Old Italic refers to several now extinct alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of letters — basic written symbols or graphemes — each of which roughly represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic unit, and syllabaries, in which systems used on the Italian Peninsula The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula is one of the three large peninsulas of Southern Europe (the other two being the Iberian Peninsula and Balkan Peninsula), spanning 1,000 km from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. The peninsula's shape gives it the nickname Lo Stivale (The Boot). Three smaller in ancient times for various Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia. With written attestations appearing since the Bronze Age, in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean (predominantly Italic extinct: Anatolian · Paleo-Balkans (Dacian, ) and non-Indo-European (e.g. Etruscan The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization in what is now present-day Italy, in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna (where the Etruscans were displaced by Gauls). Latin, however, superseded Etruscan completely, leaving only a few documents and a few loanwords in Latin e) languages. The alphabets derive from the Euboean Greek Cumaean alphabet, used at Ischia Ischia is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples. The roughly trapezoidal island lies about 30 km from Naples and measures around 10 km east to west and 7 km north to south with a 34 kilometres (21 mi) coastline and a surface area of 46.3 square kilometres (17.9 sq mi). It is almost entirely mountainous, and Cumae Cumae is an ancient Greek settlement lying to the northwest of Naples in the Italian region of Campania. Cumae was the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy (Magna Graecia) and is perhaps most famous as the seat of the Cumaean Sibyl in the Bay of Naples in the eighth century BC.

Various Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and Southern Asia, and historically also predominant in Anatolia and Central Asia. With written attestations appearing since the Bronze Age, in the form of the Anatolian languages and Mycenaean belonging to the Italic extinct: Anatolian · Paleo-Balkans (Dacian, branch (Faliscan and members of the Sebellian group, including Oscan Oscan according to SIL International standards has two definitions. As the "Osco-" member of the Osco-Umbrian group, it has itself been expanded into a group, Oscan, whether of dialects or of languages. One member of the Oscan group is Oscan, the language of southern Italy under the Roman Republic, Umbrian Umbrian is an extinct Italic language formerly spoken by the Umbri in the ancient Italian region of Umbria. Within the Italic languages it is closely related to the Oscan group and is therefore associated with it in the group of Osco-Umbrian languages. Since that classification was first formulated a number of other languages in ancient Italy were, and South Picene, and other Indo-European branches such as Venetic Venetic is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken in ancient times in the North-Italian Veneto and modern Slovenia, between the Po River delta and the southern fringe of the Alps and Messapic Messapian is an extinct Indo-European language of South-eastern Italy, once spoken in the region of Apulia. It was spoken by the three Iapygian tribes of the region: the Messapians, the Dauni and the Peucetii) originally used the alphabet. Faliscan, Oscan, Umbrian, North Picene, and South Picene all derive from an Etruscan form of the alphabet.

The Germanic The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all the languages in this branch is Proto-Germanic, spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe. Proto-Germanic, along with all of its descendants, is characterized by a runic alphabet The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write various Germanic languages prior to the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter. The Scandinavian variants are also known as futhark ; the Anglo-Saxon variant is futhorc (due to sound changes undergone in Old English by the same was most likely derived from one of these alphabets in about the 2nd century.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Etruscan alphabet 2 Oscan alphabet 3 Alphabet of Nuceria 4 Alphabet of Lugano 5 Raetic alphabets 6 Venetic alphabet 7 Camunic alphabet 8 Latin alphabet 9 Unicode 10 See also 11 External links

