Talk:Proto-Sinaitic script/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

date

What is the relation of MBA alephbeths (1800, 1500 BCE) and LINEAR A, "in use before 1400 BCE"? If Linear A was in use for any length of time, it would have to be nearly as old as MBA's!

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.235.44.73 (talk) 20:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Ħ, ħ (1)

why the "Ħ"? Is that supposed to be the uppercase version of ẖ? If so, this should be pointed out at Arabic alphabet, otherwise people won't know what to make of the letter. dab (ᛏ) 15:19, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

It's the catital of the letter "ħ", which is both the appropriate IPA symbol, and the letter used when writing Arabic in the Latin alphabet (that is, the Maltese lect of Arabic). But you're right, I should do something about the alphabet transcription page. kwami 18:58, 2005 May 24 (UTC)

wording

I've removed the phrase "as well as being more esthetically satisfying" from the "Origins of the alphabet" chapter. That a writing system is aesthetically satisfying or not is definitely POV. However, I'd rather have reworded the phrase than straight-out removed it, since it may be worth to say that the Egyptian script had a "pictorial potential" that was exploited by scribes making it a form of art besides a script. But I'm not sure how to write this down concisely - certainly, "it's more aesthetically satisfying" is not it.

Besides this, I've edited the phrase "they are superior to alphabets when it comes to reading". AFAIK, there is strong debate over this. And, AFAIK again, there is no real evidence that this is true. I've changed it to "sometimes considered superior", but I'd ask whether it wouldn't be better to remove that phrase completely; the following paragraph would lose its meaning, though. Perhaps "sometimes considered superior by those who have learnt it as their first writing system".

LjL 22:13, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, kanji is not my first writing system, and I was an adult before I leaned it, and yet I find it much easier to read than the Latin alphabet (given my limitations with the language being written, of course). kwami 18:30, 2005 July 31 (UTC)

Wadi el-Hol section: There's one simple error in the section and at least one possibly misleading wording. (1) The direction that the second inscription (i.e., on the right) runs is said to be upper right to bottom left, but both Colless and the Wimmers read it from lower left to upper right, given the way you have reproduced it. If you have reproduced it correctly (and have not flipped the image, for example), then the wording needs to be corrected. (2) Whoever it is that wants to read the first Wadi el-Hol inscription as beginning with "rb" is reading it in the opposite direction from the direction that both Colless and the Wimmers do. If this unattributed point is kept at all, this should be made clear. Right now, "the beginning" that is assumed by this dubious reading is simply stated as if that were the accepted beginning of the inscription.

66.135.106.50 (talk) 15:23, 25 March 2008 (UTC) Cy

I just checked one of Colless' blogs, and the article appears to be correct. Why do you say it's wrong? — kwami (talk) 17:02, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I can read the stuff, more or less, as Colless and the Wimmers do. I don't think that Colless is responding to what I meant (or maybe he didn't notice the upper right/lower left stuff, which is easy to miss). I'll try again. Colless and the Wimmers are reading Inscription 2 from lower left to upper right, not from upper right to lower left. You can see for yourself. (Ask Colless specifically about that, please, if you have access to him. Or ask someone whose expertise you trust.) I'll list for you some of the letters that you can recognize and compare to the transcriptions. Start Inscription 2 from lower left. The first letter, a hook, is transcribed as L (lamed). (You can compare with other Semitic inscriptions in wiki: in later scripts the hook tended to face the other way, though.) The 2nd letter, the ox head, is aleph, transcribed as "?" (glottal stop). (Cf. Inscription 1 where the aleph ["?"] is the 5th letter.) In Inscription 2 the 3rd letter is the curve with two loops, transcribed as s-with-diacritical (shin), which is also the 2nd-last letter in Inscription 2. (Compare again to the transcriptions.) The long plain wavy line (no fork at its end) which is the last letter in Inscription 2 is the M (mem) (cf. Inscription 1 where the same M comes 3rd and 12th). The 4th letter in Inscription 2 Colless reads as a G (gimel) but the Wimmers read as a P (pe); cf. the 8th letter in Inscription 1. And so forth: you can keep going throughout the whole inscription like that, making comparisons even if you don't recognize any letters a priori. (And you can fill in the gaps by comparing letter forms with the same in later versions of Semitic script in wiki.) But if you read Inscription 2 from upper right to lower left, nothing corresponds between the two inscriptions or between Inscription 2 and its transcriptions by Colless and the Wimmers.

Sorry I was so long-winded -- but I'm happy you were interested.

66.135.106.50 (talk) 22:40, 27 March 2008 (UTC)Cy

If this is still relevant, at least Colless thinks it's right-to-left; but for some reason I cannot understand he also thinks that both inscriptions are connected. As far as I know, virtually all instances of Semitic writing outside of sort of isolated translated words and other fringe translations have always been written right-to-left, top-to-bottom - even in some of the more distantly inspired scripts like Uighur. Frankly, though, there is no way to be sure. Msheflin (talk) 08:37, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

merge?

