Talk:Proto-Canaanite alphabet

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need to make clear that decipherment is in progress, see

One of these links is broken, and the other connects to some juvenile diatribe. Perhaps https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane/2005-February/017858.html will work?

hm, I assure you these links were working when I posted them. It appears that message numbers are constantly reassigned, on that server? dab (ᛏ) 11:57, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Image sources:

dab (ᛏ) 09:42, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure it the Wadi el-Hol alphabet should be on a different article than the Proto-Sinaitic one: PS was so far the hypothetical direct ancestor of Phoenician/Arabic, with names reconstructed for these. The Wadi el-Hol one may predate that hypothetical alphabet, with other names, reconstructed from the hieroglyphs it is based on. dab (ᛏ) 09:48, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] three problems

I have three problems with this article:

Why are etymologies given for the letters of the alphabet, with the claim that the names are translations from the Egyptian? This is speculation, with little supporting evidence. If it were true, you'd think the proto-Sinaitic script wouldn't been decyphered by now! Not to say it isn't true, but if convincing evidence has been found in the last couple years, it would be nice to see it here.

It is also doubtful that the Northern Semitic alphabetic order is original. The Southern Semitic order may be just as old. Ugaritic had both orders, and both Southern Semitic and Egyptian both started with H. (It's not known if Egyptian had a fixed alphabetic order, but dictionaries started with H for ibis, the totemic animal of Thoth, god of writing.)

The Ugaritic abjad is not derived from Cuneiform with a proto-Sinaitic "influence", any more than Hangul is derived from Chinese with a Phagspa influence. The medium of stylus on clay forced similarities of form, and there was almost certainly a stylistic influence (just as in the case of the influence of Chinese on Hangul, both written with brush on paper), but the shapes of the Semitic abjad is clearly visible in the arrangement of the Ugaritic wedges. That is, Ugaritic is simply the Semitic abjad written on clay.

—kwami 07:28, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

all points granted. This is hacked together from online sources, it would be great if you could add more details and references. dab (ᛏ) 08:00, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps I will - but I don't have my sources with me right now, and wouldn't want to try this from memory! kwami

note, there are images of the individual glyphs on commons already, c.f. de:Protosemitisches Alphabet. dab (ᛏ) 06:43, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Proto-Canaanite and Proto-Sinaitic are two different things (a reconstruction on the one hand, and an undeciphered script on the other). I created a Middle Bronze Age alphabets article for Proto-Sinaitic/Wadi el-Hol, and removed them from this article. --kwami 12:04, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)