Phoenician alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet was a consonant-only script used by Phoenician communities around the Mediterranean. Its letter forms and ordering became the basis for several later writing systems, including Greek and Aramaic.

Abjad: A writing system whose basic signs represent consonants, with vowels absent or marked secondarily. The Phoenician alphabet is a foundational example of this kind of script.
Phoenician alphabet letter forms: The graphic shapes used to write the twenty-two letters of the Phoenician alphabet. Their repeated forms made a compact set of signs usable across inscriptions.
Proto-Canaanite script: A group of early alphabetic inscriptions from the southern Levant, usually dated to the second millennium BCE. It provides a regional context for the emergence of Phoenician writing.
Greek alphabet: The alphabet used to write Greek, adapted from a West Semitic script and modified to represent vowels. Greek scribes adapted Phoenician signs and repurposed some for vowel sounds.
Phoenician language: A Northwest Semitic language spoken by the Phoenicians and written in their alphabet. The script recorded this language, whose consonant structure suited its writing system.
Phoenician alphabetic order: The conventional sequence of Phoenician letters, beginning with aleph, beth, and gimel. The sequence was transmitted to later alphabets even as their letter shapes changed.
Ugaritic alphabet: A cuneiform alphabet used at the Late Bronze Age city of Ugarit. It represents a distinct alphabetic solution in the same broader region and era.
Aramaic alphabet: An alphabet used to write Aramaic that developed from the Phoenician script. Its descendants spread through imperial administration and influenced several later scripts.
Proto-Sinaitic script: An early alphabetic script attested in inscriptions from the Sinai Peninsula and Egypt. Its signs are among the proposed ancestors of Phoenician letter forms.
Matres lectionis: Consonant letters used in some Semitic writing to indicate certain vowel sounds. Phoenician spelling could use consonants to hint at vowels, though it lacked systematic vowel notation.

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