Someone put in a merge notice for History of alphabets (who changed it to that unfelicitous title?). As the one who wrote both articles (at least in their present forms), I must say this doesn't make any sense to me. There are several scripts that have been very important to the history of the alphabet. This is one. Imperial Aramaic and Latin are others. I don't think anyone would suggest we merge the article on the Latin alphabet into History of the Alphabet. However, I could understand that there may be too much overlap for some people's tastes. kwami 22:13, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

After reading this article (and Sacks' book a few months ago) I have to agree with user kwami that it would be a mistake to merge this article into the article History of the alphabet (History of alphabets is a redirect). This article is very informative, uses its graphics well, and only becomes overly technical in a few places. Most linguistic articles on WP read at a very advanced level. The proposed destination article does need some attention, however, in terms of layout, mostly in the good use of white space and graphics. -Acjelen 00:47, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't merge. This article is too detailed to fit well into the overall History of the Alphabet page. --Macrakis 20:40, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

don't merge. This is the article about the Wadi el Hol finds in particular. dab (ᛏ) 19:30, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the merge tag. I am, however, adding a merge tag for the other article, which should merge here. That will be a readily easy job, but I'm wiking on the sly at work. -Acjelen 20:21, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

yes, I found a delapidated stub at Proto-semitic alphabet, and moved the content from here to there. If we redirect it here, the link should be removed from the {{alphabet}} template, too. dab (ᛏ) 16:01, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, no one's objected, so I'll merge. Since the info is completely duplicated (that was me, I think), it's a question of either merge or split up this article. Since the two scripts may turn out to be the same, merging is probably a better idea. kwami 20:10, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Ħ, ħ (2)

I know I have brought this up before (see top of page), but I am convinced now that we shouldn't spell Ħol, since the name is not Maltese, and Arabic isn't transliterated in IPA, and IPA is never capitalized anyway. See Arabic transliteration: the proper spelling is ẖ or ḫ therefore, if at all, Wadi el-Ḫol. dab (ᛏ) 16:26, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

You may be right. I was thinking in practical terms: many people will not see the higher-numbered unicode glyphs at all, and if we use diacritics they won't align properly on many browsers. The Maltese letters, by contrast, are almost universally supported, and there are no display problems. kwami 22:27, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I tried to introduce correct Unicode encoding of Semitic transliteration now; there seems to have been some confusion of ḥ vs. ḫ, I hope I got it right. dab (ᛏ) 19:37, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

It's still a mixed system, but more importantly, it's illegible. In the old system you could tell the letters apart. kwami 20:28, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this is the standard transliteration of Semitic languages; it's not my fault if ḥ looks similar to ḫ in your browser; anyway, we can look for improvements. The important thing is that we have got all letters right first. We can still opt to represent ḫ as x (in the transcription of ancient alphabets, not in the transliteration of Arabic, though) -- we'd just have to make this choice clear at the beginning. Maybe even a short section addressing transliteration issues first? dab (ᛏ) 20:42, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me, what's wrong about simply transliterating "Wadi el-Hol", with a plain H? "Wadi el-Hol" is a modern Arabic place name, and this is normal usage in any kind of media or text, apart of course books or web pages which deal specifically with Arabic language or Semitic linguistics -- but this is an article about archaeology and the history of the alphabet, not about Arabic or Semitistics. Anyway, if you really want a scientific transliteration/transcription, well, I fail to undertsand why you use "e", "o", and omit macrons! 194.176.201.28 09:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Linguistic reconstruction

The second "a" vowels in Hebrew Ba`al (masculine) and Ba`alah (feminine) are epenthetic vowels (introduced by two different epenthesis processes), and probably didn't exist at the time that the Sinaitic inscriptions were written -- so that the pronunciation would have been more like Ba`lat, not Ba`alat. AnonMoos 06:01, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Table

Wouldn't it be better to use the older Phoenician (the source of most alphabets) than Hebrew to demonstrate the alphabetic changes? — ዮም (Yom) | contribs • Talk 07:00, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

yes, but we need to make clear exactly what our sources are here. The statement "Only the Colless reconstruction is shown here. For the Albright identification of the Egyptian prototypes, see the Proto-Canaanite alphabet." is unsatisfactory. Both reconstructions (and others, if we find them) should be discussed and compared here. dab (ᛏ) 08:38, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Brian E(dric) Colless responds: I am very pleased with the table showing my identifications for the characters of the proto-alphabet, and I am grateful to the person who has taken the trouble to construct it. My own version has never been published in print in this complete form.

The sources for my thoughts on the proto-alphabet and the Wadi el-Hol Canaanite (West Semitic) graffit are in the archives of listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane, notably:

Wadi el-Hol Alphabetica (4) and (5)

https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane/2005-February/017682.html https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane/2005-February/017858.html

"Cuneiform alphabet and picto-proto-alphabet"

https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane/2004-November/015436.html

This has a list of all my publications on the Canaanite proto-alphabet:

COLLESS, Brian E., "Recent Discoveries Illuminating the Origin of the Alphabet", Abr-Nahrain, 26 (1988), pp. 30-67. A preliminary attempt to construct a table of signs and values for the proto-alphabet, and to make sense of some of the inscriptions from Sinai and Canaan.

