writing system where each symbol stands for a consonant, leaving the reader to supply the appropriate vowel. The name abjad is derived from pronouncing the first letters of the Arabic alphabet in order, the ordering of Arabic letters used to match that of the older Hebrew, Phoenician and Semitic alphabets, ʾ b g d. According to the formulations of Daniels, abjads differ from alphabets in that only consonants, abugidas mark the vowels with a diacritic, a minor attachment to the letter, or a standalone glyph. Some abugidas use a symbol to suppress the inherent vowel so that the consonant alone can be properly represented. In a syllabary, a grapheme denotes a syllable, that is. This caused fatal effects on terminology in general and especially in Semitic philology, the first abjad to gain widespread usage was the Phoenician abjad. Unlike other contemporary scripts, such as cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs and this made the script easy to learn, and seafaring Phoenician merchants took the script wherever they went. Phoenician gave rise to a number of new writing systems, including the Greek alphabet and Aramaic, the Greek alphabet evolved into the modern western alphabets, such as Latin and Cyrillic, while Aramaic became the ancestor of many modern abjads and abugidas of Asia. Impure abjads have characters for vowels, optional vowel diacritics. The term pure abjad refers to scripts entirely lacking in vowel indicators and this practice was at first rare and limited in scope, but it became increasingly common and more developed in later times. In the 9th century BC, the Greeks adapted the Phoenician script for use in their own language, the phonetic structure of the Greek language created too many ambiguities when the vowels went unrepresented, so the script was modified. They did not need letters for the sounds represented by aleph, he, heth or ayin. The letters waw and yod were also adapted into vowel signs, along with he, the major innovation of Greek was to dedicate these symbols exclusively and unambiguously to vowel sounds that could be combined arbitrarily with consonants. Abugidas developed along a different route. The basic consonantal symbol was considered to have an inherent a vowel sound, hooks or short lines attached to various parts of the basic letter modify the vowel. In this way, the South Arabian alphabet evolved into the Geez alphabet between the 5th century BC and the 5th century AD, similarly, around the 3rd century BC, the Brāhmī script developed. The other major family of abugidas, Canadian Aboriginal syllabics, was developed in the 1840s by missionary and linguist James Evans for the Cree. Evans used features of Devanagari script and Pitman shorthand to create his initial abugida, later in the 19th century, other missionaries adapted Evans system to other Canadian aboriginal languages
Abjad
–
Writing systems
Abjad
–
A specimen of Proto-Sinaitic script containing a phrase which may mean 'to
Baalat '. The line running from the upper left to lower right reads mt l b c lt.
29.
Abjad numerals
–
The Abjad numerals are a decimal numeral system in which the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet are assigned numerical values. They have been used in the Arabic-speaking world since before the century when Arabic numerals were adopted. In modern Arabic, the word abjadīyah means alphabet in general, in the Abjad system, the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, alif, is used to represent 1, the second letter, bāʾ, is used to represent 2, etc. Individual letters also represent 10s and 100s, yāʾ for 10, kāf for 20, qāf for 100, the word abjad itself derives from the first four letters in the Phoenician alphabet, Aramaic alphabet, Hebrew alphabet and other scripts for Semitic languages. These older alphabets contained only 22 letters, stopping at taw, the Arabic Abjad system continues at this point with letters not found in other alphabets, ṯāʾ=500, etc. The Abjad order of the Arabic alphabet has two different variants. Loss of samekh was compensated for by the split of shin ש into two independent Arabic letters, ش and ﺱ, which moved up to take the place of samekh. The most common Abjad sequence, read right to left, is, This is commonly vocalized as follows. Before the introduction of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, the numbers were used for all mathematical purposes. In modern Arabic, they are used for numbering outlines, items in lists. In English, points of information are sometimes referred to as A, B, and C, the abjad numbers are also used to assign numerical values to Arabic words for purposes of numerology. The common Islamic phrase بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm has a value of 786. The name Allāh الله by itself has the value 66, a few of the numerical values are different in the alternative Abjad order. For four Persian letters these values are used, The Abjad numerals are equivalent to the earlier Hebrew numerals up to 400, the Hebrew numeral system is known as Gematria and is used in Kabbalistic texts and numerology. Like the Abjad order, it is used in times for numbering outlines and points of information. The Greek numerals differ in a number of ways from the Abjad ones, the Greek language system of letters-as-numbers is called isopsephy
Abjad numerals
–
Numeral systems
30.
