Genealogy of the alphabets derived from the Protosinaite script

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Almost all the alphabets used on earth are derived from the Protosinaitic script , including the Latin alphabet , the forms of which are used in numerous languages ​​today; but also such distant relatives as the writing systems of Hebrew , Arabic , the runes , Ethiopian , the Indian Devanagari script or the scripts of the Philippines and Indonesia .

There are also some syllable scripts developed from these scripts , for example the Cherokee alphabet .

Hints

Much of the information in this article comes from the Ancient Scripts and Omniglot websites, which do not always match.

In some cases, no direct letter-to-letter connection can be made between a “mother script” and its descendants. The positioning of some family members can therefore be a bit controversial, e.g. B. in the case of the Georgian or the Tibetan alphabet.

To the individual entries:

  • Bold: Fonts that are still in use today are highlighted in bold.
  • Italic: Although many of these scripts are often referred to generically as "alphabets", only the so-called Abdzhads are correct alphabets . The writing systems referred to by linguistics as Abugidas and half-syllable scripts are shown in italics.
  • The year numbers should indicate the approximate "date of birth" of a font. In many cases they are only rough estimates (marked by "approx."). Often times, developing one font from another was a centuries-long process.
  • The names of one or two present-day countries, which indicate the region in which the writing was first in common use, follow in brackets.

genealogy

Wadi-el-Hol script to Protosinaitic script - approx. 1800–1500 BC BC (Egypt, Canaan, Sinai)

Descendants of the Phoenician alphabet

Phoenician alphabet - ca.1100 BC BC (Canaan)

Descendants of the Brahmi script

Expansion of the Indian branch of the font family from India to East Asia. It should be noted that "Nepali" on the map is neither Nepali nor its writing. The spread of Siddham is not related to the development of the Chinese or Japanese script.

Brahmi script - approx. 250 BC BC (India, Sri Lanka)

Remarks

  1. ↑ To a certain extent, the same applies to the Korean alphabet . Some scholars, including Gari Ledyard , believe that the basic consonants of the Korean alphabet were taken from the Phagspa script , from which the other consonants were derived.
  2. ↑ Ancient Scripts ( English ) Lawrence Lo. Retrieved April 19, 2019.
  3. ↑ Omniglot ( English ) Simon Ager. Retrieved April 19, 2019.

See also