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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Why Semitic languages had no written vowels?

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  • From: Trevor Peterson <abuian AT access4less.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Why Semitic languages had no written vowels?
  • Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2005 18:20:49 -0400

Uri Hurwitz wrote:
Yes, and, it appears that they boorrowed and modified the Egyptian signs earlier than the Ugaritic inventors of the alphabetic script. There does not seem a connection between the two, or is there? It is however interesting that two separate scripts appeared roughly in the same time, give or take a couple of centuries. A script, incidentally, that uses, with some changes, but in practically the same order, the very letters of our electronic correspondence.

I thought it was pretty much the consensus that the Ugaritic wedge-abjad was based on the West Semitic linear script. Apparently they borrowed the consonantal inventory but created new and essentially unrelated signs that could be written more easily on clay (probably inspired by Akkadian cuneiform).

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics




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