4 ms·

Fun fact: the earliest alphabets in India, Iran, Syria are all descendent from Aramaic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/

by rsj_hn 6y ago

Fun fact: the earliest alphabets in India, Iran, Syria are all descendent from Aramaic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_alphabet IIRC, proto-sinaitic gave birth to Phoenician and Arabic (with some lost alphabets like Moabite in there somewhere). Phoenician is the main branch, often called the original alphabet, and its two children are Aramaic and Greek, with alphabets in the "east" being likely descended from Aramaic (Brahmi script, proto-Farsi and Parthian, Syrian) and those in the "west" descendent from Greek (Latin, Armenian, Cyrillic, Coptic). Thus you would in fact expect Mongolian, being in the east, to be an offshoot of Aramaic if you knew it had an alphabet (it could be like Mandarin without an alphabet). That's the real question -- does it have an alphabet or not. I only say this because a lot of people think that Aramaic script is some exotic thing, but it was the official language of the Persian (Achaemenid) Empire, which was quite large, stretching from India to North Africa, and Aramaic was a lingua franca of that era. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire

eternalban 6y ago
Darius the Great (Darayavush) actually commissioned the invention of a cuneiform script for inscribing imperial monuments in Old Persian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Persian_cuneiform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Persian_cuneiform The Achaemenids kings (Ha-Khaa-Manesh in Persian) were however eminently practical as far as imperial governance was concerned, and as you noted, continued the use of Aramaic, but never in monuments. Sogdians were an Iranian people, so it's likely that Aramaic script made its way into Mongolia via the vector of Persian empire's penetration of Transoxiana and subsequently the Sogdians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogdia#Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogdia#Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugut_inscription https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugut_inscription
MichaelMoser123 6y ago
also Aramaic was the main language of the Roman province of Judea some 2021 years ago.
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  Aramaic was the common language of every place east of the Hellespont, including Palestine, and many (not all) jews in Israel had forgotten Hebrew and long ago adopted the Aramaic script even when they did write Hebrew. And from Babylon they adopted the Babylonian Calendar and names for some of the months. That was the subtext of the book of Jubilees, bemoaning how jews had forgotten the proper times and corrupted their calendars with foreign dating systems. That was an amazing and very crazy period if you were a jew trying to hold onto your tradition, because there was a massive Hellenizing push in the wake of Alexander's conquests, and gymnasiums were springing up all over, there was a concerted effort to promote Hellenization as the new "international" culture of global trade and enlightenment, and many jews were even getting surgeries done to undo circumcision as they tried to fit into this new internationalist world. Many were learning and embracing Greek philosophy and the Greek approach to science, as well as the greek language and culture. That created lots of culture wars as traditional factions fought the (pro-Greek) liberalizing factions, leading to revolts, massacres, and significant turmoil in the whole region. The Maccabean revolt can be viewed as an example of traditional counterattack against Hellenizing influences, as can the subsequent revolts against Rome. It's truly a fascinating time period. But remember that even though all those traditionalist revolts ended in disaster, it is in fact the traditional societies that survive to this day, whereas the Greek and Roman empires have long vanished.
  - MichaelMoser123 6y ago
    The Babylonian Talmud is written in Aramaic, so it is not quite correct to equate Aramic with helenizing influence; also it would rather have been a neobabylonian/sasanian influence. Also all of the elite of Judae came back from babylonian captivity, and part of the Book of Ezra is written in Aramaic, just for a start.
  - Koshkin 6y ago
    > adopted the Aramaic script even when they did write Hebrew Indeed, what we think of as the Hebrew alphabet is actually Aramaic (and Aramaic the language is now written using Syriac instead).
jhgb 6y ago
>Phoenician is the main branch, often called the original alphabet That would be Greek, since the Phoenician script is an abjad.
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  All the semitic languages omit vowels (although there are some mater lectionis). The vowel requirement is not required for alphabets, particularly in languages where vowels play a somewhat ambiguous role in the language itself. Even in modern Hebrew, the nikkud pointing system is only used for the Bible, if you read a newspaper or novel, you aint getting any vowels (again, excluding mater lectionis)
  - jhgb 6y ago
    I'm aware of these things, except for the claim that "vowels are not required for alphabets", since capturing vowels has always been the distinguishing feature of alphabets compared to earlier scripts. Or perhaps maybe it works differently in English, who am I to tell.
  - mchaver 6y ago
    > All the semitic languages omit vowels (although there are some mater lectionis). I think it is just most. Maltese uses the Latin alphabet. Amharic and Tigrinya use Ge'ez which encodes vowel information. Also Arabizi, Arabic in Latin alphabet, is popular for writing local variations of Arabic.
- samatman 6y ago
  The term "abjad" was introduced in 1990. Phoenician is the ancestor of all alphabets, and does, in fact, begin "alef bet". Whether you consider abjads a type of alphabet or a completely different thing is a matter of taste, but the genealogy is quite clear.
  - jhgb 6y ago
    And the term "big bang" was introduced in the 20th century. Does that mean that that thing that happened thirteen billion years ago was not a big bang? At least where I live, the term "alfabeta" refers very specifically to the Greek script, since that's where it comes from.
loftso 6y ago
How is Arabic traced back to Phoenician when it looks much more like Hieratic[1]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieratic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieratic

by rsj_hn 6y ago

eternalban 6y ago

Darius the Great (Darayavush) actually commissioned the invention of a cuneiform script for inscribing imperial monuments in Old Persian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Persian_cuneiform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Persian_cuneiform The Achaemenids kings (Ha-Khaa-Manesh in Persian) were however eminently practical as far as imperial governance was concerned, and as you noted, continued the use of Aramaic, but never in monuments. Sogdians were an Iranian people, so it's likely that Aramaic script made its way into Mongolia via the vector of Persian empire's penetration of Transoxiana and subsequently the Sogdians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogdia#Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogdia#Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugut_inscription https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugut_inscription

MichaelMoser123 6y ago

also Aramaic was the main language of the Roman province of Judea some 2021 years ago.

rsj_hn 6y ago
Aramaic was the common language of every place east of the Hellespont, including Palestine, and many (not all) jews in Israel had forgotten Hebrew and long ago adopted the Aramaic script even when they did write Hebrew. And from Babylon they adopted the Babylonian Calendar and names for some of the months. That was the subtext of the book of Jubilees, bemoaning how jews had forgotten the proper times and corrupted their calendars with foreign dating systems. That was an amazing and very crazy period if you were a jew trying to hold onto your tradition, because there was a massive Hellenizing push in the wake of Alexander's conquests, and gymnasiums were springing up all over, there was a concerted effort to promote Hellenization as the new "international" culture of global trade and enlightenment, and many jews were even getting surgeries done to undo circumcision as they tried to fit into this new internationalist world. Many were learning and embracing Greek philosophy and the Greek approach to science, as well as the greek language and culture. That created lots of culture wars as traditional factions fought the (pro-Greek) liberalizing factions, leading to revolts, massacres, and significant turmoil in the whole region. The Maccabean revolt can be viewed as an example of traditional counterattack against Hellenizing influences, as can the subsequent revolts against Rome. It's truly a fascinating time period. But remember that even though all those traditionalist revolts ended in disaster, it is in fact the traditional societies that survive to this day, whereas the Greek and Roman empires have long vanished.
- MichaelMoser123 6y ago
  The Babylonian Talmud is written in Aramaic, so it is not quite correct to equate Aramic with helenizing influence; also it would rather have been a neobabylonian/sasanian influence. Also all of the elite of Judae came back from babylonian captivity, and part of the Book of Ezra is written in Aramaic, just for a start.
- Koshkin 6y ago
  > adopted the Aramaic script even when they did write Hebrew Indeed, what we think of as the Hebrew alphabet is actually Aramaic (and Aramaic the language is now written using Syriac instead).

jhgb 6y ago

>Phoenician is the main branch, often called the original alphabet That would be Greek, since the Phoenician script is an abjad.

rsj_hn 6y ago
All the semitic languages omit vowels (although there are some mater lectionis). The vowel requirement is not required for alphabets, particularly in languages where vowels play a somewhat ambiguous role in the language itself. Even in modern Hebrew, the nikkud pointing system is only used for the Bible, if you read a newspaper or novel, you aint getting any vowels (again, excluding mater lectionis)
- jhgb 6y ago
  I'm aware of these things, except for the claim that "vowels are not required for alphabets", since capturing vowels has always been the distinguishing feature of alphabets compared to earlier scripts. Or perhaps maybe it works differently in English, who am I to tell.
- mchaver 6y ago
  > All the semitic languages omit vowels (although there are some mater lectionis). I think it is just most. Maltese uses the Latin alphabet. Amharic and Tigrinya use Ge'ez which encodes vowel information. Also Arabizi, Arabic in Latin alphabet, is popular for writing local variations of Arabic.
samatman 6y ago
The term "abjad" was introduced in 1990. Phoenician is the ancestor of all alphabets, and does, in fact, begin "alef bet". Whether you consider abjads a type of alphabet or a completely different thing is a matter of taste, but the genealogy is quite clear.
- jhgb 6y ago
  And the term "big bang" was introduced in the 20th century. Does that mean that that thing that happened thirteen billion years ago was not a big bang? At least where I live, the term "alfabeta" refers very specifically to the Greek script, since that's where it comes from.

loftso 6y ago

How is Arabic traced back to Phoenician when it looks much more like Hieratic[1]? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieratic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieratic