Alphabets of Asia Minor

History of the alphabet Middle Bronze Age 19 c. BCE Ugaritic 15 c. BCE Proto-Canaanite 15 c. BCE Phoenician 12 c. BCE Paleo-Hebrew 10 c. BCE Samaritan 6 c. BCE Aramaic 8 c. BCE Kharoṣṭhī 6 c. BCE Brāhmī & Indic 6 c. BCE (see Brahmic abugidas below) Hebrew 3 c. BCE Pahlavi 3 c. BCE Avestan 4 c. CE Palmyrene 2 c. BCE Syriac 2 c. BCE Sogdian 2 c. BCE Orkhon (Old Turkic) 6 c. CE Old Hungarian ca. 650 Old Uyghur Mongolian 1204 Nabataean 2 c. BCE Arabic 4 c. CE Mandaic 2 c. CE Georgian (disputed) ca. 430 CE Greek 8 c. BCE Etruscan 8 c. BCE Latin 7 c. BCE Runic 2 c. CE Coptic 3 c. CE Gothic 3 c. CE Armenian 405 Glagolitic 862 Cyrillic ca. 940 Paleohispanic 7 c. BCE Epigraphic South Arabian 9 c. BCE Ge’ez 5–6 c. BCE Meroitic 3 c. BCE Ogham 4 c. CE Hangul 1443 Zhuyin (Bopomofo) 1913 Brahmic-derived abugidas Northern Brāhmīc Gupta 5 c. BCE Mithilakshar 203 CE Siddhaṃ ca. 600 Tibetan ca. 650 ’Phagspa 1269 Lepcha 1700 Limbu 1740 Nāgarī ca. 750 Eastern Nāgarī Bengali ca. 1050 Assamese ca. 1050 Oriya ca. 1100 Devanāgarī ca. 1200 Ranjana ca. 1100 Newari ca. 1150 Moḍī ca. 1600 Gujarati ca. 1600 Cree 1841 Carrier 1885 Inuktitut 1870 Blackfoot 19 c. Sayisi Śāradā 770 Laṇḍā 10 c. Old Kashmiri Gurmukhī 1539 Takri Bhujimol (Old Nepal) 10 c. Ranjana 12 c. Soyombo 17 c. Prachalit Nepal Southern Brāhmīc Tamil-Brahmi 5 c. BCE Vatteluttu 4 c. BCE Pallava 6 c. CE Grantha 6 c. Sinhala 7 c. Tamil 8 c. CE Saurashtra 20 c. Malayalam 12 c. Tulu 15 c. Old Kawi 775 Balinese Javanese 9 c. Mon 9 c. Burmese 1050 Khmer 9 c. Thai 1283 Lao ca. 1350 Kadamba 5 c. Old Kannada 9 c. Kannada 16 c. Bhattiprolu Script ca. 400 BCE Telugu 16 c. Kalinga 6 c. CE Complete genealogy This box: view • talk • edit

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Various alphabetic writing systems were in use in Iron Age Anatolia to record Anatolian dialects and the Phrygian language. Previously several of these languages had been written with logographic and syllabic systems.

The alphabets of Asia Minor may be classified into two groups. The first of them (Phrygian and Lemnian) were early adaptations of regional variants of the Greek alphabet; the earliest Phrygian inscriptions are contemporary with early Greek inscriptions, but contain Greek innovations such as the letters Φ and Ψ which did not exist in the earliest forms of the Greek alphabet.

• The Phrygian alphabet, recording the Phrygian language, was in use in Phrygia from ca. the 8th to the 3rd century BCE, 20 letters. Phrygian was based on the western Greek alphabet which used Ψ (instead of Χ) for [kʰ]. The Mysian alphabet is a variant, with one additional letter.
• The Lemnian alphabet of Pelasgians, see Lemnos stele

The second group (Carian, Para-Carian, Lydian, Para-Lydian, Lycian and Sidetic) share characteristics that distinguish them from the earliest forms of the Greek alphabet. Many letters in these alphabets resemble Greek letters but have unrelated readings, most extensively in the case of Carian.

• The Lydian script, an alphabet used to record the Lydian language from ca. the 5th to 4th centuries BCE, related is the "Para-Lydian" alphabet known from a single inscription in Sardis. Lydian used the letter 8 for /f/, a remarkable convergence with the Etruscan alphabet, where 8 (𐌚) was added in the 6th century BCE.

• The Carian script, recording the Carian language, known from inscriptions in Caria, Egypt and Athens. Only partially understood, there were 45 letters. Many of these resemble the Greek alphabet in form, but have different values.

• The Lycian script, an alphabet recording the Lycian language from the 5th to 4th centuries BCE.

• The Sidetic script, an alphabet of 25 letters, known from coin legends in what might be a Sidetic language, is only partially deciphered.

The Anatolian alphabets fell out of use around the 4th century BCE with the onset of the Hellenistic period.

See also

• History of the alphabet
• Greek alphabet
• Old Italic alphabets

External links

• Alphabets of Asia Minor (indoeuro.bizland.com)
  • Carian inscription
• Lydian-Aramaean bilingue (titus.uni-frankfurt.de)
• Lycian inscribed pillar (holylandphotos.org)

Literature

• Diringer D. Alphabet. Cambridge, 1948.
• Friedrich J. Geschichte der Schrift. 1966.

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