COLLESS, B.E., "The Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions of Sinai", Abr-Nahrain, 28 (1990), pp. 1-52. An interpretation of 44 inscriptions from the turquoise-mining region of Sinai.

COLLESS, B.E., "The Proto-alphabetic Inscriptions of Canaan", Abr-Nahrain, 29 (1991), pp. 18-66. An interpretation of 30 brief inscriptions from Late-Bronze-Age Palestine.

COLLESS, B.E., 1996, The Egyptian and Mesopotamian Contributions to the Origins of the Alphabet, in Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Near East, ed. Guy Bunnens, Abr-Nahrain Supplement Series 5 (Louvain) 67-76.

And also my articles on the Canaanite syllabary ("Byblos pseudo-hieroglyphic script") in Abr-Nahrain (now Ancient Near Eastern Studies) from 1992 to 1998, culminating in:

Colless, Brian E.,The Canaanite Syllabary, Abr-Nahrain 35 (1998) 28-46.

From Thebes in Egypt we also have a copy of the proto-alphabet (published by Flinders Petrie in 1912) which has been ignored ever since. See now my discussions on: Cryptcracker.blogspot.com 27 August 2006 BEC

I'm confused; if, according to Colless, his reconstruction has never been published in complete form, how does it meet Wiki's standards as something beyond personal research, particularly if from his blog? Additionally, all published accounts are of inscriptions from Sinai and not those from Wadi al-Hol. Msheflin (talk) 20:49, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Ugaritic and Sinaitic

Why was my addition of Arabic letters to the diagram deleted? Msheflin (talk) 20:32, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Comparison of Ugaritic and Sinaitic scripts is as follows:

I'm all for the comparison with Ugaritic. However, I don't think this is the proper place for it for two reasons: (1) the connection is controversial, more even than the other connections in this table, and (2) here we are concerned with the development of the Sinaitic and Wadi al-Hhol scripts, which means that only part of Ugaritic will be listed, as Ugaritic innovations are not relevant. Therefore I think this kind of comparison belongs in the article on Ugaritic itself. kwami 21:01, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

name (and meaning)	hieroglyph	translit.	Phoenician	Hebrew	Greek	Ugaritic
’alp (ox)	(ỉħ)	ʾa		א	Α	𐎀 alpa
bayt (house)	(pr)	b		ב	Β	𐎁 beta
gaml (throwstick)	(qm’)	g		ג	Γ	𐎂 gamla
xayt (thread [skein])	(ħ)	ẖ	–	→ ḥ	Ψ	𐎃 ẖa
dalt (door)	(c’)	d		ד	Δ	𐎄 delta
hillul (jubilation)	;(q’; xrd)	h		ה	Ε	𐎅 ho
waw (hook)	–	w		ו	Ϝ	𐎆 wo
ziqq (manacle)	–	z		ז	Ζ	𐎇 zeta
ħasir (court)		ḥ		ח	Η	𐎈 ḥota
ţab (good)	(nfr)	ṭ		ט	Θ	𐎉 ṭet
yad (arm/hand)	(c)	y		י	Ι	𐎊 yod
kapp (palm [of hand]), (palm branch)	(d, drt) –	k		כ,ך	Κ	𐎋 kaf
šim (sun [uræus])	(rac)	š		ש	Σ	𐎌 šin
šimš (sun)	(rac)	š2	–	–	Ϲ	𐎞 šinš
lamd (crook/goad)	(cwt)	l		ל	Λ	𐎍 lamda
mu (water)	(nt)	m		מ,ם	Μ	𐎎 mem
ðayp (eyebrow)		ḏ	–	→ z	∇	𐎟 ḏal
naħaš (snake)	(j)	n		נ,ן	Ν	𐎐 nun
–	–	ẓ	–	–	Ϡ	𐎑 ẓu
samk (support [vine tutor]), (fish)	(jd, dd) (ỉn)	s		ס	Ξ	𐎒 samka
cayn (eye)	(ỉr)	ʿ		ע	Ο	𐎓 ʿain
pu (mouth)	(r, r’)	p		פ,ף	Π	𐎔 pu
ṣirar (tied bag)	(sšr)	ṣ		צ,ץ	Ϻ	𐎕 ṣade
qaw (cord [wound on stick])	(wj)	q		ק	Ϟ	𐎖 qopa
ra’iš (head)	(tp)	r		ר	Ρ	𐎗 raša
θad (breast)	–	ṯ	–	→ š	Ϛ	𐎘 ṯanna
γinab? (grape?)	–	ġ	–	–	Χ	𐎙 ġain
taw (mark)	–	t		ת	Τ	𐎚 to
–	–	s2	–	–	Ϸ	𐎝 śu
–	–	ʾi	–	–	ϒ	𐎛 i
–	–	ʾu	–	–	Υ	𐎜 u
–	–					𐎟 word divider

