In Egypt and Mesopotamia, few people knew how to write and read. After all, both hieroglyphic writing and cuneiform contain more than 600 characters, each of which usually represents an entire word or syllable. All of them had to be known by heart.
Phoenician inscription on the temple of the god Eshmun
The Phoenicians, who kept permanent trade records, needed a different letter - easy simple and comfortable. They came up with an alphabet in which each sign - a letter - denoted only one specific speech sound.
The Phoenician alphabet consists of 22 easy-to-write letters. All of them are consonants, because in the Phoenician language the main role was played by consonant sounds. To read a word, a Phoenician only had to see its backbone, consisting of consonants. 
Phoenician letters (3) are derived from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs that denoted whole words (1). One of the intermediate stages is the Sinai hieroglyphic writing (2). Greek originated from the Phoenician alphabet (4)
The most ancient inscriptions, composed of letters of the Phoenician alphabet, were found during excavations in the ancient city of Byblos (now the city of Jebel), at the foot of the Lebanese ridge. They date back to the 13th century. BC. The Phoenicians wrote from right to left. They made their trade records in ink on shards. Few such shards have been found. The inscriptions carved on stone are better preserved: tombstones (on the sarcophagi of kings and priests) and construction ones, telling about the construction of palaces at the behest of the Phoenician kings.
Since the 9th century. BC e. The Phoenician alphabet began to quickly spread in many countries. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that the ancient Greeks learned writing from the Phoenicians. Indeed, even the names of the Greek letters themselves are Phoenician words. For example, the name of the letter "alpha" (A) comes from the Phoenician word "aleph" - bull. (The original shape of this letter resembled the head of a bull.) The name of the Greek letter "beta" comes from the Phoenician word "bet" - house. (This letter was originally a simplified drawing of a house plan.) The word "alphabet" itself is essentially a combination of the Phoenician words "aleph" and "bet."
The letters in the Phoenician alphabet were arranged in a certain order. This order was also adopted by the Greeks. But in Greek, unlike Phoenician, vowel sounds play a big role. At the same time, the Phoenician language had many guttural sounds that were alien to the Greeks. The Greeks used the Phoenician letters corresponding to these sounds to represent vowel sounds. In addition, they came up with some new letters.
The Phoenician alphabet was incomparably simpler and more convenient than any cuneiform or hieroglyphs. But the Greek alphabet is even more perfect: it consists of 24 letters, representing both vowels and consonants. The Greek alphabet formed the basis of the Latin, which in turn served as the basis for the alphabets of all Western European languages. From Greek alphabet Church Slavonic also originated, compiled, according to legend, by natives of the city of Thessaloniki (now the city of Thessaloniki) Cyril and Methodius. Under Peter I, the Church Slavonic alphabet was simplified, and an easier-to-read civil alphabet appeared, which we also use.
The Phoenician alphabet was the ancestor of not only Greek, but also Arabic, Hebrew and other alphabets. The invention of the Phoenicians was a great step in the cultural development of human society, making writing accessible to the masses.
When the sarcophagus, which was later dated to 1300-1000 BC, was cleaned of the dirt adhering to it, the famous one-line inscription in Phoenician was discovered on its lid: This is the sarcophagus that Etbaal, the son of Ahiram, made, king of Gebal, for Ahiram his father, who begat him.
The latest extant Phoenician texts date back to the 2nd century AD in the Middle East, and to the 3rd and 4th centuries in the Western Mediterranean.
The creation of the alphabet is the greatest cultural achievement of the Phoenicians. From their homeland, from a narrow coastal strip on the territory of modern Lebanon, the alphabet began its triumphal march around the world.
In the city of Ugarit, monuments covered with cuneiform were found. Thirty alphabetic characters. In the city of Byblos, two bronze tablets were found covered with writing - hieroglyphs. The present alphabet was created in the 10th century BC. e. - 22 characters. Each letter corresponds to one consonant or semi-consonant sound. The Phoenicians did not write vowels. They traveled to many countries and knew the writing systems of these countries. It is unknown from whom the alphabet was borrowed.
