Re: Ancient Northwest Semitic Script

From: Jim Allan (jallan@smrtytrek.com)
Date: Mon Dec 29 2003 - 12:32:20 EST

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    D. Starner wrote:

    > Intra-script, a difference in appearance has call for seperate codings.
    > Inter-script, if the appearance is dissimilar enough to be a bar to
    > reading, and there's a disjoint population of users (so that one is
    > not a handwriting or cipher variant of another), there is reason to
    > encode a seperate script.

    I agree that dissimilar appearance enough to be a bar to reading is one
    reason to encode a script or set of scripts separately.

    But is that *alone* a reason to encode separately if there no other
    reasons to encode separately and there are countervailing reasons to unify?

    The Unicode encoding of Runic unifies separate scripts for separate
    languages using separate alphabets. The difference between staveless
    runes and the early Germanic futhark is as great or greater than any
    difference between Aramaic scripts and Phoenician.

    All the ancient scripts are mostly handwriting variants of one another,
    if you also consider scratching into potsherds as a form of handwriting.
    There are also variants developed for carving into stone but of course
    carving in stone was not the norm.

    The northwest Semitic abjad is *normally* used to cover the same small
    groups of languages which are closely related and share many words,
    especially as spelled without vowel pointing.

    The argument here should be, I think, whether in this case the unity of
    the northwest Semitic abjad/alphabet and the common origin of the
    characters and the usefulness of searching different texts overrides the
    dissimilarity of appearance that developed.

    > A Word document doesn't embed fonts (usually?), ...

    But when used in publishing on the web usually the fonts are embedded if
    font style is important. Similarly if e-mailing or other transferring
    to another party.

    > As for Phoenician, perhaps a scholar may be happy with it as a font
    > variant
    > of Hebrew, but I don't see why it's not equally a font variant of Greek.

    A reasonable question.

    Greek is a variant of Phoenician in origin.

    Why would it not be useful to code it and Phoenician the same?

    First there is the matter of directionality for all but the earliest
    inscriptions, left-to-right instead or right-to-left. Then there is the
    addition of further characters in Greek and the change of sound value
    for many of the characters. The alphabet is no longer the same in its
    size or in its values. The phonetic structure of Greek was very
    different from the phonetic structure of the northwestern Semitic languages.

    A Phoenician name will be spelled very differently by a Greek. Searches
    won't find it. The same letters probably won't be used. Similarly a
    Greek name would not be written the same by a Phoenician.

    Difference of language means there isn't much use in doing
    cross-searches between material written in Phoenician and material
    written in Greek. The same is not true about cross-searching material
    written in any northwest Semitic language. The languages are very close.
    Names will usually appear identically. It is impossible to say, for
    example, whether the Gezer calendar is written in Phoenician language or
    the Hebrew language or some other closely related language.

    The Hebrew Torah exists in slightly variant versions, but all use this
    same 22-letter northwest Semitic abjad. Other than some scribal and
    editorial variations and a few spelling variations that have nothing to
    do with the script used, the texts are as identical as most texts that
    one finds in disparate copies in the ancient world or medieval world.

    Does it make sense that Unicode introduce *four* separate encodings to
    represent variants of essentially the same text written with the same
    characters just because the glyphs differ in appearance.

    Unicode encodes characters, not glyphs, and here the characters are the
    same except in their glyphic appearance.

    > No
    > non-scholarly user (and Phoenician may well have a few) will
    > understand why
    > Phoenician is considered Hebrew, because they don't look alike.

    Phoenician should *not* be considered Hebrew. They are different
    languages, though very closely related.

    Phoenician scripts (and there are more than one) should *not* be
    considered the same as the modern square Hebrew script or modern cursive
    Hebrew script or the Rashi Hebrew script or the modern Samaritan or
    medieval Samaritan or papyrus Aramaic or Palmyrene Aramaic any more than
    Blackletter Latin script is the same as Uncial Latin script or Italic
    Latin script or any more than Chinese characters are considered the same
    as Japanese characters or Korean characters.

    Because one often wishes, rightly, to distinguish such differences, does
    not mean encoding those differences within Unicode is the most useful
    course to take.

    If a non-scholarly user wants to display something in a particular
    Phoenician style (and there is more than one of these) then that user
    must select the Phoenician font the user wishes (if the user has more
    than one). That is true whether Phoenician scripts and Hebrew scripts
    are unified in Unicode or not unified in Unicode.

    A non-scholarly user of runes may also not understand why Swedish
    staveless runes are considered the same as the Germanic futhark runes
    when they don't look alike. Some modern Japanese still don't understand
    how Japanese kanzi can be unified with Chinese characters when they
    don't look alike.

    But if northwestern Semitic unification is wholly or partly accepted by
    the Unicode consortium, a simple chart showing variations in form would
    make it clear to a non-scholarly user how the Phoenician script did
    evolve though intermediate steps to the modern square Aramaic letters
    that most consider standard modern Hebrew letters.

    Jim Allan



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