4、压码看电影学习法系列贴：（多语言入门）字母表汇总

Venetic

Quick Facts Type C&V Alphabetic Genealogy Proto-Sinaitic > greek Location Europe Time 700 BCE to 100 BCE Direction Left to Right The Venetics were a people that inhabited the northern coast of the Adriatic Sea during the Iron Age, roughly from 1000 BCE until domination by the Roman Empire. Known as Veneti to the Romans and Enetoi to the Greeks, they gave their name to the region of Veneto and also to the city of Venice (even though at this time Venice was still a swampy lagoon). They left over two hundred inscriptions in their distinctive script, which is very obviously related to the Etruscan script and ultimately derived from the Greek model. The Venetic script might even be the source of Futhark. The following is the Venetic alphabet. Some of the letters have multiple forms that correspond to regional differences. Also, note that the sound [f] is represented by a combination two letters, either hv, or vh, which is a trait found also in Etruscan and early Latin. Venetic was usually written from right to left, but it could also be written from left to right. In the previous chart, the shapes of the letters imply a right-to-left writing direction. When writing from left to right, the "mirror images" of the letters in the chart would be used. And in some cases, writing direction was boustrophedon, meaning that the direction switched between right-to-left and left-to-right on every alternate line of text. The Venetic language is undoubtly Indo-European, but efforts have so far proven unsuccessful to place it into any of the established branches of Indo-European. Theories for placement within Italic, Germanic, Illyrian, Slavic, or its own independent branch have been postulated and argued, but there is no strong evidence to point one way or another. Part of this problem stems from a corpus of short inscriptions, which means that extensive comparison of vocabulary and syntax with other languages becomes very difficult. (Note: Do not confuse the Venetics with the Veneti, a Slavic tribe who inhabited regions north of the Danube river, between Poland and Ukraine.) The Venetics were absorbed by the Roman Empire, and the Venetic script ceased to be used by the 1st century BCE. Related Links Ancient North Italic Inscriptions. Archaic Italy: Introduction. Venetic Language. Venetic.

Types of Writing Systems


Writing systems can be conveniently classified into broad "types" depending on the way they represent their underlying languages.
Logographic
A system of this kind uses a tremendous number of signs, each to represent a morpheme. A morpheme is the minimal unit in a language that carries some meaning. So, a logogram, a sign in a logographic system, may represent a word, or part of a word (like a suffix to denote a plural noun). Because of this, the number of signs could grow to staggering numbers like Chinese which has more than 10,000 signs (most of them unused in everyday usage).
ChineseJurchenKhitanMixtecNaxiNushuTangutLogophonetic
This is somewhat like a stripped down versions of logographic systems. In essence, there are two major types of signs, ones denoting morphemes and ones denoting sounds. Most of the logophonetic systems are logosyllabic, meaning that their phonetic signs mostly denote syllables. An exception is Egyptian, whose phonetic signs denote consonants.
AkkadianAztecCuneiformEgyptianElamiteEpi-OlmecHittiteIndus ScriptJapaneseLinear ALinear BLuwianMayaSumerianZapotecSyllabic
In a syllabic writing system, the overwhelming number of signs are used solely for their phonetic values. These phonetic signs are Syllabograms, meaning that they represent syllables rather than individual sound. A few non-phonetic are used for numbers, punctuation, and commonly used words.
BengaliBrahmiBugineseBurmeseByblosCherokeeCypriotDevanagariEthiopicGranthaGujaratiGuptaGurmukhihPhags-paJavaneseKadambaKalingaKannadaKashmiriKawiKharosthiKhmerLandaLepchaMalayalamMangyanMeithei MayekMeroïticModiNagariOld PersianOld KannadaOriyaRejangSaradaSouth Asian Writing SystemsSouth Asian Writing Systems ComparisonSinhalaTagalogTakriTamilTeluguThaiTibetanTocharianConsonantal Alphabet or Abjad
Consonantal alphabets are also known as abjads, and are all descendents of the Proto-Sinaitic script. In a "pure" consonantal alphabet, vowels are not written. However, nearly consonantal alphabets use certain conventions to
ArabicAramaicAvestanBerber & TifinaghHebrewNabataeanOld HebrewPahlaviPhoenicianProto-SinaiticSamaritanSyriacSouth ArabianThamudicTifinaghUgariticSyllabic Alphabet or Abugida
South Asian scripts such as Brahmi and its descendents fit into both syllabary and alphabet. It is syllabic because the basic sign contains a consonant and a vowel. However, every sign has the same vowel, such as /a/ in Brahmi. To make syllables with a different vowel, you add special markings to the basic sign, which is somewhat like an alphabet. Hence the name "syllabic alphabet".
BengaliBrahmiBugineseBurmeseDevanagariGranthaGujaratiGuptaGurmukhihPhags-paJavaneseKadambaKalingaKannadaKashmiriKawiKharosthiKhmerLandaLepchaMalayalamMangyanMeithei MayekModiNagariOld KannadaOriyaRejangSaradaSouth Asian Writing SystemsSouth Asian Writing Systems ComparisonSinhalaTagalogTakriTamilTeluguThaiTibetanTocharianSegmental Alphabet
Nearly all the sounds in a language can be represented by an appropriate consonant and vowel alphabet. However, just take a look at English spelling and you can almost feel we"re back to logographic systems :) !
ArmenianCopticCyrillicEtruscanFaliscanFutharkGeorgianGlagoliticGothicGreekKoreanLatinLydianOghamOscanUmbrianVenetic

