the phoenician alphabet developed from the type of writing called proto - sinaitic.
which type of writing did the phoenician alphabet develop from?
proto - sinaitic
the phoenician alphabet was one of the first (consonantal) alphabets with a strict and consistent form. it is assumed that it adopted its simplified linear characters from an as-yet unattested early pictorial semitic alphabet developed some centuries earlier in the southern levant. it is likely that the precursor to the phoenician alphabet was of egyptian origin, since middle bronze age alphabets from the southern levant resemble egyptian hieroglyphs or an early alphabetic writing system found at wadi-el-hol in central egypt. in addition to being preceded by proto-canaanite, the phoenician alphabet was also preceded by an alphabetic script of mesopotamian origin called ugaritic. the development of the phoenician alphabet from the proto-canaanite coincided with the rise of the iron age in the 11th century bc.
phoenicia
by at least the 8th century bce the greeks borrowed the phoenician alphabet and adapted it to their own language, creating in the process the first "true" alphabet, in which vowels were accorded equal status with consonants. according to greek legends transmitted by herodotus, the alphabet was brought from phoenicia to greece by cadmos. the letters of the greek alphabet are the same as those of the phoenician alphabet, and both alphabets are arranged in the same order. however, whereas separate letters for vowels would have actually hindered the legibility of egyptian, phoenician, or hebrew, their absence was problematic for greek, where vowels played a much more important role. the greeks used for vowels some of the phoenician letters representing consonants which weren't used in greek speech. all of the names of the letters of the phoenician alphabet started with consonants, and these consonants were what the letters represented, something called the acrophonic principle.
history of the alphabet