The names of the Phoenician letters correspond to the names of those objects whose shape these letters resembled:
Aleph - the head of a bull,
Beth is home
Gimel - corner.
"Alphabet" is the first two letters. "Beth" was sometimes pronounced like "vita". "aleph" + "vita".
The invention of the alphabet is the greatest achievement of Phoenician culture. It had a huge impact on the countries of the ancient world.
The emergence of alphabets
An alphabet is a special form of writing based on a standardized set of characters. They designate language phonemes, but there is practically no one-to-one correspondence between sounds and letters. It is believed that the alphabet was first invented in the Phoenician state about 3 thousand years ago. However, some historians believe that similar writing systems existed earlier, but the progenitor of modern alphabetic systems is the Phoenician letter.
Origin of the alphabet
Certain elements of phonetic notation, which preceded the appearance of the alphabet, were used in ancient times in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were used to write during the Middle Kingdom, used a system of 1-, 2-, and 3-consonant phonemes. The writing of Ancient Egypt was a combination of ideography and phonetic writing. The latter was used more and more often over time, at first to mean foreign words and proper names, the sound of which could not be conveyed using hieroglyphs, and then to convey everyday information in a simplified, more understandable form for the population.
Development of alphabetic systems
In the XIX-VIII centuries BC. The Phoenician alphabet was borrowed by the Greeks, who used it practically unchanged for a long time. As a result, the names of the Greek letters are practically no different from those used in the Phoenician alphabetic system. But on the basis of the Greek alphabet, the Latin alphabet appeared, which very soon became the main writing system for almost all the peoples inhabiting the European continent. Somewhat later based on Latin alphabet The Cyrillic alphabet was created, which we still use today. Although individual facts indicate that even without the invention of Cyril and Methodius, the Slavic peoples had their own Glagolitic writing system, and even earlier runic writing.
Linear alphabetic systems became widespread in the 14th century, which is when the Proto-Haanean and Proto-Sinaitic varieties of writing arose. In these alphabets there is a connection between pictography and phonetics, as in the Old Slavic Glagolitic alphabet. Ugaritic texts dating back to the 13th century deserve special attention. They contain 30 cuneiform characters, which defines the Ugaritic alphabet as the first non-acrophonic system.
Some historians believe that the Phoenician letter developed not at all on the basis of the Egyptian, but on the basis of the Phoenician syllabary or Cretan-Mycenaean letter. Monuments of this letter have come to us from the ancient city of Byblos. But the main thing is immediately clear: the Phoenicians were the first to use a purely alphabetic writing system.
As can be seen from the sources, the need and importance of forming alphabetic letter appeared in various areas of Phenicia. As navigation and trade developed, where a large part of the population was employed, the need began to arise for a simpler and more accessible writing than that which only a few scribes could study.
The Phoenician alphabet, of course, had its shortcomings. For example, he could convey only consonant sounds, but various additional signs were not transmitted, those with the help of which the Egyptians, for example, simplified the reading of texts written with only consonants. That is why reading remained difficult, and understanding more complex spellings and texts was quite difficult.
The time has come when the northern alphabet replaced the southern one, consisting of 22 characters. It was this alphabet that spread throughout all regions of the country. The Greek alphabet originated from it, as can be seen from the ancient outlines of the Greek letters, as well as from the nuance that the names of some Greek letters are of Semitic origin. For example, the term "alphabet" contains the names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta, which correspond to the first two Phoenician letters - "aleph" and "bet". By the way, they mean “bull” and “house” in Western Semitic languages. The basis of these alphabetic signs is more ancient drawing signs. Almost all the names of the letters of the Greek alphabet correspond to the names of the Phoenician letters.
Phoenician writing- one of the first phonetic writing systems recorded in human history. Appeared around the 15th century BC. and became the ancestor of most modern alphabetic and some other writing systems.