Regions

West Asia Africa Europe South Asia Central Asia East Asia Southeast Asia Americas West Asia Akkadian Alphabet Arabic Aramaic Armenian Avestan Byblos Carian Cuneiform Elamite Georgian Hebrew Hittite Luwian Lycian Lydian Mandaic Nabataean Old Persian Old Hebrew Pahlavi Phoenician Proto-Sinaitic Samaritan Sumerian Syriac South Arabian Thamudic Ugaritic Africa Berber & Tifinagh Coptic Egyptian Ethiopic Meroïtic Europe Cypriot Cyrillic Etruscan Faliscan Futhark Glagolitic Gothic Greek Iberian Scripts Latin Linear A Linear B Ogham Oscan Phaistos Disc Umbrian Venetic South Asia Bengali Brahmi Devanagari Grantha Gujarati Gupta Gurmukhi Indus Script Kadamba Kalinga Kannada Kashmiri Kharosthi Landa Lepcha Malayalam Meithei Mayek Modi Nagari Old Kannada Oriya Sarada South Asian Writing Systems South Asian Writing Systems Comparison Sinhala Takri Tamil Telugu Central Asia Mongolian Sogdian Tibetan Tocharian Turkic Runes Uighur East Asia Chinese hPhags-pa Japanese Jurchen Khitan Korean Naxi Nushu Yi Scripts Southeast Asia Buginese Burmese Javanese Kawi Khmer Mangyan Rejang Tagalog Thai Americas Aztec Cherokee Epi-Olmec Maya Mesoamerican Writing Systems Mixtec Zapotec

