WI: No alphabet

[Otto Kretschmer]

Simply:

Either the Proto Canannite script never comes to being or it comes but it never spreads to Phoenicia.

Therefore, all the scripts derived from Phoenician are never createcd.

How would writing systems develop? ITTL Linear B still dies out.

 

[SunKing105]

Somebody else invents it eventually. If it happens in, say, a place like Assyria though, and the invention catches on among the commoners and merchants, it could change the paradigm of the Assyrian state somewhat. But if you want to avert the advent of alphabets, you need to keep the hyper-centralized, palace economy, often divine-monarchies that existed before the Bronze Age collapse around. China was able to maintain it's system through state power and cultural inertia, so a similar thing might be possible here.

 

[Denliner]

Writing would eventually spread into Europe, but this divergence would just basically remove all of the previous alphabetical systems. It's possible that syllabaries or logographic scripts dominate instead since Cuneiform would spread towards Europe from the Near East.

 

[Analytical Engine]

Somebody else invents it eventually.

Not necessarily.

Every known abjad, abugida and alphabet can be traced back, one way or another, to Proto-Sinaitic Script, either by evolution or inspiration. (Hangul was probably at least inspired by Brahmic scripts, for example.)

Proto-Sinaitic developed more than three and a half thousand years ago. Surely someone else could have developed an alphabet separately at some point. As far as anyone knows, at least, they didn't.

Of course, it may well be that an alphabet arrived IOTL at just the right time for it to be adopted, without the need to create a separate one.

Writing would eventually spread into Europe, but this divergence would just basically removed all of the previous alphabetical systems. It's possible that syllabaries or logographic scripts dominate instead since Cuneiform would spread towards Europe from the Near East.

It suppose it's possible that a Katakana equivalent develops for Indo-European languages in time, evolved out of Cuneiform (Hittite was written in Cuneiform, after all).

 

[Gloss]

Not necessarily.

Every known abjad, abugida and alphabet can be traced back, one way or another, to Proto-Sinaitic Script, either by evolution or inspiration. (Hangul was probably at least inspired by Brahmic scripts, for example.)



Of course, it may well be that an alphabet arrived IOTL at just the right time for it to be adopted, without the need to create a separate one.


It suppose it's possible that a Katakana equivalent develops for Indo-European languages in time, evolved out of Cuneiform (Hittite was written in Cuneiform, after all).

Well that just goes to show that you need to have it be invented one time for it to spread like wildfire, in human chronological terms.

The population of the world around 1500-1000 BCE is smaller, less urbanized, less under politically complex system than it would be later as centuries pass, as iron spreads, as more region come under rule of complex societies, as trade intensifies, as better agricultural techniques develop and the general population grows and more specialization occurs.

If the small region from Sinai to the southern levant managed to develop it from earlier Egyptian hieroglyphics half a millennium into the Bronze Age, it seems natural to me that someone somewhere would develop it either from cuneiform or Egyptian hieroglyphics or that it would develop from parallel writing systems that would have naturally developed elsewhere during the iron age.

A similar thing goes with coinage, it's not like the Western Anatolians had to invent it right there and then for it to eventually appear, given how fast it spread it seems clear that it filled a need that would have pushed people to develop it.

Proto-Sinaitic developed more than three and a half thousand years ago. Surely someone else could have developed an alphabet separately at some point. As far as anyone knows, at least, they didn't.

I mean by about the start of the common era most of the world population lived in societies that used scripts derived from proto-Sinaitic, considering Rome, India and Iran.
Another quarter was already under strong influence by the Chinese parallel development and 1/8 of the world population was in the Americas and Oceania.

Who could have developed a parallel system so quickly just in time to not get the idea from the Near East? Especially as India had to adopt writing altogether.

 

[The Professor]

I have my suspicions that the old Phoenician script was just one of many ad hoc scribal shorthand/abbreviations around. All it needed was adoption by one group of traders and voila it spread with the trade.
Eventually traders will pick up on the utility of whatever abbreviated script is available and then that one spreads.

 

[Otto Kretschmer]

But abjad/alphabet was only invented once. Neither China nor India did it and both had a lot of time.

 

[The Professor]

But abjad/alphabet was only invented once. Neither China nor India did it and both had a lot of time.

The particular semi-abjad that our alphabet was developed from, yes, but that doesn't mean in its absence one will never form.
Egyptian writing had elements of alphabetic style as did cuneiform.
Worth noting that early Chinese writing was more syllabic than logographic.
And we barely have anything on Indian writing before the arrival of scripts from the middle east.

