Can somebody explain to me the success of the Phoenician script?

Can somebody explain to me the success of the Phoenician script?

>Adopted by Greeks and therefore the west (and therefor becoming the "default" script)
>Adopted by Arabs and Jews
>Adopted by Persians even before having the Arabic script forced upon them
Only Chinese Hanzi and Indian Devanagari (and argurably, Cuneiform before the Bronze Age collapse) have had such an influence on their neighbors, and those two were powerhouses throughout history.

What made the Phoenician script origin of the scripts most of the world uses to write nowadays?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_system#/media/File:Writing_systems_worldwide.png
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Phags-pa_script).
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

Is there a version of that map with a legend?

It was phonetic

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_system#/media/File:Writing_systems_worldwide.png

So where several other writing systems around in those areas at the time.

>Devanagari
That's also derived from Phoenician. The only scripts today not derived from Phoenician are most East Asian (excluding Tibetan and Mongolian) and Ethiopian ones.

It was pretty good.

>Devanagari also derived from Phoenician.
Holy shit, it's true.

Has a meme (in the original sense of the word) ever been as successful as this one?

>most East Asian (excluding Tibetan and Mongolian)
What do you mean by this?

Most people would consider "East Asia" to be China proper, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Vietnam.

-Did you include Tibetan and Mongolian because they could be counted as East Asian for virtue of being occupied by China?

-Did you not exclude Vietnam because everybody knows they use a Latin-based script?

-Does that mean you only meant the Chinese script(s) plus Japanese Kana and Korean Hangul?

Tibetan and Mongolian Scripts come from it too.

Okay, let me get this straight.

So every single fucking script that survives to this day and originated within the Old World is either derived from a Semitic script based on the phonetization of Hieroglyphs, or derived from Han characters?

The Mediterranean Sea and trade.

>even fucking Manchu is derived from the Phoenician alphabet
This is unreal.

Writing seems to be a difficult concept for people naturally. Either you learn it from another people or you don't bother - except for a couple of freak scenarios.

It still blows my mind that relatively advanced people throughout Europe didn't have any written records until post Roman society finally caught up with them. It sure would have been nice to know what the fuck was going on during early Anglo-Saxon Britain guys. You people figured out bronze smelting all on your own but no one is going to figure out book? Even when teachers are within walking distance? Fuck you.

Out of ignorance or political bias, people often puts Mongolia and Tibet in East Asia despite the fact they're better placed in Central Asia along with East Turkestan or a category of their own. Anyway all those territories will soon lose their culture and will be rightfully considered east asian.

For similar reasons Vietnam is often put in Southeast asia, although in this case there's a geographical excuse and the fact that a good part of the country was historically undeniably southeastern (champa).

Why is this even surprising?

The only places that were civilized enough to have proper script in the world were the peoples inhabiting the Fertile Crescent, and the peoples that would later become the Chinese.

The rest were literally living in mud huts.

The phoenician based alphabet is just very practical and easy to learn compared to other forms of script.

Chinese characters are overly complicated and unpractical to learn. I'm sure there's other virtues that compensate this, otherwise it would have not survived to be influential today, but it's undeniably hard as fuck and I'm sure even the chinese will accept this as they spent a long time learning only the alphabet,

Arabic or greek scripts on the other hand are easy as fuck. I had to learn them from "zero" (granted I knew the latin before) and in less than a year I was done. Only time and lack of use made me forget how to read greek, and not completely.

Wouldn't you say Tibet, Inner Mongolia and East Turkestan breaking out of China is a possibility?

Phoenicians got around a lot too,didnt't they?Might've contributed.

Like sailing around Africa and stuff.

First of all, even the independent country of Mongolia receives a significant amount of chinese immigrants that will dramatically change the local culture at best in a few generations (and erase it at worst) since chinese immigrants rarely integrate. The PRC has the first population in the world, Mongolia has three millions (that's less than the metropolitan area of Shanghai). So independence would not solve the problem.

Second, no I don't think they have a single chance of breaking out of China with violence. And I don't see the chinese letting them go peacefully.

If you examine the map, the scripts that expanded so much were all pretty close to Phoenicia. Specially if you consider that both Arabic and Indian scripts ultimately come from the Aramaic, originated in Syria.

It's surprising because of the far reach the Phoenician alphabet had.

China being influential is par for the course, but having Phoenician derived alphabets in every corner of Afro-Eurasia excepting Chinese influenced areas and Ethiopia (which is pretty much a sister to Phoenician anyways). The Phoenicians didn't form a big empire or anything of the sort, and would be completely irrelevant even compared to other historic Semitic tribes if it weren't for the fact that every single literate person on Earth can read an script based on theirs (which, arguably, is mostly because of the success of Rome and its successors, but then again, Rome and Western Europe did have the great Empires that would make such influence expected).

>in less than a year
If you're just learning the scripts, learning Greek, Arabic and Hebrew is possible within the same month.

You're right though, it's very easy to forget if you don't use it semi-constantly, and attempting to read after you've started to forget can be a real chore.