Aramaic alphabet
–
The ancient Aramaic alphabet is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet and became distinctive from it by the 8th century BCE. It was used to write the Aramaic language and had displaced the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet for the writing of Hebrew, the letters all represent consonants, some of which are also used as matres lectionis to indicate long vowels. Rather, it is a different type, the earliest inscriptions in the Aramaic language use the Phoenician alphabet. Over time, the alphabet developed into the form shown below, Aramaic gradually became the lingua franca throughout the Middle East, with the script at first complementing and then displacing Assyrian cuneiform, as the predominant writing system. Imperial Aramaic was highly standardised, its orthography was based more on historical roots than any spoken dialect and was influenced by Old Persian. Both were in use through the Achaemenid Persian period, but the cursive form steadily gained ground over the lapidary, the Aramaic script would survive as the essential characteristics of the Iranian Pahlavi writing system. A group of 30 Aramaic documents from Bactria has been recently discovered, an analysis was published in November 2006. The texts, which were rendered on leather, reflect the use of Aramaic in the 4th century BC in the Persian Achaemenid administration of Bactria, the widespread usage of Achaemenid Aramaic in the Middle East led to the gradual adoption of the Aramaic alphabet for writing Hebrew. Formerly, Hebrew had been using an alphabet closer in form to that of Phoenician. After the fall of the Achaemenid Empire, the unity of the Imperial Aramaic script was lost, the Hebrew and Nabataean alphabets, as they stood by the Roman era, were little changed in style from the Imperial Aramaic alphabet. A cursive Hebrew variant developed from the early centuries AD, the Old Turkic script is generally considered to have its ultimate origins in Aramaic, in particular via the Pahlavi or Sogdian alphabets, as suggested by V. Thomsen, or possibly via Karosthi. Aramaic is also considered to be the most likely source of the Brahmi script, ancestor of the Brahmic family of scripts, today, Biblical Aramaic, Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects and the Aramaic language of the Talmud are written in the Hebrew alphabet. Syriac and Christian Neo-Aramaic dialects are written in the Syriac alphabet, Mandaic is written in the Mandaic alphabet. The near-identity of the Aramaic and the classical Hebrew alphabets caused Aramaic text to be mostly in the standard Hebrew script in scholarly literature. In Maloula, one of few surviving communities in which a Western Aramaic dialect is still spoken and they started to use the Syriac alphabet instead. In Aramaic writing, Waw and Yodh serve a double function, originally, they represented only the consonants w and y, but they were later adopted to indicate the long vowels ū and ī respectively as well. In the latter role, they are known as matres lectionis or mothers of reading. Ālap, likewise, has some of the characteristics of a mater lectionis because in initial positions, it indicates a glottal stop, among Jews, the influence of Hebrew often led to the use of Hē instead, at the end of a word
Aramaic alphabet
–
Bilingual Greek and Aramaic inscription by the
Mauryan emperor
Ashoka the Great at
Kandahar,
Afghanistan, 3rd century BC
31.
Hatran alphabet
–
Many of the contemporary ruins were destroyed by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in early 2015. It was encoded in the Unicode Standard 8.0 with support from UC Berkeleys Script Encoding Initiative, the script is written from right to left, as is typical of Aramaic scripts and of most abjads. Numerals are also written from right to left, and there are two known punctuation marks as well, some common ligatures also exist, and they dont appear to be necessary, and are rather just a shorthand form of writing. Some 600 texts are known to exist, Hatran script was added to the Unicode Standard in June,2015 with the release of version 8.0. The Unicode block for Hatran is U+108E0–U+108FF
Hatran alphabet
–
Hatran script Hatran Aramaic script
32.
Arabic script
–
The Arabic script is a writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic, dialects of Mandinka, Central Kurdish, Luri, Persian, Urdu, Pashto, and others. Until the 16th century, it was used to write some texts in Spanish. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by the number of countries using it, the Arabic script is written from right to left in a cursive style. In most cases the letters transcribe consonants, or consonants and a few vowels, the script was first used to write texts in Arabic, most notably the Qurʼān, the holy book of Islam. It is also the basis for the tradition of Arabic calligraphy, the Arabic script has been adopted for use in a wide variety of languages besides Arabic, including Persian, Malay and Urdu which are not Semitic. Such adaptations may feature altered or new characters to represent phonemes that do not appear in Arabic phonology, the modified version of the Arabic script originally devised for use with Persian is known as the Perso-Arabic script by scholars. In the cases of Bosnian, Kurdish, Kashmiri, and Uyghur writing systems, the Arabic script can therefore be used in both abugida and abjad, although it is often strongly, erroneously connected to the latter. Use of the Arabic script in West African languages, especially in the Sahel, to a certain degree the style and usage tends to follow those of the Maghreb. Additional diacritics have come into use to facilitate writing of sounds not represented in the Arabic language, the term ʻAjamī, which comes from the Arabic root for foreign, has been applied to Arabic-based orthographies of African languages. There is evidence that writing Arabic in this set of letters influenced the style of modern Arabic script. After this initial period, Garshuni writing has continued to the present day among some Syriac Christian communities in the Arabic-speaking regions of the Levant, Kazakh in China Kurdish in Northern Iraq and Northwest Iran. It is mainly used in Sri Lanka and the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu for religious purposes, arwi language is the language of Tamil Nadu Muslims. Malayalam language represented by Arabic script variant is known as Arabi Malayalam, the script has particular letters to represent the peculiar sounds of Malayalam. This script is used in madrasas of the South Indian state of Kerala. It is similar to Chittagonian language in neighboring Bangladesh and sometimes using the Roman script. Malay in the Arabic script known as Jawi, in some cases it can be seen in the signboards of shops or market stalls. In addition, some television programming uses Jawi, such as announcements, advertisements, news, social programs, Berber languages have often been written in an adaptation of the Arabic alphabet. The use of the Arabic alphabet, as well as the competing Latin, West Africa Zarma language of the Songhay family
Arabic script
–
Basic Arabic alphabet
Arabic script
–
Calligraphy
33.
