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The Script that went Ahead

How YaHUaH prepared the way for the Gospel in Greece and Rome already at the time when Isra’el diverted from Him
Part II.

André H. Roosma
7 August 2015

In Part I of this article, I told the story of our (Latin) script; how in two steps it got adopted from the old Paleo-Hebrew script that was a development of the old West-Semitic (a.k.a. Canaanite or Sinaitic) script Moses used when he wrote the Torah.1 I expressed my awe and wonder about the observation that God had the Greeks and then the Romans adopt it, with some minor modifications, at the time when the northern Israelites and the Jews went into exile, respectively. And that this script and the far-stretching Roman empire greatly facilitated the spread of the written Gospel and the other New Testament as well as First Testament writings...

Here a sequel of the discussion of the various letters from the aleph-bet as Moses used it and how they were adopted into the Greek and Latin worlds.

The development of the letter signs (continued)

Below, I will continue to illustrate how the letters of the old script of Isra’el (top row in each picture) were at the basis of our (Latin) letters (bottom, left), such that often our letters resemble the old characters better than the Hebrew square script letters (bottom right) derived from Imperial Aramaic of the sixth to fifth century BC.

old tet - theta

The next symbol of the old Semitic script from the time of the Patriarchs and Mosheh was a picture of either a basket or a potter’s wheel. The art of pottery baking is already quite old. The symbol represented clay and earth(enware), the verb to turn, and the notion of holding, surrounding, encompassing or enclosing something.
In early Paleo-Hebrew this symbol remained almost the same. The Greeks simplified it a little to form their theta Θ ; the Romans did not adopt it; hence the English th now has to be written using two letters...
The Aramaeans symplified the symbol somewhat more than the Greeks.

old jad I, J

An interesting symbol of the old Semitic script was a depiction of an arm with an open hand. I show two variants that I encountered. It symbolized exactly that, any branch (e.g. of a tree or a river) and the verb to give, especially ‘he gives’.
In early Paleo-Hebrew this symbol changed little. The Greeks simplified it considerably, while the attached thumb became a loose dot: Ι, calling it iota. The Romans called it just plain I [pronounce: ee]. Later it diverged into both I and J. Most likely, it already had the vowel and consonant value of these letters respecively, right from the start.
In Aramaic, the symbol got reduced even more than in Greek.

old kaph - K

The next symbol of the old Semitic script is the kaph, depicting a raised hand. In the course of time the arm got added to it and the hand got simplified a little.
The Greeks adopted it rather straightforwardly, while shortening the arm and turning it straight up and mirroring the entire symbol: Κ, calling it kappa. The Romans adopted it as the letter K.
In Aramaic, the letter shape got simplified considerably - more than in Greek or Latin, and split into a common and a final version.

old lamed - L

The next symbol of the old Semitic script depicted a shepherd’s stick; that was a long straight stick, with a circular bent at one end. It represented any big stick and the shepherd or leader figure that held it.
The Greeks adopted an early variant with a simplification: Λ, calling it Lambda. The Romans copied (and mirrored) the variant as shown: L.
In Aramaic, the letter shape got changed almost beyond recognition.

old mem - M

In the old Semitic script the symbol for water was most natural: a wavy line. Like water in those dry lands, it signified abundance and plurality as well.
The Greeks and Romans adopted the symbol rather straightforwardly, as the Greek Μ and the Latin M, calling it mu and em, respectively.
In Aramaic, the letter shape – especially the final variant – got changed beyond recognition.

old nun - N

The old letter nun depicted a sprouting seed. Apart from just representing seed or fruit, it also symbolized the notions of offspring and anything that comes forth from or looks like something else. Quite early the little ball on the one end got lost and the zigzag more pronounced.
The Greek nu Ν, from which the Latin N is a rather straightforward symplification and normalization of its mirror-image.
In Aramaic, the letter shape was simplified differently and in my view less recognizable.
In all languages it remained an important letter.

old samekh - X

The old letter samekh or sin depicted a date palm tree. Like the date palm itself, it symbolized also the legendary Tree of Life and the notions of life, sustenance and support. Because a palm tree had been used by God to reveal Himself in fire, it also represented God’s presence. For many centuries it was the national symbol of Israel, always drawn with three fronds on each site of the trunk and one in the middle.
The Greeks used a simplified version of this letter, consisting of the three pairs of branches only, for the xi: Ξ, from which the Latin X emerged. Noteworthy is that in related Old South Arabian scripts, two X-signs on top of each other, as depiction of the pattern on a palm trunk, were already their way of writing the samekh/sin. This may have influenced the Greek choice as well.
In Aramaic, the letter shape got changed beyond recognition.

old ‘ayin - O

The next old symbol represents actually two letters, in some Semitic languages still available as ‘ayin and ghayin. The grapheme depicted both an eye (‘ayin) and a hull eveloping something (ghayin).
The Greeks adopted the grapheme rather straightforwardly into two letters of different size, while omitting the dot inside the circle: Ο, calling it o-micron, and Ω - o-mega - as placed on a pedestal. The Romans adopted it as the single letter O. Both used it for o-sounds because they did not have the Semitic sounds associated with this letter, and Semitic did not give them another letter for the o.
In Aramaic, the letter shape got changed considerably - beyond recognition.

< to be continued in Part III >

Hallelu YaH !


Notes

1 For more about this script, see: André H. Roosma, ‘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.pdf document, Hallelu-YaH Draft Research Report, 1st English version: 18 April 2011 (1st Dutch original: January 2011).

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