 

[Otto Kretschmer]

How do you think would cuneiform develop? Even in highly simplyfied form it was still rather cumbersome.

What might cuneiform adopted to being written in ink look like?

 

[Falecius]

There is actually an abjad that does not appear to derive from the early acrophonic adaptation of hieroglyphs (though we cannot rule out indirect inspiration): namely, Meroitic.

 

[Analytical Engine]

How do you think would cuneiform develop? Even in highly simplyfied form it was still rather cumbersome.

What might cuneiform adopted to being written in ink look like?

That partially depends on what medium it is written on, and the implement it is written with.

Consider just how much divergence there has been with the OTL alphabetic scripts.

I suspect it will look superficially like a cross between Hànzì and the Hebrew script - with the wedges merging together into lines, boxes, and even curves - and evolve from there.

 

[Otto Kretschmer]

Is there any explanation why scripts evolve the way they do?

Why did i.e. Arabic change into this joined, flowing script as opposed to blocky Greek and Hebrew scripts? Is there something in the writing medium that facilitated such change?

 

[Analytical Engine]

Is there any explanation why scripts evolve the way they do?

Why did i.e. Arabic change into this joined, flowing script as opposed to blocky Greek and Hebrew scripts? Is there something in the writing medium that facilitated such change?

Partially it depends on which scripts they evolve from.

The Arabic script evolved from either the Syriac or Nabatean scripts (depending on who you ask), though both of those developed from the Aramaic script.

The Greek and Paleo-Hebrew scripts developed from the Phoenician script, which used more straight lines.

Differences in the shape of quills, whether they are narrow or wide. Differences in the resistances of the materials they are written on. The substance it is written on itself. Whether the scripts are written left to right. All of these have some effect on how the writing develops. Sometimes, it just develops due to the path of least resistance.

 

[Falecius]

Is there any explanation why scripts evolve the way they do?

Why did i.e. Arabic change into this joined, flowing script as opposed to blocky Greek and Hebrew scripts? Is there something in the writing medium that facilitated such change?

It is complicated but there are both cultural and technological reasons. For Arabic, calligraphy as an important art form played a role, but it came from an already cursive variant of the Aramaic script.

 

[Falecius]

Partially it depends on which scripts they evolve from.

The Arabic script evolved from either the Syriac or Nabatean scripts (depending on who you ask), though both of those developed from the Aramaic script.

The Greek and Paleo-Hebrew scripts developed from the Phoenician script, which used more straight lines.

Differences in the shape of quills, whether they are narrow or wide. Differences in the resistances of the materials they are written on. The substance it is written on itself. Whether the scripts are written left to right. All of these have some effect on how the writing develops. Sometimes, it just develops due to the path of least resistance.

Just nitpicking that nobody seriously thinks anymore that Arabic script came from Syriac. The evidence in favor of Nabatean is conclusive.

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

Is there any explanation why scripts evolve the way they do?

Why did i.e. Arabic change into this joined, flowing script as opposed to blocky Greek and Hebrew scripts? Is there something in the writing medium that facilitated such change?

One thing i think is important is that Arabic developed using the technology of paper while other scripts like Greek were primarily written in slate tablets and chiselled into stone, favouring a system with sharper straighter lines.

 

[Analytical Engine]

One thing i think is important is that Arabic developed using the technology of paper while other scripts like Greek were primarily written in slate tablets and chiselled into stone, favouring a system with sharper straighter lines.

Meanwhile, cursive Latin and Greek developed as a result of the availability of papyrus, and the speed of writing with ink.

 

[Otto Kretschmer]

How does cursive Greek look like?

 

[Analytical Engine]

How does cursive Greek look like?

See also here:

Where can I find good examples of native Modern Greek handwriting in order to develop my own? - Quora

And, as a comparison, cursive Cyrillic:

 

[Analytical Engine]

We should consider Old Persian Cuneiform, given that (a) it's the most "modern" version of Cuneiform, and (b) it was designed for an Indo-European language (albeit one with relatively few vowels).

Now, imagine these, but with lines rather than wedges, and have them joined up. Maybe add some additional features to help differentiate them.

Given the Greeks managed to adapt symbols from the Phoenician script for sounds they didn't share, there's no reason why other languages couldn't either do the same, or develop their own. Or maybe add diacritical marking for other vowels, like "e" and "o".