Wikinger 20:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Ya.. I am wondering where the adder of Ugaritic (Wikinger?) found the name dhal for what is otherwise known on this table as dhayp? If you could put up some sources, it'd be a kickass support for the idea that dhal in Arabic does in fact come from that character (which it clearly must since apparently no other language but Ugaritic and Arabic retain it; and the Ziqq idea I believe is a Colless addition not cited). Michael Sheflin 01:31, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Then of course the question becomes where did this name ðayp come from...? Michael Sheflin 01:34, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Old European

Why no mention of work connecting proto-Sinaitic alphabets with northern Europe. There's the work of A Marshack, et al., see particularly the Current Anthropology article (1979, p. 277) and compare the graphic system there to Schmitz's 2002 article in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, p 818. There are many other references. Thing is, the Russian material is much older than the Proto-Sinaitic examples. Gimbutas's table of European letters from 8,800 BP and onward is also deserving mention. It's true that this alphabet is not a self-sufficient alphabet, but the similarity of it to the Phoenician alphabet is strong. Marshack has written quite a bit on this, and provides excellent picturse of early inscriptions dated to the Mousterian These inscriptions are a bit earlier in No. Russia, but he finds them in Iberia much earlier than the so-called Iberian script and believes they have iconic meaning and are not decorative. This becomes important because the same type of script is found in the New World at a later date, but no trace of Phoenicians.130.166.33.188 (talk) 04:37, 27 November 2007 (UTC)Kamaila.

You could find similarities with chicken scratches, if you looked hard enough. Anyway, there's not much evidence that "Old European" is even a writing system, let alone an alphabet. kwami (talk) 10:39, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

User, I'm sorry you were so questionably rebuffed. Here's a chart showing one hypothesized relationship: (http://www.ancientscripts.com/alphabet.html). The second footnote on this page explains that one hypothesis is a relationship through Phoenecian (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A952634). Here's a book on the subject, basically asserting the close connection between some Celtic Runes and Phoenecian (http://books.google.com.eg/books?id=lvBySVkW4CkC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=Runic+phoenician+script&source=bl&ots=TLfeKvA4tM&sig=SCnk0OUGXyc2Hv62wUp26fSWsHM&hl=ar&ei=Zqm7StqTMODTjAfJ8cGpCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=Runic%20phoenician%20script&f=false). I don't understand why opinion counts as evidence on this discussion page... Msheflin (talk) 17:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Wadi el-Hol inscriptions drawing.jpg

Image:Wadi el-Hol inscriptions drawing.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 03:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

The drawing has no copyright, or actually, the copyright expired 2000 years ago (if that makes any sense). No 'fair use' comment is required. — kwami (talk) 06:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

However this drawing is by BRUCE ZUCKERMAN IN COLLABORATION WITH LYNN SWARTZ DODD, rather than a photo. So these two own the copyright. It will need to be recopied for wikipedia free use. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:28, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't matter who it's by, or how much work went into it, there is no creative process in tracing someone else's work. — kwami (talk) 06:45, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

In that case the picture needs to have its copyright notice changed, as the fair use is not justified, but public domain is. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:45, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

baʿalat vs. baʿlat

The middle vowel is epenthetic in Hebrew, and probably wouldn't be present as early as ca. 1500 BC, so [baʿlat] would probably be more correct... AnonMoos (talk) 20:47, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Letter names

Unless someone can provide sources for the letter "names", and soon, I will delete them as being Original Research. Cbdorsett (talk) 00:09, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

We do not know what these letters were called. However, it is conventional to refer to all Semitic letters with Semitic names, whether or not names are attested from the alphabet or era in question. This is simply a practical affair, and due to the recognition that these are historically one and the same, rather as we call the Latin letter B "bee", even though that's not how the Romans pronounced it. I've changed the rubric to "conventional name" to clarify this. Although you wouldn't be wrong in deleting the names, that would make it difficult to refer to individual letters in this or other articles. kwami (talk) 00:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that explicit letter names are mainly attested in the A.D. period, so that reconstructing letter names for the Middle Bronze Age alphabets involves reconstructing the phonology of the A.D. letter names backwards over a thousand years, and then trying to correlate these reconstructed names with meaningful words whose meanings correlate with the objects apparently depicted by Egyptian-influenced signs according to the "acrophonic principle" (i.e. that a hieroglyph sign-shape borrowed from Egyptian was used to write the consonant sound which began the word for the Northwest Semitic word for the object depicted).

Sometimes it all works out perfectly, as with bet reconstructed back to baytu which means "house", and the house-looking sign is known to have written a [b] consonant due to the securely-deciphered word laba`lat. The same with `en-`aynu-"eye"-voiced-pharyngeal. But with a lot of the others, there are problems or major uncertainties -- for example, more scholars have reconstructed a snake-looking sign to write the sound [n] than a fish-looking sign, etc. etc.

