Posted on 01/17/2011 6:27:27 PM PST by SunkenCiv
I would make the startling suggestion that the alphabet was invented by a single human being, who created this remarkable technology to record the Greek hexameters of the poet we call Homer.
Certainly everyone agrees that the invention of the alphabet made possible the development of philosophy, science and democracy, some of the finest achievements in the history of human culture. But who invented the alphabet? Was it really the Semitic-speaking Phoenicians, as many of us learned in grammar school? Or was it actually the Greeks, to whom the Phoenicians supposedly passed it?
I don't believe the Phoenicians actually had an alphabet. The alphabet was a Greek invention. I would even make the startling suggestion that the alphabet was invented by a single human being, who created this remarkable technology to record the Greek hexameters of the poet we call Homer...
For convenience, I call this supreme inventor of the Greek alphabet the Adapter. The Adapter chose five signs from the West Semitic syllabary to use as vowel sounds, as reflected in every early Greek alphabetic inscription. Both the number of signs (five) and the particular signs chosen are arbitrary. Ancient Greek has many more than five vowel sounds; indeed, in later Greek inscriptions, seven vowel signs are employed, and there could have been more.
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[Re: Robert Graves] “Thanks for letting me know. He was a brilliant mind, great writer.”
I liked “I, Claudius” etc a lot. I tried “The White Goddess” back in, I think, high school and a lot of it went over my head. Maybe I’ll have to try it again sometime now that I’m in my dotage.
One needs a ton of background to get WG - it’s by mere coincidence that I was brought up by parents who taught mythology, history, etc.
so it was not hard for me. I re-read it every few years.
“The Greeks built the ‘idea shelf’ as I like to call it.”
I’ve often had that thought about Genesis, regarding philosophy. And Samuel has a brilliant discourse on politics and tyranny—might as well have been written by the founding fathers or by the Greeks struggling to define what is a democracy.
:’) That was outstanding!
Actually, the interest I expressed was not in this site although I appreciate your sharing your research and study with me. I was referring to something I saw years ago in National Geographic about a village mound in either Bulgaria or Romania, a part of a Danube complex of neolithic settlements. This is far to the east of the culture you reference which is east of the Black Sea in Turkey, although there seem to be some similarities.
My bad, I should have said Bulgaria/Romania far to the WEST.
Next thing up ~ Indo-Europeans are not as ancient as the earliest “sites” in Bulgaria and Ukraine.
http://geology.com/articles/petroglyphs/more-petroglyphs.shtml All about petroglyphs and petrographs ~ all over the world. Some of this stuff is many thousands of years old. Some of it is fairly recent. All of it arises out of the use of a human form as a primary character ~ and the people are always doing something. In short, communication is part of our nature. The site gives you access to many other websites showing tens of thousands of carvings.
The concept that ideas are eternal and truth is universal, is a necessary consequence. Nothing new under the sun.
“The concept that ideas are eternal and truth is universal, is a necessary consequence. Nothing new under the sun.”
Rarely do I cite Genesis, Samuel, and Elvis Costello in the same thread. But here goes: “there’s no such thing as an original sin.”
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