Pitman shorthand
–
Pitman shorthand is a system of shorthand for the English language developed by Englishman Sir Isaac Pitman, who first presented it in 1837. Like most systems of shorthand, it is a system, the symbols do not represent letters, but rather sounds. As of 1996, Pitman shorthand was the most popular shorthand system used in the United Kingdom, doing this requires a writing instrument responsive to the users drawing pressure, specialist fountain pens were originally used, but pencils are now more commonly used. Pitman shorthand uses straight strokes and quarter-circle strokes, in various orientations, the predominant way of indicating vowels is to use light or heavy dots, dashes, or other special marks drawn close to the consonant. Vowels are drawn before the stroke if the vowel is pronounced ahead of the consonant and this is often enough to distinguish words with similar consonant patterns. Another method of vowel indication is to choose from among a selection of different strokes for the same consonant, for example, the sound R has two kinds of strokes, round, or straight-line, depending on whether there is a vowel sound before or after the R. There have been versions of Pitmans shorthand since 1837. The original Pitmans shorthand had an alphabet of consonants, which was later modified, additional modifications and rules were added to successive versions. Pitman New Era had the most developed set of rules and abbreviation lists, Pitman 2000 introduced some simplifications and drastically reduced the list of abbreviations to reduce the memory load, officially reduced to a list of 144 short forms. The later versions dropped certain symbols and introduced other simplifications to earlier versions, for example, strokes rer and kway are present in Pitmans New Era, but not in Pitmans 2000. Pitman was asked to create a system of his own in 1837. He had used Samuel Taylors system for seven years, but his symbols bear greater similarity to the older Byrom system, the first phonetician to invent a system of shorthand, Pitman used similar-looking symbols for phonetically related sounds. For example, the dental and alveolar consonants are upright, ⟨|⟩ = /t/, ⟨|⟩ = /d/, ⟨)⟩ = /s/, ⟨)⟩ = /z/, ⟨ There are two strokes for r, ar and ray. The former assumes the form of the top quarter of a circle, whereas the latter is like chay ⟨/⟩. There are rules governing when to use each of these forms, the long vowels in Pitmans shorthand are, /ɑː/, /eɪ/, /iː/, /ɔː/, /oʊ/, and /uː/. The short vowels are /æ/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/, /ɒ/, /ʌ/, the long vowels may be remembered by the sentence, Pa, may we all go too. /pɑː | meɪ wiː ɔːl ɡoʊ tuː/, and the vowels may be remembered by the sentence. A vowel is represented by a dot or a dash, which can be written either lightly or heavily depending on the vowel needed
Pitman shorthand
–
Pitman shorthand
34.
Hebrew alphabet
–
Historically, there have been two separate abjad scripts to write Hebrew. In the remainder of this article, the term Hebrew alphabet refers to the Jewish square script unless otherwise indicated, the Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters. It does not have case, but five letters have different forms used at the end of a word. Hebrew is written right to left. Originally, the alphabet was an abjad consisting only of consonants, as with other abjads, such as the Arabic alphabet, scribes later devised means of indicating vowel sounds by separate vowel points, known in Hebrew as niqqud. In both biblical and rabbinic Hebrew, the letters א ה ו י are also used as matres lectionis to represent vowels. There is a trend in modern Modern Hebrew toward the use of matres lectionis to indicate vowels that have traditionally gone unwritten, the paleo-Hebrew alphabet was used in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The Samaritans, who remained in the Land of Israel, continued to use the paleo-Hebrew alphabet, after the fall of the Persian Empire in 330 BCE, Jews used both scripts before settling on the Assyrian form. The square Hebrew alphabet was adapted and used for writing languages of the Jewish diaspora – such as Karaim, the Judeo-Arabic languages, Judaeo-Spanish. In the traditional form, the Hebrew alphabet is an abjad consisting only of consonants and it has 22 letters, five of which use different forms at the end of a word. Also, a system of points to indicate vowels, called niqqud, was developed. In modern forms of the alphabet, as in the case of Yiddish and to some extent Modern Hebrew, today, the trend is toward full spelling with the weak letters acting as true vowels. When used to write Yiddish, vowels are indicated, using letters, either with or without niqqud-diacritics, except for Hebrew words. To preserve the proper vowel sounds, scholars developed several different sets of vocalization, one of these, the Tiberian system, eventually prevailed. Aaron ben Moses ben Asher, and his family for generations, are credited for refining and maintaining the system. These points are used only for special purposes, such as Biblical books intended for study. The Tiberian system also includes a set of marks, called trope. These are shown below the normal form in the following table, although Hebrew is read and written from right to left, the following table shows the letters in order from left to right
Hebrew alphabet
–
A Jewish stele near the archeological excavations of the early medieval walls of
Serdica
Hebrew alphabet
–
Aleppo Codex: 10th-Century-AD
Hebrew Bible with
Masoretic pointing. Text of
Joshua 1:1
Hebrew alphabet
–
A replica of the Gezer Calendar in the
Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
Hebrew alphabet
–
Hebrew script on the
bustier of
Jan van Scorel 's
Maria Magdalena, 1530.
35.
Ashuri alphabet
–
The Ashuri script, translated either as Assyrian alphabet or beautiful alphabet, is a traditional calligraphic form of the alphabet shared between Hebrew and Aramaic. Also sometimes called the script, the term is used to distinguish the Ashuri script from the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. There are many rules concerning the formation of letters if the written text is to be valid for religious purposes. Generally, while each tradition favors their own style, none consider the other traditions passul for Torah scrolls or any other ritually used scroll or parchment. Samaritans maintain a tradition different from the Ashuri script, using instead the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet they employ for their scriptures
Ashuri alphabet
–
This is a sample of the Ashuri alphabet written according to the Ashkenaz scribal custom on parchment (klaf)
36.