Some of the entries in the table are effectively the same as the rows of "Fig I" of the 1971 Albright book (though sometimes with different spellings), but others are different... AnonMoos (talk) 02:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

General Confusion in the Article

I'm just a casual reader that happened upon this page, but I'm rather confused by it in many areas. I'll try to outline the areas that left questions to me as a reader outside this field.

• I'll start with the following example that is on the page:

 r ḥ m ^c ʔ h₂ m p w h₁ w m w q b r ← [read right to left]

[r x m p ʔ h₂ θ g n h₁ n m n w b r]

 l ʔ š p t w ^c h₂ r t š m ← [read top-right to bottom-left]

[l ʔ š g t n ^c h₂ r t š m]

H₁ is a figure of celebration [Gardiner A28], whereas h₂ is either that of a child [Gardiner A17] or of dancing [Gardiner A32]. If the latter, h₁ and h₂ may be graphic variants.

I don't see any reference to h1 in the example nor do I understand why if h2 is of dancing, that h1 and h2 may be variants.

• I also don't understand what alphabet's origin is being referred to in the following subsection. The page title itself refers implies the page is discussing more than one alphabet, so it should either be the origins of the alphabets or specifically refer to an alphabet.
• Furthermore, I ended up at the page from a link to proto-Semitic alphabet, which is never explicitly mentioned on the page. Is it Proto-Sinaitic script or Wadi el-Hol or both?
• Finally, is there a history of writing page? This page didn't clearly explain to me how pronunciation is known for ancient languages. It has nice comparisons and conventional names, but I don't understand where those names are derived? How do scholars know how the letters or symbols actually sounded? Is this all done by Colless and, if so, what is the justification for using this reconstruction over the others listed?

Ost (talk) 00:13, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Excellent questions. I'll try to clean it up a bit, unless someone else gets to it first. It's not really known if these are one script or two, as they have not been adequately deciphered. As for reconstructing the sounds, this is inferred from how they were pronounced in descendant scripts, as well as on reconstructions of the language in question. We can never know for sure, which is why you get things like h1 and h2. kwami (talk) 00:27, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

"The origin of the alphabet" discusses the origin of the alphabet, not any alphabet in particular. kwami (talk) 02:39, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Colless

Why and HOW was my cited link to The Tower of Babel (as support for r-b meaning big in older Semitic languages) deleted!? The resulting paragraph now contains not a single citation and frankly is wrong. There is no evidence for the use of this root to mean anything like Rabbi? It relates to a general trend of neglectful research that delves only into Hebrew etymology at the expense of other Semitic languages. I would really appreciate an explanation as to how this, being the only cited element in this passage, was deleted in favor of an uncited assertion of r-b meaning rabbi or lord? Msheflin (talk) 20:34, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually to continue, my reference to El meaning a god, or gods was also deleted in favor of El meaning 'god' which I assume is a misspelling of God... whoever did that had better hope He's merciful. Presumably this also relates to the unambiguous presumption that these inscriptions are all proto-Hebrew, in Colless's words to me in an email. But without evidence it qualifies as a questionable and discriminatory polemic and violates Wikipedia's verifiability policy. Msheflin (talk) 20:37, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Now having put together all my thoughts... seconds later, I would like to also inquire as to how Colless got his name into a paragraph describing his BELIEFS on the trilateral nature of semi-hieroglyphic early letters' but there is not a citation? I am wondering if someone could comment on how Colless is featured prominently with no citations even to his articles? My fear is that his blog slowly sneaked onto this cite and the verifiable elements of non-personal scholarship are not present. My personal additions were the connection of available research to new evidence presented by the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions, and were not personal "research" but were removed; how is it Colless appears by name but remains uncited? I thought that violated Wiki policy? Msheflin (talk) 20:55, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

If I reverted good citations, my apologies, and please feel free to restore them. Perhaps I was too tired to notice what you had done. The text read like it was your own personal opinion, and that's what caught my attention. Appending phrases like "but this is surely wrong", without any citations, after a referenced account, is going to get you reverted by s.o. else if not by me—you need to include specific citations with each claim, esp. if you are debunking another author.

Yes, I know others have had problems with Colless, and I'm in no way defending him (or opposing him, for that matter). We certainly need a verifiable of what the field as a whole makes of all of this, and if Colless is generally considered fringe, then we can perhaps delete him altogether. If we do not include Colless, then we do not need to include the details of how he's been debunked either. This article was written soon after the discovery, and there had not yet been time for the field to evaluate it properly.

