The Original Aleph-Beth
André H. Roosma
14 Jan. 2012
(NL original: 31 Dec. 2011)
(updated: 25 Jan. 2017)
Biblical Hebrew and other Semitic languages have one single
‘ancestor’ about midway the third millennium before Christ.
This proto-language can be largely reconstructed from the various
Semitic languages, and is called Proto-Semitic.1
In the second millennium before Christ, the western branch differed from
the eastern one. This West-Semitic branch is a most interesting one, since
it is the ancestor of Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic and Arabian.
Of the associated script a number of examples have been discovered in
archeological excavations – in the Sinai, in Egypt and in Israel,
Lebanon and Syria. These too offer some clues for reconstructing the old
Semitic language and its associated script. An very attractive feature of
this script is that it was in origin a pictographic script of some sort.
It allowed a piece of text to be read as a pictures book. Until 2011 very
little fundamental research had been devoted to this, as everyone
assumed it was just an alphabet script, just like its many
descendants.
Hallelu-YaH, a branch of the Accede! studycentre, did take up this research, and with most
remarkable results. Preliminary findings have been reported in a draft
working document.2
In the last centuries of the second millennium before Christ the old
West-Semitic script developed into an alphabet-script, being written
from right to left. Around 1000 BC this became the basis for the
Paleo-Hebrew, the Moabite, the early-Aramaic, the Phoenician and still
more scripts of that area. The Phoenicians were a seafaring nation –
living from international trade – and introduced this script also
in Greece. Around 800 BC, the Greeks adopted it, with some minor
modifications and additions, though mirroring some symbols when, in the
course of time, they started writing from left to right.
Later, around 600 BC, the letter signs were modified some more when they
were adopted to create the Latin script that we still use and into the
Cyrillic script (being used a.o. in Russia).
In this way the old Semitic script became the ancestor of almost all
alphabet-scripts in the world.
For simplicity, I will present a brief overview of the 22 most important
symbols from the old Semitic script below, with the most relevant meanings.
I also include the letters from the Hebrew, Greek and Latin alphabets that
emerged from it. For the shape of the symbols as presented, I used a
somewhat unified shape derived from all the forms seen in the manuscripts
and artifacts found at excavations. Where there were multiple, equivalent
variants, I chose the one which was continued in the later Paleo-Hebrew and
Phoenician shape of that letter.
| letter | symbol
for | notion / meanings |
Hebrew square script | Greek | Latin |
 |
ox head |
first, prominent, precious, great, 1000 |
א |
Α/α |
A/a |
 |
tent/house
(floor plan) |
house, (extended) family, body, vase, box,
to enclose, ‘in’ |
ב |
Β/β |
B/b |
 |
foot/leg or bent builders’ stick |
foot, foundation, to go, to transport, to carry |
ג |
Γ/γ |
G/g, C/c |
 |
door |
door, entrance, to enter, to move |
ד |
Δ/δ |
D/d |
 |
figure with hands raised and knees bent |
awe, joy, to worship, to praise, to celebrate, to wonder, surprise,
life, to live |
ה |
Ε/ε |
E/e |
 |
tent pin |
(any kind of) pin, a stalk in the ground, security, connection,
safety, to connect, to secure, to fasten, to hold together; covenant |
ו |
Υ/υ, Ϝ/ϝ |
U/u, V/v, W/w, Y/y, F/f |
 |
scythe |
scythe, knife, sword, instrument (tool), metal, to cut, to chop,
to shine, to radiate, to value, to cherish, olive, olive oil |
ז |
Ζ/ζ |
Z/z |
 |
tent-panel/-canvas |
tent-panel, wall, separation, boundary, limit, skin, leather, flesh,
meat, outside, to separate, to limit |
ח |
Η/η, Χ/χ? |
H/h |
 |
earthen basket
(potter’s wheel?) |
earthen basket, hull, earth(enware), clay, to encompass, to turn |
ט |
Θ/θ |
(Th) |
 |
arm with open hand |
hand, arm, branch, He (God) gives, to work, to give |
י |
Ι/ι |
I/i, J/j |
 |
raised hand |
raised, blessing or commanding hand of authority, authority, to bless,
to order, to command |
כ,ך |
Κ/κ,
Χ/χ? |
K/k |
 |
shepherd’s staff |
shepherd’s staff, shepherd, leader, to lead, to tend |
ל |
Λ/λ |
L/l |
 |
water |
water, abundance, liquid (water, milk, etc.), multiple |
מ,ם |
Μ/μ |
M/m |
 |
sprouting seed |
sprouting seed, seed, offspring, what comes forth from,
generations |
נ,ן |
Ν/ν |
N/n |
 |
palm tree |
palm tree (date palm), to strengthen,