Cursive Hebrew
–
Cursive Hebrew is a collective designation for several styles of handwriting the Hebrew alphabet. Modern Hebrew, especially in use in Israel, is handwritten with the Ashkenazi cursive script that had developed in Central Europe by the 13th century. This is also a mainstay of handwritten Yiddish and it was preceded by a Sephardi cursive script, known as Solitreo that is still used for Ladino and by Jewish communities in Africa. As with all handwriting, cursive Hebrew displays considerable individual variation, the forms in the table below are representative of those in present-day use. Note, Final forms are to the left of the initial/medial forms and this table shows the development of cursive Hebrew from the 7th through the 19th centuries. This is discussed in the section, which makes reference to the columns in the table. Column, Incantation upon Babylonian dish Egyptian, 12th century, eleazer of Worms, copied at Rome in 1515 by Elias Levita Ashkenazi, 19th century. The brief inscriptions daubed in red ink upon the walls of the catacombs of Venosa are probably the oldest examples of cursive script, still longer texts in a cursive alphabet are furnished by the clay bowls found in Babylonia and bearing exorcisms against magical influences and evil spirits. These bowls date from the 7th or 8th century, and some of the letters are written in a form that is very antiquated, somewhat less of a cursive nature is the manuscript, which dates from the 8th century. Columns 2–14 exhibit cursive scripts of various countries and centuries, the differences visible in the square alphabets are much more apparent. For instance, the Sephardi rounds off still more, and, as in Arabic, there is a tendency to run the lines to the left. Instead of the little ornaments at the ends of the stems. For the rest the cursive of the Codices remains fairly true to the square text, the last two columns of Figure 3 exhibit the Ashkenazi cursive script of a later date. The next to the last is taken from a manuscript of Elias Levita, the accompanying specimen presents Sephardi script. In this flowing cursive alphabet the ligatures appear more often and they occur especially in letters which have a sharp turn to the left, and above all in נ, whose great open bow offers ample space for another letter. The following are the stages in the development of each letter. By the turn of the 20th century, Ashkenazi cursive had these two elements separated, thus ׀c, and the angle was rounded. It received also an abbreviated form connected with the favorite old ligature, in writing Bet, the lower part necessitated an interruption, and to overcome this obstacle it was made, and, with the total omission of the whole lower line
Cursive Hebrew
Cursive Hebrew
–
Figure 2: "Specimen of Modern Sephardic Script" (Jewish Encyclopedia, 1901-1906)
37.
Rashi script
–
Rashi script is a semi-cursive typeface for the Hebrew alphabet. It is named for Rashi, an author of rabbinic commentary on the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud, the typeface is based on 15th century Sephardic semi-cursive handwriting. It was taken as a model by early Hebrew typographers such as Abraham Garton, the Soncino family and Daniel Bomberg, the purpose was to distinguish the rabbinic commentary from the text itself for which a proper square typeface was used. The Rashi typeface is also used for printed Judaeo-Spanish. The initial development of typefaces for the press was often anchored in a pre-existing manuscript culture. In the case of the Hebrew press, Ashkenazi tradition prevailed and square or block letters were cast for Biblical, secondary religious text, such as rabbinic commentaries, was, however, commonly set with a semi-cursive form of Sephardic origin, ultimately normalised as the Rashi typeface. A corresponding but distinctive semicursive typeface was used for printing Yiddish and it was termed vaybertaytsh, the Yiddish word vayber meaning women and taytsh being an archaic word for Yiddish. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Singer, Isidore. New York, Funk & Wagnalls Company
Rashi script
–
The complete Hebrew alphabet in Rashi script [right to left].
38.
Solitreo
–
Solitreo is a cursive form of the Hebrew alphabet. Traditionally a Sephardi script, it is the predecessor of the modern Ashkenazi Cursive Hebrew currently used for handwriting in modern Israel, the two forms differ from each other primarily in that Solitreo uses far more typographic ligatures than the Ashkenazi script, creating a more flowing style resembling Arabic. Historically, Solitreo was used in two parallel ways, in Judaeo-Spanish of the Balkans and Turkey, it served as the standard handwritten form that complemented the Rashi script character set used for printing. In Sephardi communities in the Maghreb and the Levant, it was used for documents in Hebrew. While both the Balkan and Maghrebine-Levantine forms are called Solitreo, they are distinctive, and readers familiar with one type may find the other difficult to read. With the decline of Ladino and the dispersion of Sephardic population centers, a guide to the Ladino language LadinoType - A Ladino Transliteration System for Solitreo, Meruba, and Rashi
Solitreo
–
"Specimen of Modern Sephardic Script" (Jewish Encyclopedia, 1901-1906)
39.
Tifinagh
–
Tifinagh is an abjad used to write the Berber languages. A modern alphabetical derivate of the script, known as Neo-Tifinagh, was introduced in the 20th century. Tifinagh is believed to have descended from the ancient Libyan or Libyco-Berber script, the latter writing system was widely used in antiquity by speakers of Berber languages throughout Africa and on the Canary Islands. It is attested from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century AD, the scripts origin is uncertain, with some scholars suggesting it is related to the Punic alphabet or the Phoenician alphabet. There are two variants, eastern and western. The eastern variant was used in what is now Constantine, the Aures region and it is the best-deciphered variant, due to the discovery of several Numidian bilingual inscriptions in Libyan and Punic. 22 letters out of the 24 were deciphered, the western variant was more primitive. It was used along the Mediterranean coast from Kabylie to the Canary Islands, the Libyco-Berber script was a pure abjad, it had no vowels. The writing was usually from the bottom to the top, although right-to-left, the letters would take different forms when written vertically than when they were written horizontally. The Libyco-Berber script is used in the form of Tifinagh to write the Tuareg languages. Early uses of the script have been found on rock art, among these are the 1,500 year old tomb of the Tuareg matriarch Tin hinan, where vestiges of a Tifinagh inscription have been found on one of its walls. Occasionally, the script has been used to other neighboring languages such as Tagdal Songhay. Common forms of the letters are illustrated at left, including various ligatures of t and n, gemination, though phonemic, is not indicated in Tifinagh. The letter t, +, is combined with a preceding letter to form a ligature. Most of the letters have more than one form, including mirror-images of the forms shown here. When the letters l and n are adjacent to themselves or to each other, for example, since the letter l is a double line, ||, and n a single line, |, the sequence nn may be written |/ to differentiate it from l. Similarly, ln is ||/, nl |//, ll ||//, nnn |/|, traditionally, the Tifinagh script does not indicate vowels except word-finally, where a single dot stands for any vowel. In some areas, Arabic vowel diacritics are combined with Tifinagh letters to transcribe vowels, Neo-Tifinagh is the modern fully alphabetic script developed from earlier forms of Tifinagh
Tifinagh
–
Arabic, Neo-Tifinagh, and French at a store in Morocco.
