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With so many ancient texts around the world , you might marvel which alphabet was the first to be developed . In other words , what is the oldest confirmed first principle in the world ?
Experts told Live Science it was probably theproto - Sinaitic script , which was invented about 4,000 year ago by Canaanite worker at anEgyptianturquoise mine in the Sinai neighborhood . The proto - Sinaitic script developed into the Phoenician alphabet , which , in tour , inspired the early Hebrew , Greek and Roman alphabet .
A clay artifact, about the size of a finger, was discovered during an excavation at the ancient city of Umm el-Marra in Syria. The engraved symbols may be part of the earliest known alphabet, but not everyone agrees.
However , aNovember 2024 discoveryby investigator at Johns Hopkins University suggested that an alphabetic script was being used hundred of age earlier , in what is now northerly Syria . Their evidence is four the Great Compromiser cylinders , each about as long as a finger , from a Bronze Age tomb at Umm el - Marra , near Aleppo .
Radiocarbon datingsuggests symbols were inscribed on the piston chamber in about 2400 B.C. , about 500 years before the proto - Sinaitic script was developed .
Related : How do we decipher Egyptian hieroglyph and other ancient language ?
A clay artifact, about the size of a finger, was discovered during an excavation at the ancient city of Umm el-Marra in Syria. The engraved symbols may be part of the earliest known alphabet, but not everyone agrees.
But not everyone is win over by the breakthrough , and asseverate that proto - Sinaitic book is the oldest have a go at it alphabet , which is a specific kind of authorship arrangement . " I think [ the Umm el - Marra inscriptions ] clearly are some sort of publish system,“Philippa Steele , a philologistat the University of Cambridge , told Live Science in an email . But " what is more difficult is being sure that it is related to the alphabetic system . "
Ancient writing
Archaeologists think writing developed in several places in the ancient world independently of other composition systems . Egyptian hieroglyphs , for example , spring up in about 3200 B.C. , whileSumerian cuneiformseems to be from about the same time .
Ancient Chinese writingdeveloped ahead of time in the 2d millenary B.C. , while the earliest known authorship system in the Americas is theOlmec handwriting , from about 600 B.C.
But none of these former written material system are assort as alphabets . or else , they are either logographic committal to writing systems — where each symbol represents a intelligence or concept , such as " mountain " — or mixtures of logographies and syllabaries ( where letters symbolize syllable ) that append some characters to represent spoken sounds .
An illustration of proto-Sinaitic script, which many researchers consider to be the earliest known alphabet.
The letters in alphabets , in direct contrast , typify distinct sound , or " phonemes , " that are used to make up the sounds of a spoken Logos , Steele said in an electronic mail .
The proto - Sinaitic script seems to have been influenced by ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs , but " the Proto - Sinaitic alphabet is clearly a very innovative conception , " she wrote ; the general rule of writing may have come from hieroglyphs , but the conception of an alphabet and the values of the letters themselves were raw ideas .
Steele is most concerned in the Bronze Age book from Crete , other division of Greece , and Cyprus — some of which havenever been deciphered . " Cyprus sustain its honest-to-god Bronze Age system [ of writing ] for well over a thousand eld , and used it for Greek , " she tell . " So while Greek was being write in the alphabet everywhere else … in Cyprus they had this really classifiable syllabic writing system that became a symbolisation of ethnical identity . "
The Phoenician alphabet inspired the early Hebrew, Greek and Roman alphabets.
Silvia Ferrara , a philologue at the University of Bologna in Italy who is not involve in the Syria find , suppose in an email that her favourite ancient composition system are those yet undeciphered , include theproto - Elamitescript from what is now southwest Iran , which may have influenced Mesopotamian cuneiform .
Proto-Sinaitic script debate
The proto - Sinaitic script was wide believe to be the oldest alphabet , Steele tell , but the young discovery at Umm el - Marra take exception this estimation .
Glenn Schwartz , an archaeologist at Johns Hopkins University who break the clay piston chamber and presented his research at an archaeological group discussion in 2024 , said in a argument that the artefact were older than any known proto - Sinaitic lettering and were found in northern Syria . That suggests " the alphabet may have an entirely dissimilar origin write up than we thought , " he said .
Ferrara say she is not surprised to find that rudiment were already in use of goods and services 500 age to begin with than thought , although the localisation of the discovery is a Revelation of Saint John the Divine . " It is surprising to come up these in Syria , but mind and concepts travel much more than the archaeological grounds get on , " she told Live Science .
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And Steele monish that the Umm el - Marra cylinder stop too few signs to establish that they form an alphabetic system . " I ’d like more evidence before labeling the organisation as alphabetical , because we do n’t have enough evidence to analyze its structure , " she say .
While some of the signs in the Umm el - Marra inscriptions seemed to be line of latitude of some proto - Sinaitic planetary house , for others , " any relationship is less obvious , " she said .
" The principal problem is that if you only have similarities in sign chassis and no other room of tax the system of rules , then foregone conclusion is hard to achieve , " she sound out . " I would really like more contemporary breakthrough to help oneself us sympathize what kind of authorship traditions these inscriptions belong to to . "
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