Proto-Sinaitic
OriginEgypt/Levant
Earliest1800 BC
TypeAlphabet
About Proto-Sinaitic
The earliest known alphabetic writing, scratched by Semitic workers in Egyptian turquoise mines. Borrowed Egyptian signs on the acrophonic principle, so the sign for house, bet, stood for the sound b. About 30 inscriptions survive. The ancestor of Phoenician and thus nearly every alphabet in use today. Decipherment of several inscriptions remains debated.
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