"my reference to El meaning a god, or gods was also deleted in favor of El meaning 'god' which I assume is a misspelling of God". Why would you assume that? El means 'god'. (Not 'gods', as it is not plural.) AFAIK, it's a common Semitic root for 'god', but this is not my field. It was reverted along with everything else, because there was no point in keeping it: it did not correct anything, and in fact introduced an error, by stating that it could be plural. kwami (talk) 00:54, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok... valid point on the pluralization of god to gods. My point was not to suggest it meant the plural but rather was a nom de plus of gods... i.e. El Ba'al. To be honest, I'm not going to put up a huge fight on this issue. I personally think we need to delete Colless solely because his only resource that's reference-able is his blog... And AFAIK up to this point he's still written nothing on Wadi. However, I had had email correspondence with him, so I am probably a poor party to do anything but argue and debate in this regard, though I find it very suspicious that almost word for word what he has said on his blog/in emails to me has appeared on this page - supposedly not through his actions...

I think actually the problem is that this page is poorly conceived. It is only describing two (pretty well accepted to be) Semitic abjads or alphabets or whatever (there's really not a huge difference in terms of representing Semitic languages). There really should be separate pages for Wadi el-Hol (which by the way is also misleading in that 2 of the more than 50 inscriptions found were Semitic and the rest were Egyptian Hieratic and Coptic inscriptions) and for Proto-Sinai. Colless's name... if he wants to make some sort of case belongs in the later and not the former. Doing research on this matter, I have come across almost no scholarship - or for that matter any real references - outside Darnell's original work. As explained to me, Colless believes that this is proto-Hebrew (though again look at my case for why Hillul cannot be a prototype for the human hey characters) but is for some reason semi-hieroglyphic. On his blog he has made this case for Sinai inscriptions... again with basically no justification (although this method was used in an unrelated alphabet found in Saqqara in the tomb of Pharaoh Unas).

So I don't know who has say or stakes in this page but my suggestion would be to split it up (partly because Middle Bronze Age might be speculative for Wadi el-Hol in that it is found primarily along inscriptions found during the Theban kingdoms (with some earlier)). My thought has been that Darnell has exploited his accidental find to make a name and a lot of money for himself (note: he is one host for a company that charters jet flights for private parties to tourist sights in Egypt), and thus has sought to maintain that the Wadi Semitic inscriptions are the oldest attestations of Semitic language (before they found the inscription in Unas's tomb). Now it's maintained that they're the oldest alphabetic writing, but I see more evidence to the contrary - which is not relevant here. But it is slightly disingenuous to maintain this page under this name (as I believe someone mentioned re: are these one or two alphabets); it doesn't really matter, these are clearly two ... events or some better noun. One in Sinai and one in S3iid with very little evidence in between to directly connect them through Egypt. Msheflin (talk) 03:58, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The only issue with taking Colless out completely, also, is that there is nothing else to sit on scholarship-wise. And having spoken with him for a while, some of his points are compelling on the misreading of certain letters. The problem is in his argumentation to me, he basically only cites his blog work on the Sinai inscriptions and thus relies on his own translations to further his conclusions on Wadi, but these translations are pretty easily contestable and not attached to any consensus. The other main scholarly work is by Darnell, an Egyptologist, who otherwise has no experience in reading or translating Semitic inscriptions. Thus including only the former transliterations (not by Darnell) of the inscriptions is actually a worse evil than leaving Colless's... though to be honest this argument is very complex largely because characters origins are interrelated and effectively untraceable except through current roots. Nevertheless, Colless's work is also not cited. Msheflin (talk) 04:42, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Also... I realize this will sound quite stupid... but I have no idea how to revert a page... I don't feel like chasing everything down (particularly that annoying chart.) any help would be appreciated Msheflin (talk) 04:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

As for splitting the article, that may be a good idea.

It appears, assuming you're right, that we have two largely unreliable sources, and no other academic literature to speak of. This is a difficult situation, and not one to be messed with lightly. I suggest that we take it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Writing systems and have a broader discussion as to which would be the best way to go.

As for reverting, the article has been largely stable for a while, so let's leave it alone until we get some discussion going. Some of the editors in the project really know what they're talking about, certainly more than I do.

I'm unfamiliar with any Saqqara script from Unas' tomb; that's something that should also be taken up there. kwami (talk) 07:08, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I guess dude... but leaving it as is privileges the people who conjectured before you 'tiredly' removed my changes - which were recent - assuming your claim is correct that this article was written shortly after the 1999 discovery. My changes were cited to online linguistic resources. These are translations, transcriptions, and diagrams - all uncited. And I might add that the diagrams are incorrect and exclude extremely important details - like the either Ankh or Tanit figure in the horizontal inscription. These details provide key elements of context but aren't cited. Most importantly they pretty clearly show that this is not Judaic proto-Hebrew, and thus cannot be treated in this way (i.e. rab is not rabbi... it's big, like g/j-b-r and k-b-r (very likely inverted and agglutinated)). The Saqqara script is not a script. I've never been able to find a picture, but supposedly it is a snake spell in a Canaanite dialect written with hieroglyphs - personally I find it slightly dubious but it has been translated and dated to 2400 BC at the latest I think. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070205-snake-spells.html. I would really appreciate some assistance on how to revert the page. I don't know why you think that previous stability... over years... makes my changes invalid - as I have mentioned, they would add the first relevant citations. Msheflin (talk) 07:23, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Arabic

Why was my addition of Arabic letters to the diagram deleted? Msheflin (talk) 20:32, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

You've posted in two places, which means I've ended up answering twice. Next time, please just let the person know that you've posted an objection on the article talk page.

