> What we call alphabets, as distinguished from abigudas, abjads, and syllabaries, almost all derived directly or indirectly from Greek. Abigudas and abjads als

> What we call alphabets, as distinguished from abigudas, abjads, and syllabaries, almost all derived directly or indirectly from Greek. Abigudas and abjads also almost all derived from Phoenician/Egyptian (from which Greek also derived). The independent systems of Mesopotamia, China, and Mesoamerica all ended up no further than syllabaries. What Indus Valley Script is isn't clear. > So while writing was indisputably multiply invented, the alphabet (i.e., representing all phonemes instead of syllables) itself appears to have been independently invented only once (excluding perhaps Hangul, which is somewhat closer to a rigorously-construct syllabary than an alphabet). Sure, I agree with this; I had thought that GP was using ‘alphabet’ in the informal sense of ‘any writing system’ rather than as a technical term.