Alphabet

Quick Facts Type Alphabetic Genealogy Proto-Sinaitic Location West Asia, Europe Time 1800 BCE to Present Direction Variable Contents: Introduction | Family tree of alphabets | Proto-Sinaitic | South-Arabian | Ugaritic and Letter Order | Phoenician | Aramaic | Greek and Latin branch Proto-Sinaitic South Arabian Family Ugaritic and Letter Order Phoenician Aramaic Greek and Latin branch Believe it or not, the set of characters displayed before your eyes, the so-called Roman Alphabet, was the result of nearly 4000 years of transformation. While we can claim that it was ultimately the cuneiform script which in one way or another caused the appearance of writing systems around the Mediterranean, in the Middle East and in India, we choose a particular script, the Proto-Sinaitic, as the first recognizable form of the alphabet for reasons that will become evident later on. Also, notice that while we are most familiar with the Roman and Greek alphabets, there are many other alphabets and even "syllabaries" that belong in the same family of scripts. Therefore, I'll try to incorporate as much of these lesser known scripts as possible into this page. About 3700 years ago, West Semitic-speaking people of the Sinai became workers or slaves under the sway of Egyptian rule. The Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols these Semitic speakers saw made an impression on them, and encouraged the adoption of a limited number of hieroglyphics to write down sounds in their language. Because phonetic Egyptian hieroglyphs only recorded the consonants, and not the vowels, the Sinaitic script also adopted this convention. On the other hand, unlike hieroglyphs which had multi-consonant signs, the Sinaitic script only used single consonants letters. The result is a strange system whose symbols were very similar to Egyptian hieroglyphs, but recorded a language related to Phoenician and Hebrew. The result was the Proto-Sinaitic, also known as Proto-Sinaitic. What made this the beginning of the alphabet, and not Egyptian hieroglyphs themselves? The result is simple as the Greek letter's name alpha. The word alpha in Greek does not mean anything at all, but in the original West Semitic form 'aleph it carried the meaning of "ox". In fact, it is not too hard to invert the letter A and imagine it as the head of an ox. An ox-head is exactly the Egyptian hieroglyph Proto-Sinaitic adopted to represent the sound /'/ (glottal stop) as in 'aleph. However, the Proto-Sinaitics did not adopt the sound of the hieroglyphic. The "ox" sign did not represent the glottal stop /'/ in Egyptian. Instead, they chose the shape of the glyph (an ox) and give it the value of /'/ which is the first sound in 'aleph. This is called the acrophonic principle in case you're not familiar with linguistics. Similarly, beth, which meant "house" and was written with sign of a house, was used to write the sound /b/. Another good example is the sound /m/, represented by the symbol of water and called mem or "water" in West Semitic. One can still visualize water's rippling in the letter M. Click here for a comparison of Proto-Sinaitic, Phoenician, and Greek letters. At around 1300 BC, a branch of the evolving Proto-Sinaitic broke off and spread into the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula. This Proto-Arabian script eventually evolved by the 5th century BC into the highly elegant South Arabian script. The South Arabian script went out of fashion as Islam increased the popularity of the Arabic alphabet. However, before its complete disappearance it diffused across the Red Sea and into Ethiopia, where it became the predominant script, Ethiopic, which remains in use even today. The difference between Ethiopian and South Arabian is that Ethiopian writes vowels by adding ligatures to simple consonants, while South Arabian left the vowels out completely. There is one remarkable difference between the South Arabian tradition and West Semitic: the letter ordering. The South Arabian alphabet has the order h, l, h, m, etc..., while West Semitic has the order ', b, g, d, etc. No one is sure why those particular sequences of letters were used. Maybe it is some mnemonic device that we no longer understand. We know for sure that by the 1300 BC or so these orders have already arisen. The evidence, though, is from a most unlikely source. The earliest example of an abecedary (a list of the letters in an alphabet in the some kind of order) was found in the city of Ugarit. This abecedary shows a total of 30 symbols used in the Ugaritic script. However, instead of being written in some kind of linear West Semitic, Proto-Sinaitic-derived form, the clay tablet that recorded this abecedary was written in some kind of cuneiform. While the letters in this script were made up of wedges and strokes, the forms of the characters were unrelated to any other cuneiform like Sumerian or Akkadian. There is some similarity, though, between the Ugaritic signs and linear West Semitic letters. To take a look at this cuneiform alphabet, you can go to my Ugaritic page. Whether the Ugaritic influenced the letter ordering of later West Semitic scripts, or vice-versa, is still a question to be answered. The Phoenician alphabet evolved from the more "naturalistic" sytle of Proto-Sinaitic into a more linear form during the 12th century BC or so. Most of the alphabets used today are descended from Phoenician. The immediate offspring of Phoenician were the old Hebrew alphabet, and Aramaic, as well as Archaic Greek according to tradition (we'll explore Archaic Greek later). The Hebrew alphabet was also used by Moabites as well as Israelites. This alphabet, though, eventually disappeared from the mainstream, and survived as the Samaritan script. Aramaic, on the other hand, became extremely popular, and many people adopted it. You can get more information at the Phoenician page. Originally Aramaic was spoken (and written) only in the region whose modern name is Syria. However, during the late Assyrian empire, and subsequently during the Babylonian and Persian empires, Aramaic became an international language, written and spoken in Anatolia, the Levantine coast, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Persia. It was quickly adopted by many local groups. In Israel, it became the "Jewish" alphabet, the direct descendant of which is the modern Hebrew alphabet. It also became much more cursive as time goes on, such as the Nabatean alphabet, which eventually became Arabic. For more information, you can go to the Aramaic page. Traditionally the Greeks held that their alphabet was derived from the Phoenician alphabet, and many scholars agree with this as well. A quick look at the signs show the similarity between the two systems. However, the Greeks modified the set of signs they had received to suit the sounds in their language. They also changed some letters to systematically represent vowels. The earliest Greek inscriptions actually recorded several slightly different scripts. Some seek to explain this diversity by separate instances of borrowing from Phoenician. However, the similarities between the different variants are extremely overwhelming, and imply the presence of a very early Greek script that later developed into the local variants. This theory is much more widely accepted than the multiple borrowing theory. This confusion regarding the earliest Greek is due to the fact that no archaeological remains of this script have been found thus far. The earliest examples only date from the 8th century BCE, when different scripts are already in evidence. Many scholars place the time of the Greeks' adoption of the alphabet from the Phoenicians sometimes between 1200 BCE and 900 BCE. The older date would give a longer time for the proto-Greek alphabet to develop into its local forms, but there are no archaeological remains of any writing from this period. The later date would satisfy the lack of evidence, but gives less time for the script to diverge. Maybe something in the middle in a good compromise? For information about the early Greek alphabet, please visit the Greek page. It was the Euboean variant of the Greek alphabet that was transmitted to the Etruscans, and so on to Latin and most of the Western world. The Euboean script has, among its letters, the letter F, which actually stood for a [w] sound, and X which sounded like [ks], not an aspirated velar [kh] like in Ionian. For more information on Italic scripts, you can visit Etruscan, Oscan, and Latin pages. Futhark and Ogham are both alphabetic systems used in Northern Europe before being replaced by the Latin alphabet. Their relations to the rest of alphabetical systems and to each other are still cloudy. Futhark might have come from some Northern Italic script such as Venetic. Ogham is even a bigger mystery. Some say it is a cryptic form of Futhark, while others hold that it is native to Ireland and Wales. As for Greek itself, all but one of the variant scripts were replaced by the Ionian, which is what you see on Classic inscriptions, as well as modern texts. The Greek system also gave rise to two scripts used by Slavic speaking people, namely Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabets.

