Thursday, January 04, 2007
Nations (Language-Mediterranean 2/2)
“… they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there. … and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there. Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. … Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. … So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, and Lot went with him. … Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom.” (Genesis 12, 13 NIV)
As seen by the travels of Abram, the Middle Eastern community intermingled during antiquity. This interaction can also be seen in the written languages. As noted in an earlier post, hieroglyphics were used in Egypt. However, alongside hieroglyphics is hieratic. Various ideas exist on when hieratic developed; however, most scholars believe it developed alongside hieroglyphics. Hieratic is designed for quick writing on papyrus with ink. A comparison of the two writing styles can be seen here:
http://home.prcn.org/sfryer/Hieratic/
It is believed that this hieratic writing style influenced those living in Canaan. The Proto-Canaanite alphabet can be seen below. This alphabet would be improved and is now referred to as the Phoenician alphabet. Like Egyptian writing, there were no vowels in the alphabet. As people moved like Abram, various writing styles were borrowed, improved, or altered. Secular historians believe the Phoenician alphabet had a large influence on Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and Arabic. No doubt a strong resemblance can be seen in the diagram below.
The Phoenicians are known for their trade by sea. More of likely, they not only exported purple dye (where we might get the word Canaan) but also their alphabet. By trade and general interaction, we can see how the Greeks adopted this new style. Prior to this time, the predecessors to Greece, Minoan and Mycenaean, used a written language we call Linear A and B, respectively. This ancient language is still not completely deciphered.
Before leaving the language of this region, some interesting points need to be addressed. What language did Moses write in? Secular historians, with many Biblical historians, believe that Hebrew did not fully develop into a written language as we know it today until 1000 BC. This is more than 400 years after Moses. Could Moses have written in hieratic or some Proto-Canaanite language? Dr. Unger writes: "The original Scriptures of the Hebrews were inscribed in this same Canaanite-Phoenician alphabet, which had reached a fairly stable form before the Conquest, but which continued to undergo certain changes in style and writing in the course of the centuries. Eventually in the post-exilic period the Holy Scriptures were put into the antique Aramaic alphabet. When that alphabet assumed the square form, the Hebrew Bible found itself with the style of letter already characteristic of the second century BC Isaiah manuscript of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in Palestine in 1947." [ref] I am still thinking on this one.
Until then, let’s move east to a country that appears to be excluded from the interaction of this cradle of civilization yet shows some interesting common traits.
REF: Unger, Merrill F. Archaeology and the Old Testament. Zondervan: Michigan; 1954.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet
As seen by the travels of Abram, the Middle Eastern community intermingled during antiquity. This interaction can also be seen in the written languages. As noted in an earlier post, hieroglyphics were used in Egypt. However, alongside hieroglyphics is hieratic. Various ideas exist on when hieratic developed; however, most scholars believe it developed alongside hieroglyphics. Hieratic is designed for quick writing on papyrus with ink. A comparison of the two writing styles can be seen here:
http://home.prcn.org/sfryer/Hieratic/
It is believed that this hieratic writing style influenced those living in Canaan. The Proto-Canaanite alphabet can be seen below. This alphabet would be improved and is now referred to as the Phoenician alphabet. Like Egyptian writing, there were no vowels in the alphabet. As people moved like Abram, various writing styles were borrowed, improved, or altered. Secular historians believe the Phoenician alphabet had a large influence on Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and Arabic. No doubt a strong resemblance can be seen in the diagram below.
The Phoenicians are known for their trade by sea. More of likely, they not only exported purple dye (where we might get the word Canaan) but also their alphabet. By trade and general interaction, we can see how the Greeks adopted this new style. Prior to this time, the predecessors to Greece, Minoan and Mycenaean, used a written language we call Linear A and B, respectively. This ancient language is still not completely deciphered.
Before leaving the language of this region, some interesting points need to be addressed. What language did Moses write in? Secular historians, with many Biblical historians, believe that Hebrew did not fully develop into a written language as we know it today until 1000 BC. This is more than 400 years after Moses. Could Moses have written in hieratic or some Proto-Canaanite language? Dr. Unger writes: "The original Scriptures of the Hebrews were inscribed in this same Canaanite-Phoenician alphabet, which had reached a fairly stable form before the Conquest, but which continued to undergo certain changes in style and writing in the course of the centuries. Eventually in the post-exilic period the Holy Scriptures were put into the antique Aramaic alphabet. When that alphabet assumed the square form, the Hebrew Bible found itself with the style of letter already characteristic of the second century BC Isaiah manuscript of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in Palestine in 1947." [ref] I am still thinking on this one.
Until then, let’s move east to a country that appears to be excluded from the interaction of this cradle of civilization yet shows some interesting common traits.
REF: Unger, Merrill F. Archaeology and the Old Testament. Zondervan: Michigan; 1954.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenician_alphabet
# posted by Wesley Son of Cornelius @ 5:27 PM 
