Phoenician Civilization and the Alphabet Around 1200 B.C. - 1000 B.C.
A, B, C, D, E, F and G.......X, Y, and Z. How did we get out alphabet? Let's find out about the people who created the first known alphabet, the Phoenicians.
The Phoenicians were originally desert nomads. They traveled the desert. These people were also known as the Canaanites in the Bible. Their name came from the Greek word, phoinos, which means 'red'. They were merchants and traders who used the sea as their main means of transportation. They produced a reddish-purple dye which they traded. This group of people were also known as the greatest seafarers of the ancient (very, very old) world.
The first known alphabet came from the phoenicians. It was their greatest contribution to civilization. The difference between their alphabet and ours is that theirs had 30 consonants and was without vowels! Our alphabet has 26 letters.
Colonies were started by the Phoenicians at Sardinia, Utica, and Carthage. Carthage became a powerful trading center, which resulted in conflicts with Rome and eventually led to the Punic Wars.
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