[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote at 10:56 AM on Tuesday, May 4, 2004: >Peter Constable scripsit: > >> 2) the characters in question are structurally / behaviourally very >> similar to square Hebrew characters, but not to the characters of other >> scripts > >Not just very similar: structurally, behaviorally, and even phonemically >identical.
Not phonemically - for example, Hebrew retains the Sin/Shin Proto-Semitic distinction, while Phoenician does not. In fact, the phonemic evidence is one of the stronger arguments supporting the claim that the Aramaean, Hebrews, at al. borrowed the alphabet from the Phoenicians, and not the other way around. >> ... is it enough to refer to square Hebrew as "the modern form" of >> Phoenician (Old Canaanite, whatever you want to call it)? Square Hebrew is a descendant of Imperial Aramaic, which like Old Hebrew and Old Aramaic, are descendants of Phoenician/Canaanite. Here's one way of looking at it. Prior to the Babylonian exile, the Hebrew national script, Old Hebrew (a direct descendant of Phoenician/ Canaanite) enjoyed a rather conservative development. Meanwhile, during the same period of time, Old Aramaic (also, like Old Hebrew, a direct descendant of Phoenician/Canaanite) underwent much greater changes. During and after the Babylonian exile, Jewish writers and speakers "synced up" with the then developing lingua franca in the region, Aramaic, and adopted both the script and the language, which by that time had evolved independently, and more extensively from its Canaanite roots than Hebrew had. Respectfully, Dean A. Snyder Assistant Research Scholar Manager, Digital Hammurabi Project Computer Science Department Whiting School of Engineering 218C New Engineering Building 3400 North Charles Street Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, Maryland, USA 21218 office: 410 516-6850 cell: 717 817-4897 www.jhu.edu/digitalhammurabi