Tifinagh
–
Libyco-Berber
Tifinagh
–
Tifinagh
Tifinagh
–
Neo-Tifinagh
40.
Manichaean alphabet
–
Unlike Pahlavi, Manichaean script reveals influences from Sogdian script, which in turn descends from the Syriac branch of Aramaic. Manichaean script is so named because Manichaean texts attribute its design to Mani himself, Middle Persian is written with this alphabet. Older Manichaean texts appear in a script and language that is identifiable as Syriac-Aramaic. Later texts using Manichaean script are attested in the literature of three Middle Iranian language ethnolects, the dialect of Sogdiana in the east, which had a large Manichean population, the dialect of Parthia in the northeast, which is indistinguishable from Medean of the northwest. The dialect of Parsa in southwest Iran, formerly and properly known as Parsi, Manichaean script was not the only script used to render Manichaean manuscripts. When writing in Sogdian, which was frequently the case, Manichaean scribes frequently used Sogdian script, likewise, outside Manichaeism, the dialect of Parsa was also recorded in other systems, including Pahlavi script and Avestan script. As Manichaeism was persecuted around Mesopotamia and the regions of the Sasanian Empire, its origins, it became well-established in Central Asia, in the 19th century, German expeditions discovered a number of Manichaean manuscripts at Bulayiq on the Silk Road, near Turpan in north-west China. Many of these manuscripts are preserved in Berlin. Like most abjads, Manichaean is written right to left. There are obligatory conjuncts for certain combinations involving n and y, the numbers are built from units of 1,5,10,20, and 100 and can be visually identifiable. There are also some forms of certain characters. The Manichaean alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0, photos of the original texts written in manichaean script discovered at Turpan Initial Iranian conference proposing Unicode for Manichaean Script
Manichaean alphabet
–
Table of letters from Manichaean script, with their Latin transliterations.
41.
Nabataean alphabet
–
The Nabataean alphabet is a consonantal alphabet that was used by the Nabataeans in the 2nd century BC. Important inscriptions are found in Petra, Jordan, and Sinai, the alphabet is descended from the Syriac alphabet, which was itself descended from the Aramaic alphabet. As compared to other Aramaic-derived scripts, Nabataean developed more loops and ligatures, the ligatures seem to have not been standardized and vary across time and space. There were no spaces between words, numerals in Nabataean script were built from characters of 1,2,3,4,5,10,20, and 100. Note that the Syriac and Arabic alphabets are always cursive and that some of their letters look different in medial or initial position, see Aramaic alphabet § Letters for a more detailed comparison of letterforms. The Nabataean alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0
Nabataean alphabet
42.
Pahlavi scripts
–
Pahlavi or Pahlevi denotes a particular and exclusively written form of various Middle Iranian languages. The essential characteristics of Pahlavi are the use of a specific Aramaic-derived script, the Pahlavi script, Pahlavi compositions have been found for the dialects/ethnolects of Parthia, Persis, Sogdiana, Scythia, and Khotan. Independent of the variant for which the Pahlavi system was used, Pahlavi is then an admixture of written Imperial Aramaic, from which Pahlavi derives its script, logograms, and some of its vocabulary. Spoken Middle Iranian, from which Pahlavi derives its terminations, symbol rules, Pahlavi may thus be defined as a system of writing applied to a specific language group, but with critical features alien to that language group. It has the characteristics of a language, but is not one. It is a written system, but much Pahlavi literature remains essentially an oral literature committed to writing. If this etymology is correct, Parthav presumably became pahlaw through a semivowel glide rt change to l, the term has been traced back further to Avestan pərəthu- broad, also evident in Sanskrit pŗthvi- earth and parthivi of the earth. Common to all Indo-Iranian languages is a connotation of mighty, the earliest attested use of Pahlavi dates to the reign of Arsaces I of Parthia in early Parthian coins with Pahlavi scripts. There are also several Pahlavi texts written during the reign of Mithridates I, such fragments, as also the rock inscriptions of Sassanid kings, which are datable to the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, do not, however, qualify as a significant literary corpus. It is in an archaic script than Book Pahlavi. After the Muslim conquest of Persia, the Pahlavi script was replaced by the Arabic script, except in Zoroastrian sacred literature, the replacement of the Pahlavi script with the Arabic script in order to write the Persian language was done by the Tahirids in 9th century Khurasan. In the present-day, Pahlavi is frequently identified with the dialect of south-west Iran, formerly and properly called Pārsi. This practice can be dated to the immediately following the Islamic conquest. Tables showing the letters and their names or pronunciations are available on line, the Pahlavi script is one of the two essential characteristics of the Pahlavi system. Its origin and development occurred independently of the various Middle Iranian languages for which it was used, the Pahlavi script is derived from the Aramaic script as it was used under the Achaemenids, with modifications to support the phonology of the Iranian languages. It is essentially a typical abjad, where, in general, only vowels are marked with matres lectionis. In addition to this, during much of its later history, similarly, certain words continued to be spelt with postvocalic ⟨s⟩ and ⟨t⟩ even after the consonants had been debuccalized to ⟨h⟩ in the living language. The Pahlavi script consisted of two widely used forms, Inscriptional Pahlavi and Book Pahlavi, a third form, Psalter Pahlavi, is not widely attested
Pahlavi scripts
–
Parthian (above), along with Greek (below) and Middle Persian was being used in inscriptions of early
Sassanian kings. Shapur inscription in
Naqsh-e Rajab
Pahlavi scripts
–
Parthian version of
Shapur I 's inscription at
Ka'ba-ye Zartosht.