Carian

Quick Facts Type C&V Alphabet Genealogy Proto-Sinaitic Location West Asia > Anatolia Time 800 BCE to 300 BCE Direction Left to Right The Carian script was one of the many Greek-derived scripts of Anatolia of the first millenium BCE. It was used to write the Carian language, which was belonged to the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European family, and was related to Hittite, Luwian, Lycian, and Lydian. Unlike other Anatolian scripts that are relatively well-understood, Carian remained fairly obscure as not all letters have been deciphered and given phonetic value. This is mostly due to the fact that while many letters outwardly appear similar to their Greek counterparts, they are in fact quite different. There is a total of 45 letters, but only slightly more than half of the signs have reasonably well-established readings as listed in the following table. Some of the undeciphered or unsecurely deciphered letters are: One interest note about Carian is that a substantial amount of texts was found in Egypt. Apparently during the reign of either the pharaoh Psammetichus I or II, many Carians were employed as mercernaries for the Egyptian military and left Carian inscriptions at places such as Thebes, Abu Simbel, and Saqqara. Many of these inscriptions mention Egyptian personal and geographical names, and likewise many Egyptian hieroglyphs contain Carian names. Comparison of these texts have led to advances in the decipherment of Carian. However, the script remains large deciphered and much work will still need to be done in the future.

Lycian

Quick Facts Type C&V Alphabetian Genealogy Proto-Sinaitic Location West Asia > Anatolia Time 800 BCE to 300 BCE Direction Left to Right The Lycian people inhabited the southwestern coastal part of ancient Anatolia, first mentioned in records of the Hittite Empire as Lukka. After the fall of the Hittite Empire, they emerged into historical records as a separate nation in the 8th century BCE. The language of the Lycians belonged to the Anatolian branch of Indo-European, and was related to Lydian, Carian, Phrygian, Hittite, and most closely to Luwian. In fact, it is so closely related Luwian that it is very likely that the Lycian language evolved from Luwian. The Lycians adopted an early form of the Greek alphabet to write their language. However, the Lycian language had sounds that were not in Greek, and thus the Greek alphabet was insufficient to fully reproduce the Lycian language. As such, additional letters were introduced to represent these sounds. The origin of these letters are in some debate, some scholars proposing a Cypriot origin while others positing borrowings from Carian. The following is the Lycian script. The red text above represent the transliteration of the Lycian letters. Note that ã and ẽ are nasalized vowels, meaning that the vowels are pronounced with a resonance in the sinus cavity. More interestingly, m̃ and ñ appear to be syllabic nasals, or nasal consonants (such as [m] and [n]) that function as vowels. By the 3rd century BCE the Hellenistic world created by Alexander the Great's empire assimilated many of the nations in its domain, and the Lycians replaced their own culture with the Hellenistic culture, and their language with Greek. Hence, the Lycian script ceased to be used at the close of the 3rd century BCE.