Etruscan alphabet

History of the alphabet The history of the alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the history of writing. The first alphabet emerged around 2000 BCE to represent the language of Semitic workers in Egypt , and was derived from the alphabetic principles of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Nearly all alphabets in the world today either descend directly from Proto-Sinaitic/Proto-Canaanite The Proto-Sinaitic script, also known as Proto-Canaanite, is the alphabetic script of a number of Middle Bronze Age inscriptions in the Sinai, Middle Egypt, and Canaan. It is ancestral to the Semitic abjads as they developed by the Early Iron Age, and via Phoenician and Aramaic also to nearly all modern alphabets 19 c. BCE Ugaritic The Ugaritic alphabet is a cuneiform abjad (alphabet without vowels), used from around 1500 BCE for the Ugaritic language, an extinct Northwest Semitic language discovered in Ugarit, Syria, in 1928. It has 31 letters. Other languages (particularly Hurrian) were occasionally written in it in the Ugarit area, although not elsewhere 15 c. BCE Phoenician The Phoenician alphabet, called by convention the Proto-Canaanite alphabet for inscriptions older than around 1050 BC, was a non-pictographic consonantal alphabet, or abjad. It was used for the writing of Phoenician, a Northern Semitic language, used by the civilization of Phoenicia. It has been classified as an abjad because it records only 12 c. BCE Paleo-Hebrew The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet is an abjad offshoot of the ancient Semitic alphabet, identical to the Phoenician alphabet. At the very least it dates to the 10th century BCE. It was used as the main vehicle for writing the Hebrew language by the Israelites, both Jews and Samaritans 10 c. BCE Samaritan The Samaritan alphabet is used by the Samaritans for religious writings, including the Samaritan Pentateuch, writings in Samaritan Hebrew, and for commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic 6 c. BCE Aramaic The Aramaic alphabet is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet, and became distinctive from it by the 8th century BCE. The letters all represent consonants, some of which are matres lectionis, which also indicate long vowels 8 c. BCE Kharoṣṭhī 6 c. BCE Brāhmī Brāhmī is the modern name given to the oldest members of the Brahmic family of scripts. The best known inscriptions in Brāhmī are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka in north-central India, dated to the 3rd century BCE. These are traditionally considered the earliest known examples of Brāhmī writing, though recent discoveries suggest that it may & Indic The Brahmic or Indic scripts are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central and East Asia, and are descended from the Brāhmī script of the ancient Indian subcontinent. They are used by languages of several linguistic families: Indo-European, Dravidian, Tibeto-Burman, Mongolic, 6 c. BCE Brahmic abugidas The Brahmic or Indic scripts are a family of syllabary writing systems, of the type sometimes called abugidas. They are used throughout South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central and East Asia, and are descended from the Brāhmī script of the ancient Indian subcontinent. They are used by languages of several language families: Indo-European, Devanagari Devanagari , also called Nagari (Nāgarī, the name of its parent writing system), is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written from left to right, lacks distinct letter cases, and is recognizable by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together. Devanāgarī is the main script used to 13 c. CE Hebrew The Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, and because of its place of origin, the Assyrian script (not to be confused with the Syriac alphabet). The alphabet is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic 3 c. BCE Thaana Thaana, Taana or Tāna is the modern writing system of the Divehi language spoken in the Maldives. Taana has characteristics of both an abugida (diacritic, vowel-killer strokes) and a true alphabet (all vowels are written), with consonants derived from indigenous and Arabic numerals, and vowels derived from the vowel diacritics of the Arabic abjad 4 c. BCE Pahlavi Pahlavi or Pahlevi denotes a particular and exclusively written form of various Middle Iranian languages. The essential characteristics of Pahlavi are 3 c. BCE Avestan The Avestan alphabet is a writing system developed during Iran's Sassanid era to render the Avestan language 4 c. CE Palmyrene Palmyrene or Palmyrenean was a West Aramaic dialect spoken in the city of Palmyra, Syria, in the early centuries AD. The development of cursive versions of Aramaic led to the creation of the Palmyrene alphabets 2 c. BCE Syriac The Syriac alphabet is a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC. It is one of the Semitic abjads directly descending from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet and shares similarities with the Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic alphabets 2 c. BCE Sogdian The Sogdian alphabet was originally used for the Sogdian language, a language in the Iranian family used by the people of Sogdiana. The alphabet is derived from Syriac, the descendant script of the Aramaic alphabet. The Sogdian alphabet is one of three scripts used to write the Sogdian language, the others being the Manichaean alphabet and the 2 c. BCE Orkhon The Old Turkic script is the alphabet used by the Göktürk and other early