Alphabetic writing is a writing system where one character conveys one sound. in contrast to logographic and ideographic writing, where each character corresponds to a specific concept or morpheme. Syllabic writing also cannot be considered an alphabetic writing, since each sign in the syllabaries corresponds to a separate syllable. but not the sound.
However, the Egyptian theory has been criticized, since with so many different forms of signs, coincidences with individual characters of the Phoenician script are inevitable. In addition, it should be noted that in Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, special signs were initially used for monoconsonant and biconsonant parts of words, but subsequently monoconsonant signs began to be used much less frequently than ideographic signs. Moreover, monoconsonant sounds were almost never used independently. It should also be noted that in the alphabet there is one sign to denote one sound, the meaning of which does not change, while in the Egyptian script the same sound can be denoted by different signs. If the alphabet really originated in Egypt, then the Egyptians would have had no reason to use a much more complex hieroglyphic writing for several more centuries, and, several centuries after the invention of the alphabet, to simplify the hieroglyphic and hieratic writing.
Sources: ltalk.ru, otvet.mail.ru, www.letopis.info, sredizemnomor.ru, dic.academic.ru
The appearance of alphabetic writing in Phenicia was one of the turning points in the history of the Ancient East. According to the research of historians, it first appeared in the 13th century BC, apparently, it was this letter that became the basis on which the writing of the ancient Greeks and Romans was subsequently created. The Latin alphabet is used all over the world to this day, so the contribution of the Phoenicians to world culture can be called invaluable.
Phoenician writing was consonantal, which means that they used only consonant sounds to write their words, and the reader could decide for himself which vowels to use. The text was written from right to left. It is difficult to say whether the Phoenician alphabet was the very first in the world, but it was the writing of Phenicia that became the basis on which most of the modern writing systems were formed. Historians cannot yet agree on the time of origin of this language.
In 1922, archaeologists, conducting investigations in Byblos, discovered the sarcophagus of the ruler Ahiram, on the surface of which an inscription in the Phoenician language was carved. Pierre Monte, who discovered the sarcophagus, and other researchers believed that it was created in the 13th century BC, but at the end of the last century Gibson established that the inscription was created in the 11th century BC. At the same time, the sarcophagus also contained dishes dating back to the 7th century BC, so no one can say with certainty when exactly the Phoenician language originated.
The appearance of alphabetic writing in Phenicia did not mark the appearance of the first phonetic recording of the letter; this achievement was attributed to the Sumerians. At the same time, the symbols of the Phoenicians resemble Scandinavian runes in their forms, and are completely different from the cuneiform script accepted in Western Asia. Some scientists associate this phenomenon with the resettlement of the so-called “peoples of the sea.”
At the end of the 13th century BC. From across the sea, many different peoples arrived in Western Asia, weakened the states existing there, and created their own. Thanks to this, Phenicia was able to exist independently for about four hundred years, although before that local cities had always been part of one state or another.
The earliest traces of the use of alphabetic linear writing systems were dated back to the 19th century BC, when historians were able to discover the Proto-Haanite and Proto-Sinaitic alphabets. The authors of these alphabets tried to improve the ancient pictographic writing; they use simplified pictographic models, but each character received a phonetic content. To record the sound, a simplified pictogram was used, depicting an object whose name begins with a particular letter.
The writing of Phenicia became a kind of revolution in ancient world, thanks to her, writing became accessible to most of the population. In the first version, there were some kind of hints for readers that made it easier to understand. The simplicity of such writing allowed it to become widespread across the vast territories in which the peoples of the West Semitic group lived. In addition, such a letter could be entered on different types surfaces, while cuneiform in most cases was recorded only on clay tablets. Flexibility created by the Phoenicians phonetic system makes it possible to use it to record texts in languages related to other language groups. The Greeks quickly adapted this system to their needs, and then the Romans began to use a similar one.
