North Semitic alphabet

North Semitic alphabet, the earliest fully developed alphabetic writing system. It was used in Syria as early as the 11th century bc and is probably ancestral, either directly or indirectly, to all subsequent alphabetic scripts, with the possible exception of those scripts classified as South Semitic (e.g., Ethiopic, Sabaean). Apparently related to the earlier writing systems seen in the Canaanite and Sinaitic inscriptions, North Semitic gave rise to the Phoenician and Aramaic alphabets, which, in...