Pahlavi scripts
–
Coin of
Ardashir I (r. 224–42) with Inscriptional Pahlavi writings.
Pahlavi scripts
–
Inscriptional Pahlavi text from
Shapur III at
Taq-e Bostan, 4th century
43.
Pegon alphabet
–
Pegon is an Arabic alphabet used to write the Javanese and Sundanese languages, as an alternative to the Roman alphabet or the Javanese script and the old Sundanese script. In particular, it was used for writing and poetry from the fifteenth century. The word Pegon originated from a Javanese word pégo, which means deviate, due to the practice of writing Javanese language with Arabic script, the main difference between Jawi and Pegon is that the latter is almost always written with vocal signs. This is because the Javanese language contains more variations of aksara swara than their Malay counterpart resulting in vocal signs needing to be written to avoid phonetic confusion, if written without vocal signs, as in Jawi, the script is called Gundhul. Pegon includes symbols for sounds that are not present in standard Arabic, one of the earliest dated examples of the usage of Pegon may be Masail al-talim, a work on Islamic law written in Arabic with interlinear translation and marginal commentary in Javanese. The manuscript is dated 1623 and written on dluwang, a made from the bark of the mulberry tree
Pegon alphabet
–
Pegon consonants. Letters not present in the Arabic alphabet are marked with a yellow circle.
Pegon alphabet
–
Pegon vowels
44.
Phoenician alphabet
–
The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, is the oldest verified alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad consisting of 22 letters, all consonants and it was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia. The Phoenician alphabet is derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs and it became one of the most widely used writing systems, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it evolved and was assimilated by many other cultures. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was derived from Phoenician. Another derivative script is the Aramaic alphabet, which was the ancestor of the modern Arabic script, the Modern Hebrew script is a stylistic variant of the Aramaic script. The Greek alphabet was derived from Phoenician. Phoenician was usually written from right to left, although there are texts written in boustrophedon. The earliest known inscriptions are the so-called Proto-Sinaitic script sporadically attested in the Sinai and in Canaan in the late Middle. The script was not widely used until the rise of new Semitic kingdoms in the 13th and 12th centuries BC, the Phoenician alphabet is a direct continuation of the Proto-Canaanite script of the Bronze Age collapse period. Beginning in the 9th century BC, adaptations of the Phoenician alphabet -- such as Greek, Old Italic, Anatolian, and the Paleohispanic scripts -- were very successful. This simple system contrasted with the scripts in use at the time, such as cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs. Another reason for its success was the trading culture of Phoenician merchants. Phoenician inscriptions have been found in sites at a number of former Phoenician cities and colonies around the Mediterranean, such as Byblos. Later finds indicate earlier use in Egypt, Phoenician had long-term effects on the social structures of the civilizations that came in contact with it. As mentioned above, the script was the first widespread phonetic script and its simplicity not only allowed it to be used in multiple languages, but it also allowed the common people to learn how to write. The Phoenician alphabet was first uncovered in the 17th century, and it was at first believed that the script was a direct variation of Egyptian hieroglyphs. This idea was popular due to the recent decipherment of hieroglyphs. However, scholars could not find any link between the two writing systems, nor to hieratic or cuneiform, the theories of independent creation ranged from the idea of a single man conceiving it, to the Hyksos people forming it from corrupt Egyptian
Phoenician alphabet
–
Phoenician alphabet
45.
Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
–
The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, also spelt Palaeo-Hebrew alphabet, is a variant of the Phoenician alphabet. Like the Phoenician alphabet, the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet contains 22 letters, all of which are consonants, the term was coined by Solomon Birnbaum in 1954, he wrote, To apply the term Phoenician to the script of the Hebrews is hardly suitable. Still, the script is nearly identical to the Phoenician script, archeological evidence of the use of the script by the Israelites for writing the Hebrew language dates to around the 10th century BCE. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet began to fall out of use by the Jews in the 5th century BCE, the present Jewish square-script Hebrew alphabet evolved from the Aramaic alphabet. The Samaritans, now fewer than 1000 people, have continued to use a derivative of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, the chart below compares the letters of the Phoenician script with those of the Paleo-Hebrew and the present Hebrew alphabet, with names traditionally used in English. According to contemporary scholars, the Paleo-Hebrew script developed alongside others in the region during the course of the late second and it is closely related to the Phoenician script. The earliest known inscription in the Paleo-Hebrew script was the Zayit Stone discovered on a wall at Tel Zayit, the 22 letters were carved on one side of the 38 lb stone - which resembles a bowl on the other. The find is attributed to the mid-10th century BCE, the script of the Gezer calendar, dated to the late 10th century BCE, bears strong resemblance to contemporaneous Phoenician script from inscriptions at Byblos. Clear Hebrew features are visible in the scripts of the Moabite inscriptions of the Mesha Stele, in 1855 a Phoenician inscription in 22 lines was found among the ruins of Sidon. Each line contained about 40 or 50 characters, a facsimile copy of the writing was published in United States Magazine in July 1855. The inscription was on the lid of a stone sarcophagus carved in fine Egyptian style. The writing was primarily a history of a king of Sidon buried in the sarcophagus. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was in use in the ancient Israelite kingdoms of Israel. Following the exile of the Kingdom of Judah in the 6th century BCE, in the Babylonian exile, Jews began using a form of the Assyrian script, the Samaritans, who remained in the Land of Israel, continued to use the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. After the fall of the Persian Empire, Jews used both scripts before settling on the Assyrian form, for a limited time thereafter, the use of the Paleo-Hebrew script among Jews was retained only to write the Tetragrammaton. The independent Hebrew script evolved by developing numerous cursive features, the features of the Phoenician alphabet being ever less pronounced with the passage of time. The aversion of the script may indicate that the custom of erecting stelae by the kings. Even the engraved inscriptions from the 8th century exhibit elements of the style, such as the shading
Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
–
Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
–
Drawing of inscription on the Zayit Stone.
Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
–
Photograph of section of Zayit Stone: 10th cent. letters (right-to-left) waw, he, het, zayin, tet
Paleo-Hebrew alphabet
–
Illustration of script on a
Ketef Hinnom amulet, circa 700 BCE—the "Silver Scroll"
46.
Proto-Sinaitic script
–
It is also referred to as Sinaitic, Proto-Canaanite, Old Canaanite, and Canaanite. The earliest Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions are dated to between the mid-19th and the mid-16th century BC. The principal debate is between an early date, around 1850 BC, and a date, around 1550 BC. The choice of one or the other date decides whether it is proto-Sinaitic or proto-Canaanite, the so-called Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions were discovered in the winter of 1904–1905 in Sinai by Hilda and Flinders Petrie. The Wadi el-Hol inscriptions strongly suggest a date of development of Proto-Sinaitic writing from the mid-19th to 18th centuries BC, the Sinai inscriptions are best known from carved graffiti and votive texts from a mountain in the Sinai called Serabit el-Khadim and its temple to the Egyptian goddess Hathor. The mountain contained turquoise mines which were visited by repeated expeditions over 800 years, many of the workers and officials were from the Nile Delta, and included large numbers of Canaanites who had been allowed to settle the eastern Delta. The date of the inscriptions is placed in the 17th or 16th century BC. Four inscriptions have been found in the temple, on two small statues and on either side of a small stone sphinx. They are crudely done, suggesting that the workers who made them were illiterate apart from this script and they are all very short, most consisting of only a couple of letters, and may have been written by Canaanite caravaners or soldiers from Egypt. They sometimes go by the name Proto-Canaanite, although the term Proto-Canaanite is also applied to early Phoenician or Hebrew inscriptions, the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions were carved on the stone sides of an ancient high-desert military and trade road linking Thebes and Abydos, in the heart of literate Egypt. They are in a wadi in the Qena bend of the Nile, 25°57′N 32°25′E, among dozens of hieratic and hieroglyphic inscriptions. If the latter, h1 and h2 may be graphic variants rather than different consonants, some scholars think that the רב rb at the beginning of Inscription 1 is likely rebbe, and that the אל ʾl at the end of Inscription 2 is likely ʾel god. Brian Colless has published a translation of the text, in some of the signs are treated as logograms or rebuses Excellent banquet of the celebration of ʿAnat. ʾEl will provide plenty of wine and victuals for the celebration and we will sacrifice to her an ox and a prime fatling. This interpretation fits into the pattern in some of the surrounding Egyptian inscriptions, according to the alphabet hypothesis, the shapes of the letters would have evolved from Proto-Sinaitic forms into Phoenician forms, but most of the names of the letters would have remained the same. Below is a table showing selected Proto-Sinaitic signs and the correspondences with Phoenician letters. Also shown are the values, names, and descendants of the Phoenician letters. The Other section shows the corresponding Archaic Greek, Modern Greek, Etruscan, abjad Byblos syllabary Ugaritic script Albright, Wm. F
Proto-Sinaitic script
–
A specimen of Proto-Sinaitic script containing a phrase which may mean 'to Ba'alat'. The line running from the upper left to lower right may read mt l b c lt.
Proto-Sinaitic script
–
Traces of the 16 and 12 characters of the two Wadi el-Hol inscriptions. (Photos here and here)
47.
Punic alphabet
–
The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, is the oldest verified alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad consisting of 22 letters, all consonants and it was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia. The Phoenician alphabet is derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs and it became one of the most widely used writing systems, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it evolved and was assimilated by many other cultures. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was derived from Phoenician. Another derivative script is the Aramaic alphabet, which was the ancestor of the modern Arabic script, the Modern Hebrew script is a stylistic variant of the Aramaic script. The Greek alphabet was derived from Phoenician. Phoenician was usually written from right to left, although there are texts written in boustrophedon. The earliest known inscriptions are the so-called Proto-Sinaitic script sporadically attested in the Sinai and in Canaan in the late Middle. The script was not widely used until the rise of new Semitic kingdoms in the 13th and 12th centuries BC, the Phoenician alphabet is a direct continuation of the Proto-Canaanite script of the Bronze Age collapse period. Beginning in the 9th century BC, adaptations of the Phoenician alphabet -- such as Greek, Old Italic, Anatolian, and the Paleohispanic scripts -- were very successful. This simple system contrasted with the scripts in use at the time, such as cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs. Another reason for its success was the trading culture of Phoenician merchants. Phoenician inscriptions have been found in sites at a number of former Phoenician cities and colonies around the Mediterranean, such as Byblos. Later finds indicate earlier use in Egypt, Phoenician had long-term effects on the social structures of the civilizations that came in contact with it. As mentioned above, the script was the first widespread phonetic script and its simplicity not only allowed it to be used in multiple languages, but it also allowed the common people to learn how to write. The Phoenician alphabet was first uncovered in the 17th century, and it was at first believed that the script was a direct variation of Egyptian hieroglyphs. This idea was popular due to the recent decipherment of hieroglyphs. However, scholars could not find any link between the two writing systems, nor to hieratic or cuneiform, the theories of independent creation ranged from the idea of a single man conceiving it, to the Hyksos people forming it from corrupt Egyptian
Punic alphabet
–
Phoenician alphabet
48.