>And I don't see the chinese letting them go peacefully.
I could see that if/when the PRC collapses.

I remember that some /pol/ack on /int/ once tried to argue that Japanese katakana totally derived from the Hebrew script (due to the straight lines and stuff). He was trying to make argument that the Japanese where closet Jewish diaspora or something.

If only he knew Japan's one of the only four(?) countries without an official script based on a Semitic one.

Romans and Aramaeans, huge culture-spreading powers used it.

The explanation is simple: originates from the centerpiece of the Old World, lots of trading, and the practicality of having 20-something symbols to write anything.

It's something a merchant can reasonably learn to read and write all by himself, without hiring a scribe, or even a calligrapher.

>before having the Arabic script forced upon them
Passive aggressive much? Settle down Pavlavi, you don't have to fast Ramadan if you don't want to.

Alexander the great spread it, duh.

Well yeah, that's why he said excluding tibetan and mongolian the only ones not derived from it are east asian

Are you saying Arabs didn't conquer Persia, Omar?

off-topic question: Is there an archive for Veeky Forums other than the one on Veeky Forums itself? I need a thread more than one week old...

If this weren't Veeky Forums, I'd be berating you for being a complete newfag.

But you asked nicely so I'll help you out.
desustorage.org

You can usually find the archives by just searching "/board/ archive" in google, and if you install 4chanX, it will redirect you towards an archive (if it exist one of that board) when you try to open a 404'd thread.

He literally did not.

>If you're just learning the scripts, learning Greek, Arabic and Hebrew is possible within the same month.

It's been a long time ago so I don't remember well, but I'm not so sure of that. Or maybe nowadays I could be able with a good teacher and it was different in a public school class as an unmotivated kid.

It's a big if and probably the next chinese power would just retake those regions. But if you want to be optimistic I won't be the one stopping you.

desustorage.org/his

>teacher
Why would you need a teacher to learn a script?

You just repeat writing the symbols like an autist and listen to how the phonemes are pronounced.

If you really need someone to approve your handwriting you can just upload pictures of it and show them around /int/ or maybe some other site.

>Did you include Tibetan and Mongolian because they could be counted as East Asian for virtue of being occupied by China?
I wouldn't consider them East Asian but some people would, so I thought it was worth mentioning for clarification.

>Did you not exclude Vietnam because everybody knows they use a Latin-based script?
No I just forgot.

>Does that mean you only meant the Chinese script(s) plus Japanese Kana and Korean Hangul?
Basically anything derived from Chinese scripts.

Pretty much. Ethiopian scripts are the only ones not derived from Phoenician or Chinese, but they are derived from the same script that Phoenician is derived from, which itself is derived from Egyptian ones. Also another fun fact; China itself once used a Phoenician-derived script, though it never really caught on (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Phags-pa_script).

I think it's surprising that Cuneiform ended up going nowhere despite once being by far the most widespread family of scripts.

If it caught on so easily and widely, what would stop an objectively better script from doing the same?

Can't you say that about pretty much everything you can learn in this life?

Maybe it was random bullshit, but I was told cuneiform was only practical for tablets and rock carving and this was a disadvantage.

Well, they were some of the most widespread seafarers in the Mediterranean. Their script was superior or the first for a lot of cultures, so they adopted it. Then, conquerors later spread their culture and ultimately their Phoenician-derived script. It just accumulated over time.

Yeah, I think the Achaemenids used cuneiform mostly for inscriptions and stuff like that, while using Aramaic script for practical uses like administration. As far as I know that's also how it reached India.

Kind of, but when it comes to languages some people need personal interaction to learn. When it comes to scripts, though, I don't think that would be an issue even for such people.

Lol I am new at Veeky Forums, yeah, sorry. We all gotta start at some point. And thanks for the answer!

thank you too!

:P

Who are the biggest memers in history? The PIEs, the Semites or the Chinese?

>language
Indo-European is by far the biggest language family in the world, followed by Sino-Tibetan and then a near tie between Afro-Asiatic (which includes Semitic) and Niger-Congo.
>writing
Proto-Sinaitic (which is Semitic) is by far the most successful script family, with the only other contender being the Chinese (Sinitic).
>religion
Indo-European pantheons had an early advantage, but Semitic religions took over and now the two biggest religions (making up 54% of the population) have Semitic routes, with the third one being Hinduism (14%) and the rest being non-contenders.
>culture
This one's hard to define, but PIEs basically won this one by virtue of turning the modern world into a European one, but even in the ancient world, Iranian culture heavily influenced neighboring Semitic cultures, and India was similarly a cultural powerhouse. Chinese is probably the runner-up for its vast influences in the Far East before the European memes got there.

>Indo-European
No such thing

They did it first, had good connections via the med, so others adopted it. Everyone would have adopted whoever did it first, that concept, because it works very well.

>this whole huge group of closely related languages just sprang into existence fully formed!

>lol
> :p
Jesus.

There's no name for them, but I'm talking about the culture from which the Indo-European languages formed.

Are you denying one of the most well documented facts of linguistics?