Turkic Khanates from at least the 8th century to record the Old Turkic language. It was later used by the Uyghur Empire. Additionally, a Yenisei variant is known from 9th-century Kyrgyz inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in the Talas Valley of Turkestan and the Old (Old Turkic) 6 c. CE Old Hungarian The Old Hungarian script is an alphabetic writing system used by the Magyars in the Early Middle Ages (7th to 10th centuries, by Székely Magyars down to the 17th century). Because it is reminiscent of the runic alphabet, the Old Hungarian script has also popularly been called "Hungarian runes" or "Hungarian runic script" ca. 650 Old Uyghur The Old Uyghur alphabet was used for writing the Uyghur language. It was descendant of the Sogdian alphabet, used for texts with Buddhist, Manichaean and Christian content for 700–800 years in Uyghurstan. The last known manuscripts are dated to the 18th century. This was the prototype for the Mongolian and Manchu alphabets Mongolian Mongolian script , or Hudum Mongolian script (in comparison with Todo Mongolian script), was the first of many writing systems created for the Mongolian language and the most successful until the introduction of Cyrillic to Mongolia in 1946. With minor modification, the classic vertical script is used in Inner Mongolia to this day to write both 1204 hh Nabataean The Nabataean alphabet is a consonantal alphabet that was used by the Nabataeans in the 2nd century BC. Important inscriptions are found in Petra. The alphabet is descended from the Aramaic alphabet via the Syriac alphabet. It in turn developed into the Arabic alphabet from the 4th century, which is why its letterforms are intermediate between the 2 c. BCE Arabic The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic and Urdu. After the Latin alphabet, it is the second-most widely used alphabet around the world 4 c. CE Mandaic The Mandaic alphabet is based on the Aramaic alphabet, and is used for writing the Mandaic language 2 c. CE Greek The Greek alphabet is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It is the first and oldest alphabet in the narrow sense that it notes each vowel and consonant with a separate symbol. It is as such in continuous use to this day. The letters were also used to represent 8 c. BCE Etruscan 8 c. BCE Latin The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was borrowed and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome, whose alphabet was then adapted and further modified by the ancient 7 c. BCE Runic The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes to write various Germanic languages prior to the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter. The Scandinavian variants are also known as futhark ; the Anglo-Saxon variant is futhorc (due to sound changes undergone in Old English by the same 2 c. CE Coptic The Coptic alphabet is the script used for writing the Coptic language. The repertoire of glyphs is based on the Greek alphabet augmented by letters borrowed from the Demotic and is the first Alphabetic Script used for the Egyptian Language. There are in fact several Coptic alphabets as the Coptic writing system may vary greatly among the various 3 c. CE Gothic The Gothic alphabet is an alphabetic writing system attributed to Ulfilas which was used exclusively for writing the ancient Gothic language. Before its creation in the fourth century, the Goths had used runes to write their language. The new alphabet was created by Ulfilas for the purpose of translating the Christian Bible into Gothic, and it is 3 c. CE Armenian The Armenian alphabet is an alphabet that has been used to write the Armenian language since the year 405 or 406. It was devised by Saint Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian monk, and contained 36 letters. Two more letters, օ and ֆ, were added in the Middle Ages. Until the 19th century, Classical Armenian was the literary language; since then, the 405 Georgian The Georgian alphabet is the writing system currently used to write the Georgian language and other South Caucasian (Kartvelian) languages (Mingrelian, Svan and sometimes Laz), and occasionally other languages of the Caucasus (such as Ossetic and Abkhaz in the 1940s). The Georgian language has phonemic orthography and the modern alphabet has (disputed) ca. 430 CE Glagolitic The Glagolitic alphabet , also known as Glagolitsa, is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. The name was not coined until many centuries after its creation, and comes from the Old Slavic glagolъ "utterance" (also the origin of the Slavic name for the letter G). The verb glagoliti means "to speak". It has been conjectured that the 862 Cyrillic Cyrillic script is an alphabet developed in the 9th century in Bulgaria, and used in the Slavic national languages of Belarusian, Bulgarian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, Macedonian, Montenegrin and Ukrainian, and in the non-Slavic languages of Moldovan, Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Tuvan, and Mongolian. It also was used in past languages of Eastern ca. 940 Paleohispanic The Paleohispanic scripts are the writing systems created in the Iberian peninsula before the Latin alphabet became the dominant script. Most of them are typologically very unusual in that they are semi-syllabic rather than purely alphabetic, despite having developed from the Phoenician alphabet 7 c. BCE Epigraphic South Arabian 9 c. BCE Ge’ez 5–6 c. BCE Meroitic 3 c. BCE Ogham 4 c. CE Hangul 1443 Zhuyin (Bopomofo) 1913 Complete writing systems genealogy This box:

See also: Etruscan numerals Etruscan cippus (grave marker) from the necropolis Crocifisso del Tufo outside Orvieto, Italy, side view showing the inscription in the Old Italic (Etruscan) alphabet.

It is not clear whether the process of adaptation from the Greek alphabet took place in Italy from the first colony of Greeks, the city of Cumae, or in Greece/Asia Minor. It was in any case a Western Greek alphabet. In the alphabets of the West, X had the sound value [ks], Ψ stood for [kʰ]; in Etruscan: X = [s], Ψ = [kʰ] or [kχ] (Rix 202-209).

The earliest Etruscan abecedarium, the Marsiliana d'Albegna (near Grosseto) tablet which dates to c. 700 BC, lists 26 letters corresponding to contemporary forms of the Greek alphabet which retained san and qoppa but which had not yet developed omega.

Comparison of the Western Greek alphabet with archaic and classical Etruscan variants.

𐌀

𐌁

𐌂

𐌃

𐌄

𐌅

𐌆

𐌇

𐌈

𐌉

𐌊

𐌋

𐌌

𐌍

𐌎

𐌏

𐌐

𐌑

𐌒

𐌓

𐌔

𐌕

𐌖

𐌗

𐌘

𐌙

in transliteration,

A

B

G

D

E

V

Z

H

Θ

I

K

L

M

N

Ξ

O

P

Ś

Q

R

S

T

Y

X

Φ

Ψ

Until about 600 BC, the archaic form of the Etruscan alphabet remained practically unchanged, and the direction of writing was free. From the 6th century, however, evolutions of the alphabet took place, guided by the phonology of the Etruscan language, and letters representing phonemes nonexistent in Etruscan were dropped. By 400 BC, it appears that all of Etruria was using the classical Etruscan alphabet of 20 letters, mostly written from left to right:

𐌀	𐌂	𐌃	𐌄	𐌅	𐌆	𐌇	𐌈	𐌉	𐌋
𐌌	𐌍	𐌐	𐌑	𐌓	𐌔	𐌕	𐌖	𐌘	𐌙	𐌚
A	C	D	E	V	Z	H	Θ	I	L
M	N	P	Ś	R	S	T	U	Φ	Ψ	F

An additional sign 𐌚, in shape similar to the numeral 8, transcribed as F, was present in both Lydian and Etruscan (Jensen 513). Its origin is disputed; it may have been an altered B or H or an ex novo creation (Rix 202). Its sound value was /f/ and it replaced the Etruscan FH. Some letters were, on the other hand, falling out of use: B and D were apparently considered superfluous over P and T. K was dropped in favour of G (also transcribed as C). O disappeared and was replaced by U. In the course of its simplification, the redundant letters showed some tendency towards a syllabary: C, K and Q were predominantly used in the contexts CE, KA, QU.

This classical alphabet remained in use until the 2nd century BC when it began to be contaminated by the rise of the Latin alphabet. Soon after the Etruscan language itself became extinct.

Oscan alphabet

The Osci probably adopted the archaic Etruscan alphabet during the 7th century BC, but a recognizably Oscan variant of the alphabet is attested only from the 5th century BC; its sign inventory extended over the classical Etruscan alphabet by the introduction of long vowel variants of I and U, transcribed as Í and Ú. U came to be used to represent Oscan o, while Ú was used for actual Oscan u.

𐌀

𐌁

𐌂

𐌃

𐌄

𐌅

𐌆

𐌇

𐌈

𐌋

𐌌

𐌍

𐌐

𐌑

𐌓

𐌔

𐌕

𐌖

𐌚

𐌞

𐌝

A

B

G

D

E

V

Z

H

I

L

M

N

P

Ś

R

S

T

U

F

Ú

Í

Alphabet of Nuceria

The Nucerian alphabet is based on inscriptions found in southern Italy (Nocera Superiore, Sorrento, Vico Equense and others places). It is attested only between the 6th and the 5th century BC. The most important sign is the /S/, shaped like a fir tree, and possibly a derivation from the Phoenician alphabet.

Alphabet of Lugano

The Alphabet of Lugano, based on inscriptions found in northern Italy and Canton Ticino, was used to record Lepontic inscriptions, among the oldest testimonies of any Celtic language, in use from the 7th to the 5th centuries BC. The alphabet has 17 letters, derived from the archaic Etruscan alphabet:

𐌀

𐌄

𐌉

𐌊

𐌋

𐌌

𐌍

𐌏

𐌐

𐌓

𐌔

𐌕

𐌈

𐌖

𐌅

𐌗

𐌆

A

E

I

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

Θ

U

V

X

Z

The alphabet does not distinguish voiced and unvoiced occlusives, i.e. P represents /b/ or /p/, T is for /t/ or /d/, K for /g/ or /k/. Z is probably for /t^s/. U /u/ and V /w/ are distinguished. Θ is probably for /t/ and X for /g/. There are claims of a related script discovered in Glozel.

Raetic alphabets

The alphabet of Sanzeno (also, of Bolzano), about 100 Raetic inscriptions.

The alphabet of Sondrio, west Raetian and Camunic inscriptions.

The alphabet of Magrè, east Raetian inscriptions.

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