3 ms·

I think you misread my comment. Note that I said the Greek branch, not directly from Greek. Phoenician had several branches, but the main ones were Aramaic an

I think you misread my comment. Note that I said the Greek branch, not directly from Greek. Phoenician had several branches, but the main ones were Aramaic and Greek. Those, of course, led to several current writing systems each. The leading theory is that Elder Futhark developed from an Old Italic script, or even an early form of Latin. To directly rebut, rather than appealing to authority: The oldest attestation of Elder Futhark currently at 160 CE. So your proposal has Phoenecian developing directly into Eldar Futhark 300 years after Phonecian was no longer attested. And even then, Phonecian use had been reduced to Carthage while having developed into other systems elsewhere. Note that Gothic origins were ruled out for a mere 100 year difference, so this seems like quite the gap to cover.

ncmncm 6y ago
160 CE is an upper bound, not a lower. The Phoenicians all over the Mediterranean did not all die when their city was razed, or stop speaking or writing their language.
- jdmichal 6y ago
  Sure, Phoenicians proper had a large trade system. But so did the Greeks and those Greek descendants writing Old Italic scripts. And then the Roman empire conquered all of those and had peak extent around 117, which means that the Latin alphabet was also introduced and was a very close and strong cultural presence by 160. So yes, that date is only an upper bound. But there's a reason the scholars in this area believe what they do regarding the origins. For the type of cultural contact that can lead to the adoption of a writing system, that kind of closeness is important. You can't just handwave away a gap of several actual human generations, while at the same time ignoring the other major powers that are much closer and certainly exerting stronger cultural pressure than Carthage.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    Sure, but you still need an explanation for what would have to be reversion to ancestral forms of an italic script. There would have been a lot of refugees from the Punic disasters, and staying a long way from Roman centers would favor survival. Being the only literate group in a wide area would explain the surrounding majority's adoption of a non-standard script, otherwise a mystery. Use of the script could be confined to ephemera indefinitely long before a change that led to its use to inscribe durable material, so a gap, while inconvenient for historians, is hardly disposative.

ncmncm 6y ago

160 CE is an upper bound, not a lower. The Phoenicians all over the Mediterranean did not all die when their city was razed, or stop speaking or writing their language.

jdmichal 6y ago
Sure, Phoenicians proper had a large trade system. But so did the Greeks and those Greek descendants writing Old Italic scripts. And then the Roman empire conquered all of those and had peak extent around 117, which means that the Latin alphabet was also introduced and was a very close and strong cultural presence by 160. So yes, that date is only an upper bound. But there's a reason the scholars in this area believe what they do regarding the origins. For the type of cultural contact that can lead to the adoption of a writing system, that kind of closeness is important. You can't just handwave away a gap of several actual human generations, while at the same time ignoring the other major powers that are much closer and certainly exerting stronger cultural pressure than Carthage.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  Sure, but you still need an explanation for what would have to be reversion to ancestral forms of an italic script. There would have been a lot of refugees from the Punic disasters, and staying a long way from Roman centers would favor survival. Being the only literate group in a wide area would explain the surrounding majority's adoption of a non-standard script, otherwise a mystery. Use of the script could be confined to ephemera indefinitely long before a change that led to its use to inscribe durable material, so a gap, while inconvenient for historians, is hardly disposative.