fertility, life, throne of God (symbol of the Tree of
Life), date(s), temptation, purification |
ס,שׂ |
Ξ/ξ, Χ/χ? |
X/x |
 |
eye (‘ayin);
enclosure (ghayin) |
eye, to see (to), insight;
to surround, to envelop |
ע |
Ο/ο, Ω/ω |
O/o |
 /
 |
opening, airway |
opening, mouth, nose, wind, air flow, open space, to blow |
פ,ף |
Π/π, Φ/φ3 |
P/p |
 |
plant (reed-like) |
plant (esp. papyrus, sedge, grain), to press
(out), to squeeze, to dehydrate, thirst |
צ,ץ |
Ϡ/ϡ ? (Sampi) |
- |
 |
rising sun |
rising sun, to rise, (to) circle, to go back-and-forth or up-and-down,
to burn, light, to be small (and growing) |
ק |
Ϙ/ϙ |
Q/q |
 /
 |
man’s face (sideways) |
(higher) other / Other (God), head |
ר |
Ρ/ρ |
R/r |
 |
(motherly) breasts,
horns?, mountain?, cloud? |
to bulge, to come forward/ upward, breast(s), source, well,
fountain, drink, nourishment,
(to lavish - in Hiph'il) |
שׁ |
Σ/σ/ς |
S/s, C/c? |
 |
cross sign |
cross, sign, to underwrite, to affirm, to complete, end, fulfillment |
ת |
Τ/τ |
T/t |
| 1 |
During the second millennium BC the languages belonging
to the Northwestern branch of Semitic were still largely one.
The moment on which the Western and Eastern branches of
the Semitic languages (the Eastern consisted mainly of
Akkadian) diverged we have to go somewhat further back in time
(how far precicely still is subject of much discussion;
probably to the midle of the third millennium BC; see e.g. Mathilda’s Anthropology Blog on this).
A valuable
scientific analysis of the times and periods is given in:
Geoff K.
Nicholls & Robin J. Ryder, ‘Phylogenetic models for Semitic vocabulary’, in: D. Conesa, A.
Forte, A. Lopez-Quilez (Eds.), Proceedings of the 26th International
Workshop on Statistical Modelling, Valencia, Spain, 2011.
And in:
Andrew Kitchen, Christopher Ehret, Shiferaw Assefa and Connie J. Mulligan,
‘Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Semitic languages identifies an Early
Bronze Age origin of Semitic in the Near East’, Proc. Royal Soc.
B 2009, 276, p.2703-2710 (doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.0408;
first published online: 29 April 2009); see also this scheme from the background material with the
last article, with alternative placement of Arabic; there the split between
Hebrew and the common origin of Aramaic and Arabic is calculated to
fall around the middle of the second millennium BC, +/- 400 years (not surprisingly, since this was the time of the
return of the people of Israel from Egypt to their homeland, followed by
the proper formation of the state of Israel).Below
a rough reconstruction of the genealogy of the Semitic languages.
The development of the associated scripts differs a bit from this. E.g.
the Hebrew square script developed from the Aramaic script of about 500 BC.
The Arabic script developed from the Nabataean script, which developed from
the Syriac variant of the Aramaic script. |
| 2 |
More information on the old Semitic script, as
discussed here, in the Hallelu-YaH Draft Research
Report: ‘The Written Language of Abraham,
Moses and David – A study of the pictographic roots and basic
notions in the underlying fabric of the earliest Biblical script’
 , a living document
by André H. Roosma, 1st English version: 18
April 2011 (Dutch original: January 2011). |
| 3 |
For the Φ/φ (phi) the sound of the
soft (phu)
was used, and the shape of the (quph) (this was feasible, because the Ϙ/ϙ
(qoppa) was used rarely and quite soon not at all anymore by the
Greeks) |
For more background on the early history of Hebrew,
see:
For more information on the adoption of the old
Phoenician symbols by the Greek, see: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal, ‘The Greek alphabet’, undated document at Academia.edu.
Michael
Something to think about:
The Age 6000 years ego rising constellation is of OX, Taurus bull.
It is rising in the House (Bait)
Walking, Gimal, foundation
Then there is the door, Dalet, enter in order to?
to worship, Hay
To worship in the tent, affixing it with a vav, pin
Use knife to slotted animal.
etc.
André (author)
Thanks Michael!
Yes, the signs and their
order in the entire original aleph-beth are significant in multiple
ways, when studied in their proper historical and cultural context!
See also the Appendices in the research doc
mentioned in footnote 2.
Steven E. Bush
Great material. The world should know this work.
André (author)Thanks Steven!
Yes, so do feel free to link to this site, on any Internet
page(s) you may have (Facebook, LinkedIn, wherever).
|
