Wikipedia
The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, is the oldest verified alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad consisting of 22 letters, all consonants, with'' matres lectionis'' used for some vowels in certain late varieties. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia.
The Phoenician alphabet is derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs and became one of the most widely used writing systems, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it evolved and was assimilated by many other cultures. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was directly derived from Phoenician. Another derivative script is the Aramaic alphabet, which was the ancestor of the modern Arabic script. The Modern Hebrew script is a stylistic variant of the Aramaic script. The Greek alphabet (and by extension its descendants such as the Latin, the Cyrillic, and the Coptic) was also derived from Phoenician.
As the letters were originally incised with a stylus, most of the shapes are angular and straight, although more cursive versions are increasingly attested in later times, culminating in the Neo-Punic alphabet of Roman-era North Africa. Phoenician was usually written from right to left, although there are some texts written in boustrophedon.
In 2005, the UNESCO registered the Phoenician alphabet into the Memory of the World Programme as a heritage of Lebanon.
Usage examples of "phoenician alphabet".
Is there any other country to which we can turn which possessed a phonetic alphabet in any respect kindred to this Phoenician alphabet?
All the alphabets in the world originated from the Phoenician alphabet with its 22 signs.
But in a period of three thousand years, the Phoenician alphabet received considerable alterations, as it passed through the hands of the Greeks and Romans.
In Ionia, the Phoenician alphabet was first adapted to Greek usage and widespread literacy became possible.
An uncle of Cadmus who was out of a job had come to Egypt and was trying to introduce the Phoenician alphabet and get it adopted in place of the hieroglyphics.
The legend of Cadmus tells us how the Phoenician alphabet was carried to Greece and became the parent of all our Western alphabets.