Mandaic

Quick Facts Type Alphabetic Genealogy Proto-Sinaitic Location West Asia Time 7th century CE to Present Direction Right to Left The Mandaic script was used by members of the the Mandaean religion to write their local variety of the Aramaic language. It developed from the common Aramaic script into its own distinctive form around the 7th century CE and thrived in what is now southern Iraq and southwestern Iran near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. It is still used in the present day to write the Mandaic language both for liturgical rites and, to a much lesser extent, everyday speech. The following table is the basic Mandaic alphabet. Note: the text in blue is the name of the letter, where as the text in red is the traditional transliteration of the letter. Of particular interest is that the letters , , , and originated from Aramaic consonant letters that were also used to represent vowels only in limited situations, but in Mandaic they have fully evolved into exclusively vowel letters. The letter (ʼaleph in Aramaic) comes to represent [a], (Aramaic waw) represents [o], , and [w], and (Aramaic yod) represents [e], , and [y]. The letter represents [e] when it is at the beginning of a word, but it could also be used as a placeholder for or at the beginning of a word when combined with or , respectively. Also, note that two of the letters are actually morphemes. The letter actually represents the relative particle di- (like 'which', 'who', etc), and is exclusively used to denote the third person singular suffix. Persecution of Mandaeans intensified drastically after the Iraq War of 2003, causing a large number to leave the country. With the breakup of the community, the survival of the Mandaean culture and Mandaic language is in great peril. Only time will tell if they will survive this ordeal.

Iberian Scripts

Quick Facts Type Alphabetic Genealogy Proto-Sinaitic Location Europe Time 4th Century BCE to 1st Century CE Direction Left to Right The Iberian peninsula " As its name implies, the Iberian scripts were found mainly in Spain and Portugal, although some are found in southern France as well The Iberian family of scripts is consisted of two "styles", called Northeast and South. Structurally they are more or less the same, and the major difference between them is (a) geographical location, and (b) shape of the characters. Both Iberian scripts contain monophonemic (that is, only one sound, sort of like alphabetic) signs as well as syllabic ones.

Phaistos Disc

Quick Facts Type Unknown Genealogy Unknown Location Europe > Greece Time 1200 BCE Direction Left to Right The Phaistos Disc is an enigma, an circular clay disc covered with inscribed symbols on both sides that are unlike any signs in any writing system. It was discovered in the ancient city of Phaistos in Southern Crete in 1908. It is thought to date to around 1700 BC (from associated archaelogical context), roughly contemporary with . This object has been subject of many studies. Steven Fischer has claimed to have deciphered it and that it was a document in an archaic form of Greek. Because no other similar artifacts have ever been found anywhere in the Crete, it is thought that the object was foreign and brought in from another place. The place of its origin is extremely speculative, although subtle clues may exist in the highly pictorial signs on the disc. A sign depicts a helmet with crest, which was used later by Philistines. Another sign depict a structure similar to sarcophagus used by the Lycians of Asia Minor. Because there is essentially no variation between different copies of the same symbol, it is very likely that stamps where used to create these highly detailed signs. While not really a printed work, some has labeled the Phaistos Disc the earliest typewritten work. The Arkalochori Recently, there is a new theory stating that the Phaistos disk is a modern hoax. Related Links Phaistos. Archaelogical Museum of Iraklion.

Mongolian

Quick Facts Type C&V Alphabet Genealogy Aramaic Location Central Asia Time 12th Century CE to Present Direction Top to Bottom The Mongolian people became one of the most powerful ethnic groups in history when their leader Genghis Khan carved a gigantic empire that stretched from Eastern Europe to Far East Asia. The Mongolians adopted the Uighur script around the 12th century CE, but initially it didn't fit the Mongolian language well. Spelling was ambiguous due to Uighur letters representing multiple sounds. And, as the language evolved, sounds of words changed, but the spelling remained fossilized, thus creating a difference between written and spoken language. Language reform during the 16th century CE alleviated this problem, and the resulting script is known as the Mongolian script, as shown below. The Mongolian script is written from top to bottom, and the columns go from left to right. In addition to the Mongolian script, the Mongolian language has been written in other scripts, including Chinese, hPhags-pa, Latin, and lastly Cyrillic starting at 1937. However, with the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the waning of Russian influence in Mongolia, the Mongolian script has made an official, government-decreed return.