Samaritan alphabet
–
Samaritan is a direct descendant of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, which was a variety of the Phoenician alphabet in which large parts of the Hebrew Bible were originally penned. All these scripts are believed to be descendants of the Proto-Sinaitic script and that script was used by the ancient Israelites, both Jews and Samaritans. The better-known square script Hebrew alphabet traditionally used by Jews is a version of the Aramaic alphabet which they adopted from the Persian Empire. After the fall of the Persian Empire, Judaism used both scripts before settling on the Aramaic form, for a limited time thereafter, the use of paleo-Hebrew among Jews was retained only to write the Tetragrammaton, but soon that custom was also abandoned. The Samaritan alphabet first became known to the Western world with the publication of a manuscript of the Samaritan Pentateuch in 1631 by Jean Morin. In 1616 the traveler Pietro della Valle had purchased a copy of the text in Damascus, the table below shows the development of the Samaritan script. On the left are the corresponding Hebrew letters for comparison, column I is the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. Column X shows the form of the letters. Samaritan script was added to the Unicode Standard in October 2009 with the release of version 5.2, the Unicode block for Samaritan is U+0800–U+083F, Flôrenṭîn, Moše. Late Samaritan Hebrew, A Linguistic Analysis Of Its Different Types, a Samaritan Bible, at the British library Omniglot. com - Samaritan alphabet Link to free Samaritan font
Samaritan alphabet
–
Samaritan alphabet
Samaritan alphabet
–
The development of the Samaritan script
Samaritan alphabet
–
Ancient inscription in
Samaritan Hebrew. From a photo c.1900 by the
Palestine Exploration Fund.
49.
South Arabian alphabet
–
The ancient Yemeni alphabet branched from the Proto-Sinaitic script in about the 9th century BC. It was used for writing the Old South Arabian languages of the Sabaic, Qatabanic, Hadramautic, Minaean, Himyaritic, the earliest inscriptions in the alphabet date to the 9th century BC in the Akele Guzai region, Eritrea. There are no vowels, instead using the mater lectionis to mark them, in Ethiopia and Eritrea it evolved later into the Geez script, which, with added symbols throughout the centuries, has been used to write Amharic, Tigrinya and Tigre, as well as other languages. Zabūr is the name of the form of the South Arabian script that was used by the ancient Yemenis in addition to their monumental script. As yet only one thousand such texts have been discovered, of which perhaps some 26 have been published. It is usually written from right to left but can also be written left to right. When written from left to right the characters are flipped horizontally, the spacing or separation between words is done with a vertical bar mark. Letters in words are not connected together and it does not implement any diacritical marks, differing in this respect from the modern Arabic alphabet. The South Arabian alphabet was added to the Unicode Standard in October,2009 with the release of version 5.2, the Unicode block, called Old South Arabian, is U+10A60–U+10A7F. Note that U+10A7D OLD SOUTH ARABIAN NUMBER ONE represents both the one and a word divider. Photos from National Museum of Yemen, Photos from Yemen Military Museum, Eduard Glaser Carl Rathjens Stein, the Ancient South Arabian Minuscule Inscriptions on Wood, A New Genre of Pre-Islamic Epigraphy. Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Genootschap Ex Oriente Lux, die altsüdarabischen Minuskelinschriften auf Holzstäbchen aus der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in München. Il trono della regina di Saba, Artemide, Roma. pp. 149–155, Ancient scripts on South Arabian SI Omniglots entry on South Arabian
South Arabian alphabet
–
South Arabian inscription addressed to the Sabaean "national" god
Almaqah
South Arabian alphabet
50.
Sogdian alphabet
–
The Sogdian alphabet was originally used for the Sogdian language, a language in the Iranian family used by the people of Sogdia. The alphabet is derived from Syriac, the descendant script of the Aramaic alphabet, the Sogdian alphabet is one of three scripts used to write the Sogdian language, the others being the Manichaean alphabet and the Syriac alphabet. It was used throughout Central Asia, from the edge of Iran in the west, to China in the east, like the writing systems from which it is descended, the Sogdian writing system can be described as an abjad, but it also displays tendencies towards an alphabet. The script consists of 17 consonants, many of which have alternate forms for initial, middle, as in the Aramaic alphabet, long vowels were commonly written with matres lectionis, the consonants aleph, yodh and waw. However, unlike Aramaic and most abjads, these consonant signs would also serve to express the short vowels. To disambiguate long vowels from short ones, an additional aleph could be written before the sign denoting the long vowel, the alphabet also includes several diacritics, which were used inconsistently. It is written right to left, but by the time it had evolved into its child system. Voiced and voiceless fricatives are not distinguished in the script. Aramaic logograms also appear in the script, remnants of adapting the Aramaic alphabet to the Sogdian language and these logograms are used mainly for functional words such as pronouns, articles, prepositions, and conjunctions. * those letters are not used in Sogdian words, Early Sogdian dates to the early fourth century C. E. and is characterized by distinct, separated graphemes. The sutra script appears around 500 C. E. while the cursive script develops approximately a century later, the cursive script is thus named because its letters are connected with a base line. Since many letters in the script are extremely similar in form, to the point of being indistinguishable. As the Sogdian alphabet became more cursive and more stylized, some became more difficult to distinguish, or were distinguished only in final position. The Sogdian script is known from texts of Buddhism, Manichaeism, and Christianity, as well as from secular sources such as letters, coins. The oldest known Sogdian documents are the Ancient Letters, found in 1920 by Sir Aurel Stein in a watchtower near Dunhuang and these letters date to approximately 312-313 C. E. and are written in Early Sogdian. The Sogdian Buddhist texts, written in the script, are younger. They were found during the first two decades of the century in one of the caves of the Thousand Buddhas in the Chinese province of Gansu. The bulk of these reside in the British Museum, the Bibliothèque nationale de France
Sogdian alphabet
–
Sogdian text. Manichaean Letter
Sogdian alphabet
–
Sogdian script on the Bugut Inscription (585), central
Mongolia. Sogdian is the distant ancestor of the Mongolian script.