There were a couple problems with the Arabic. You had the same letter appear in different locations, which can't be right. If an etymology is obscure, we need a note to that effect, not just placing the letter wherever. So the actual claim appeared to be dubious, and IMO there was no reason to include it in the first place. Hebrew we need, because that's the standard transliteration of ancient Mideastern alphabets. (Ancient Semitic epigraphic texts, even from Arabia, are generally transliterated into Hebrew in publications.) Latin we need, because that's the alphabet our readers are most familiar with. Greek is of interest, both because many of our readers are familiar with it, because it's intermediate between Semitic and Latin, and because it retains letters which Latin has lost. But Arabic doesn't add anything, and our readers are for the most part unfamiliar with it. There would be no point in adding Cyrillic or Georgian or Devanagari either, for that matter; we have a History of the alphabet article that covers such things, and IMO that's where the Arabic belongs. kwami (talk) 00:43, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

..I'll correct my stylistic errors Msheflin (talk) 04:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes you're correct, for the J (sorry I meant "g") sound, I included ق, كَ, ج, and غ because those letters carry the sound "g" (the ghayn might be a stretch actually) in Egyptian, Khalijy dialects (Gulfy), and Sudanese and Omani respectively (again, the ghayn might be a stretch)... That's one example, the point is I included multiple letters for different sounds because when examining an alphabet in this manner (attaching sound to letter) it is not a static process, and including only fus7a/MSA would be essentially a disservice to an attempt to provide a realistic account of Arabic; particularly because many of these dialects were no doubt influenced by the previous trends this page was set up to examine.

The letters were not placed where ever, their etymologies are contested and questionable; thus is it better to use unverified and unverifiable conjecture of the past (mostly by non-Arabic speakers) or to use the sounds attached to letters as is easily verified... Hebrew is the standard transliteration of ancient Middle Eastern alphabets for publication in the West; that is not surprising, Arabic linguistics is still a floundering field - particularly in interaction with the West. But my point is that an overemphasis on one dialect of a broader system (in the same way dialects of Arabic are related to a broader "essence" somewhat mistakenly perceived as monolithic Arabic). Latin you "need" because this is English Wikipedia. However I might add that you, as an admittedly underexperienced observer editing based on 'your readers' needs,' does not appear to be consistent with the other operating principles of Wikipedia; unless I have seriously misinterpreted something here.

As I originally mentioned, and to which you have not responded, the current Arabic alphabet contains every sound present on this chart, whereas no other alphabet (except for extended unicode I guess) actually contains every sound. Look at 3*inab for grape. I assume this is a غ although in modern Arabic 3inab begins with an ع. So... why is my addition of Arabic useless? (I apologize if this is too longwinded now:) The only listed 'value' for this character is under "Semitic value" which is a) not verifiable except through essentially spoken verification, and b) not attested in any of the currently listed Semitic alphabets (abjads...writing systems, whatever). So you may see why reconstructing sounds that do not have an attested history of existence outside of at least Arabic might prove troubling to how we know these sounds exists. And once "we" have fulfilled that burden to "our" readers, then perhaps they can be spoon-feed themselves this information as fact knowing at least one instance of a Semitic value in a Semitic language can be proven... or perhaps not.

Your point is a bit odd: Cyrillic or Georgian or Devanagari, while very likely all derived from these original 'Semitic' abjads, are not themselves written attestations of Semitic spoken language, as is Hebrew/Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, Ge'ez, Tifinagh (which also ends in a ghayn by the way), even cuneiform Akkadian (which is admittedly the worst possible example). So, no, they do not add anything to an article about Middle Bronze Age Semitic Abjads - actually the title of this article is a tad misleading. But Arabic is a Semitic language. The problem with solely using Wiki to determine Arabic sounds is that the pages on letter-evolutions solely follow MSA/Fus7a/Qur'anic/Formal Arabic, but not the dialectic divisions. As someone who learned a bit of Classical first, I was confronted by the transition from jim to gim on moving to Egypt; spelled the same way ج pronounced quite differently. In Sudan and Oman that is a ق (gaf), but not in all cases (in Egyptian the ق is a ء - a glottal stop) but not in words like Quran or el-Qahira (just as in Sudanese these words are also pronounced with the q).

