The info on the Ugaritic alphabet comes from P T Daniel's "Scripts of
Semitic Languages" in R Hetzron's "The Semitic Languages". I have read
parts of the book 2 or 3 times but never thought to read this chapter before
until this dispute over the Hebrew alphabet came up. I also received a
relatively new book yesterday: Henry Rogers' "Writing Systems: A Linguistic
Approach" (2005) which looks like it will be a good book to read. It has a
lot of theory on how writing systems work.
Kevin Riley
-------Original Message-------
From: Dave Washburn
Date: 11/10/05 11:32:17
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Tel Zayit Abecedary
On Wednesday 09 November 2005 16:01, Kevin Riley wrote:
> I think the article contains a few badly written sentences. Someone
> brought up about all the alphabets being descended from the one found.
> Presumably what is meant is that all the alphabets descend from the
> 'Phoenician' alphabet, of which this is the earliest reliably dated
> example. Even that may not be entirely what is meant as there are
> abecedary from Sinai and Ugarit that definitely predate this one, even if
> their dating is not so exact. On the point of the 'drinking vessel' I
> believe what is meant is that this stone vessel held the drink and it
would
> have been removed and drunk in smaller containers. It was the punch bowl
> rather than the cup, if you like.
I like the nephilim explanation better :-D
> While on alphabets, I discovered that the Ugaritic alphabet existed in two
> forms - the 27 letter form used in Ugarit and a 22 letter form used
outside
> the town but within Ugaritic controlled territory.
[snip]