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by dmbaggett
999 days ago
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An authoritative source on this Inventing the Alphabet by Johnanna Drucker. She covers not only the modern evidence but also attempts to classify alphabets throughout history, with particular focus on the Middle Ages. The first half is a bit dry -- how much do we really care what various scholars in the 16th Century made up about the history of the alphabet? -- (a lot was made up), but the second half looks at the modern archaeological contribution to the study of alphabetic origins and is very interesting. There are also lots of scans of really interesting Medieval manuscripts cataloging alphabets in the book. |
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https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo141943...
From the book's "Chapter 7. Modern Archaeology -- Putting the Evidence of the Alphabet in Place"
"We can now describe the origin of the alphabet chronologically and geographically with some degree of reliability. The basic outlines are these: The alphabet was formed in the context of cultural exchanges between Semitic-speaking people from the Levant and communities in Egypt after or around 1800 BCE. The earliest evidence is dated to Wadi el- Hol, a site in Egypt just west of the Nile, north of Luxor. Later inscriptions in the Sinai and throughout the Fertile Crescent show the gradual distribution and evolution of alphabetic writing, with most evidence dating from the fourteenth century BCE and after."
Regarding "how much do we really care what various scholars in the 16th Century made up about the history of the alphabet?" we should, if we're interested in knowing the context in which various claims, which pop up even today, appeared for the first time. The context often explains the motivation which resulted in specific "made up" narrations, some still (often unfortunately) influencing our lives.