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Oldest alphabet identified as Hebrew
Science News ^ | November 19, 2016 | Bruce Bower

Posted on 11/21/2016 6:08:57 AM PST by C19fan

he world’s earliest alphabet, inscribed on stone slabs at several Egyptian sites, was an early form of Hebrew, a controversial new analysis concludes.

Israelites living in Egypt transformed that civilization’s hieroglyphics into Hebrew 1.0 more than 3,800 years ago, at a time when the Old Testament describes Jews living in Egypt, says archaeologist and epigrapher Douglas Petrovich of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. Hebrew speakers seeking a way to communicate in writing with other Egyptian Jews simplified the pharaohs’ complex hieroglyphic writing system into 22 alphabetic letters, Petrovich proposed on November 17 at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research.

(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: douglaspetrovich; epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs; hebrew; hebrewalphabet; hebrewlanguage; hieratic; language; protosinaitic; sinai
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Rather interesting according to this researcher Hebrew is based on Egyptian hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphics was mainly used for monumental and religious purposes not for everyday writing. For regular writing Classical Egyptians used the hieratic script.
1 posted on 11/21/2016 6:08:57 AM PST by C19fan
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To: C19fan

Precisely why Jews are better than Muslims; they’re smart, they’re winners, they don’t blow themselves up, and they actually invented things.


2 posted on 11/21/2016 6:12:07 AM PST by ErikJohnsky
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To: C19fan

Wait, wait!

Soon, a Koran will be found in a secret tomb, which predates that Hebrew writing.

Pay no attention to the fact that it is printed.

In a Microsoft script.


3 posted on 11/21/2016 6:20:48 AM PST by Da Coyote
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To: ErikJohnsky

I always thought there was at least SOMETHING that came from the arabs: Turkish towels. Then I learned that the Turks aren’t arabs. Of course, there is that arabic numerals idea. Oh well.


4 posted on 11/21/2016 6:21:15 AM PST by Tucker39 (Welcome to America! Now speak English; and keep to the right....In driving, in theolog and politics.)
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To: ErikJohnsky

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitos_War


5 posted on 11/21/2016 6:25:33 AM PST by SolidWood
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To: C19fan

Do Jews say how their alphabet started?


6 posted on 11/21/2016 6:26:59 AM PST by NetAddicted (Just looking)
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To: Tucker39
...Of course, there is that arabic numerals idea...

They actually came from India.

7 posted on 11/21/2016 6:32:12 AM PST by CurlyDave
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To: CurlyDave

Everything worth of positive mention about the so-called “Arabic/Islamic civilization”, whethr science, literature, arts or architecture, was originally Persian, Byzantine/Hellenistic or of more eastern origin transmitted through those late ancient Empires.

The thing medieval “Islamic civilization” could be credited with is conserving/transmitting parts of ancient knowledge (that was not destroyed by the esrly islsmic onslaught).
The Arab and Turkish element in science/art/culture was however minor. The smart ones were mostly Persians... creating a masdive inferiority complex among Arabs and Turks that is pervasive to this day.


8 posted on 11/21/2016 6:45:48 AM PST by SolidWood
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*pardon the typos. Fat fingers on small screen.


9 posted on 11/21/2016 6:47:04 AM PST by SolidWood
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To: Tucker39
Of course, there is that arabic numerals idea. Oh well.

Yeah. And doing long division with the hexadecimal number system is not so easy, either.

10 posted on 11/21/2016 6:51:18 AM PST by imardmd1 (Fiat Lux)
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To: Tucker39

Arabic numerals (and the concept of zero) were derived from a system invented by Hindus in India. Muslims did capture, translate, preserve, and carry back to Europe for retranslation from Arabic quite a lot of classical writings that were otherwise lost after the fall of the western Roman Empire. But besides some unique architectural styles and decorative arts they have invented almost nothing.


11 posted on 11/21/2016 6:51:57 AM PST by katana
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To: C19fan
First of all, hieroglyphs are a phonetic alphabet. Second, though modern Egyptians speak Arabic, Egyptians are not Arabs any more than Afro-British are English. Third, there is no archeological evidence that the Israelites were ever in Egypt.
12 posted on 11/21/2016 7:00:01 AM PST by SeeSharp
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To: C19fan
Rather interesting according to this researcher Hebrew is based on Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Jewish and Egyptian histories are deep and intertwined. They are natural allies. God willing, with Al Sisi and Bibi, the potential will at last be realized for the first time since Joseph and Pharaoh.

13 posted on 11/21/2016 7:06:51 AM PST by montag813
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To: SeeSharp

Interesting reading regarding archeological findings:

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a027.html


14 posted on 11/21/2016 7:11:04 AM PST by georgiegirl (Count me in the half that's in the Deplorable Basket)
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To: katana

Medievsl “Islamic” civilization was without doubt in many aspects by very advanced. Quotation marks because Islam itself had itself little to do with this. Arabs as an etnic/racial group invented very little.

(Forcibly islamized) medieval Persians contributed massively to science, thought and arts.
Famously Avicenna, al-Razi, al-Tusi, Farabi to name a few.

Witout Islam and the resulting disruptions these advances would have been made under a Zoroastrian, Christian or Manichean label.

Arabic as Islamic lingua franca however certainly helped the spread of knowledge.

But in the end the destruction of ancient Byzantine and Persian libraries by the Arab muslim invaders destroyed a great part of ancirnt knowledge. That is directly on the account of islam.


15 posted on 11/21/2016 7:17:16 AM PST by SolidWood
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To: C19fan

No Chinese writings?


16 posted on 11/21/2016 7:25:15 AM PST by ralphetta7
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To: NetAddicted

Volumes of stuff on the ‘net about the origins of the Hebrew letters. Much of it is pseudo-Jewish of course, but plenty of strictly traditional too.

See chabad.org, aish.com, torah.org, to start.

For example, each stroke of a pen that makes a Hebrew letter has its own meaning; a vertical line indicates connection between upper and lower worlds.

The traditional Jewish religious view is that God explained the very basic stroke (and vocal) symbol-building blocks and their meaning.


17 posted on 11/21/2016 7:29:03 AM PST by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: ralphetta7
No Chinese writings?

I don't think the Chinese pictograms qualify as an alphabet.
18 posted on 11/21/2016 7:31:23 AM PST by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics.)
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To: NetAddicted
Do Jews say how their alphabet started?

Note that this article is talking about what is called "paleo-Hebrew". The alphabet ("aleph-bet") that we think of as "Hebrew" today is actually Aramaic; different glyphs but the same characters.

19 posted on 11/21/2016 7:38:48 AM PST by thulldud
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To: SeeSharp
Heiroglyphs are not just phonetic, but syllablistic, ideogramistic (if that is a word), pictographic.

Your third assertion of Israelite archaeological remains not being found in Egypt is true factually, but not necessarily true. Israelite's would have culturally looked liked other Western Asian populations from the Levant. And there are tons of remains of Western Semites in the delta area. So we may actually have lots of Israelite remains without being able to prove they are Hebrews. And the "may" I just used above looks to be very strong. See James Hoffmeier's and Manfred Beitak's work for examples.

20 posted on 11/21/2016 7:57:57 AM PST by fatez (Ya, well, you know, that's just your opinion man...)
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