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> Cuneiform and hieroglyphics use symbols denoting both sounds and logograms. But Desset argues that Linear Elamite takes an approach more like the modern alpha
by shadowofneptune 4y ago
> Cuneiform and hieroglyphics use symbols denoting both sounds and logograms. But Desset argues that Linear Elamite takes an approach more like the modern alphabet. He concludes that the script draws solely on syllables, making it the oldest known writing system to do so. “If the recent decipherment is in all details correct,” notes Krebernik, “the system would indeed be innovative, and similar to the later creation of the alphabet.” The first fully formed, phonetic alphabet is thought to have come into use among Phoenician traders around 1100 B.C.E.
The article exaggerates how unique a syllabary is. The writing system of Akkad and Babylon was almost entirely syllabic, and grew in parallel with Sumerian:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_language
- DonaldFisk 4y agoThe Phoenicians alphabet (actually an abjad) lacked vowels. Vowels were first added in Greek.
- edgyquant 4y agoAs does Hebrew, which is why we don’t technically know how YHWH is pronounced
- ncmncm 4y agoYeah, syllabaries are absolutely the norm, and usual end state for a script, from Japan to Ireland. The Greek innovation of splitting syllables into diphthongs was revolutionary. Still, one syllabary had to be first. Logograms evaporate when you want to write foreign names and words.
- biorach 4y ago> syllabaries are absolutely the norm, and usual end state for a script This is entirely unsupported by evidence. There are a varieties of approaches to writing systems around the world - syllabaries are only one. > Japan to Ireland Japan, yes. Ireland, no - there is no record of a syllabary in use there.
- ncmncm 4y agoWell, OK. The world is anyway lousy with syllabaries and abjads, many of which started life as logograms. And, it is attractive to think there was a first, although it is easy to imagine a pair of neighboring scripts both evolving to syllabaries simultaneously.
- singularity2001 4y ago"The writing system of Akkad and Babylon was almost entirely syllabic" No, they had a relatively standardized syllabary embedded in hundreds of other signs which were used throughout the centuries. Only in contexts outside of Akkadia (Hittite, late Elamite) were the reduced syllabaries used in almost pure form. Dessets argument is that Linear Elamite went through such a reduction first. It's like saying Egyptian was the first alphabet, whereas similarly to the situation above they had a relatively standardized abjad embedded in hundreds of other signs. It's a bit opposite to English where we have a standardized alphabet extended through myriads of special signs.