I put a lot of thought into that and all I can think about now is removing the ghayn (it's used interchangeably with ج in سجارة the word for cigarettes - but this might be my bias because I live in Egypt. Still... your point that Greek is important as an intermediary between "Semitic" and Latin reveals why you should not have done this.. and I don't think fatigue is really a fair (though perhaps valid) explanation... The Greek alphabet (and thus Cyrillic, possibly Latin) are thought to derive in some way from Phonecian, which itself derives from these early Semitic alphabets. In this, there is a fair amount of academic consensus; what there is not consensus on is any of these being a language called Semitic; proto-Semitic is a theoretical conception of an original language (as with any proto- language concept) but is very unlikely written down - certainly not in inscriptions as late as these assuming it was actually a 'tangible' language. In that sense, you have proven my point... if you ... whoever you are.. kept Greek because it retains lost letter sounds (and not for the more valid reason that it is a descendant of Semitic abjads via Phonecian as most scholars have purported) then you removed Arabic for an invalid reason - in that it also retains sounds lost in every other displayed language. Msheflin (talk) 03:44, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

FYI, by the way. I think those who find standard translations into Hebrew may be stacking their sources... As you will note, the Smithsonian (http://www.mnh.si.edu/epigraphy/) (although in connection with a Saudi ministry) uses Arabic and English (Latin is a bit of a misnomer), and (http://books.google.com.eg/books?id=vTrT-bZyuPcC&pg=PA145&lpg=PA145&dq=ancient+arabian+inscriptions+exhibit&source=bl&ots=Hbv6VRwyKK&sig=Ukor9YHXpTH_wJGblIlrbHMKgus&hl=ar&ei=tp65SsrKMIWsjAfVk-j1BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4#v=onepage&q=ancient%20arabian%20inscriptions%20exhibit&f=false) this author uses extended English (ok Latin) also. The key is audience, but also context. The issue is that the analysis I have seen that includes only Hebrew and English (and Phonecian or Greek) largely translate and analyze without regard to the other related Semitic trends. Based on extremely limited exposure to Arabic linguistics and very well-known Arabic linguistic academics, I can tell you that this is a completely Western conception not shared in the view of history produced by those who actually speak and live under the umbrella of Semitic languages. Ethiopia is an interesting case because of the mutual intelligibility of languages, the same can be said of various Arabic dialects, and of pre-modern dialects in Greater Syria.

So, I don't know who your readers are, Kwami, but this reader wants to see that sounds are in fact accounted for by attested letters (otherwise those sounds are in minds not proven to exist 4000 years ago). Are Moroccan and Egyptian both Arabic? Yes. But neither is Classical Arabic, and frankly few people outside Morocco (or apart from those learning Moroccan) can easily understand the dialect; virtually nobody outside Mauritania can understand Hassaniyya. The only place Classical Arabic exists is in writing and Western-oriented training programs. Nevertheless, even in 'colloquial' writing, letters are often used interchangeably where their sounds are interchangeable in the colloquial. i.e. in the most common transliteration system for Egyptian, you would write (بنقول) "we say" as (something like... this varies a bit) ne2ul or na2ul. Even though the 2 stands for a qaf, it actually transliterates ء/أ which is aleph(hamza)/hamza - the way one says a qaf in Egyptian. So in including a just interpretation of these conjectural Semiticisms into Arabic, it makes more sense to use the living speech patterns (which probably were affected by the transition from various dialects to writing and then to writing in Arabic) rather than what you can read in a textbook... or for that matter all the letter-evolution pages and the page on Fus7a. Msheflin (talk) 04:17, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow your position. The table is not about "sounds", it's about letters in a family of alphabets. The fact that an Arabic letter today may be pronounced like what we presume of a Wadi el-Hhol pronunciation millenia ago is entirely besides the point: the question is whether the Arabic letter derives from that Wadi el-Hhol letter. It appears you were utterly unconcerned with whether the Arabic was related or not; your edit, then, was inappropriate for the article. kwami (talk) 06:59, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

You've more than missed the point here. A) Written Arabic's origins are obscure but there's some support for a partial-Coptic evolution, and there is no argument that yes all Semitic alphabets (that would include Arabic) as well as almost all other alphabets are descendants of these alphabets (Have you even read this (poor) Wiki page that we're discussing?). B) Because the Arabic spoken language is essentially related to whatever Semitic dialect(s) are here transcribed, the vocabulary and evolution are intertwined. So no, I was not unconcerned, you missed the point. The accepted consensus is that Arabic is related through (among others) Syriac<-Phonecian<-Canaanite<-Sinaitic/Wadi el-Hol. If you are correct... in whatever it is you are endeavoring to say, then none of the alphabets are related (Arabic did not just sort of spring out of the desert). Regardless, Arabic language itself is invariably related to these inscriptions through proximity and linguistic relation (they are Semitic)... so the Arabic letters as benchmarks are both better and possibly more closely related than the English. Msheflin (talk) 07:38, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070205-snake-spells.html. Please undo your deletions of my changes, after which I will remove any questionable material that I had added. This seems like essentially an act of unqualified linguistic tyranny. And I can't understand why... Msheflin (talk) 07:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually that origin of Arabic was slightly disingenuous, I do not think that there is a consensus for that specific evolution; but there is no question that it is (however indirectly - although proximity wise probably quite closely) related to the surrounding Ancient Semitic dialects, and that the writing evolved into a script form from either a common source as, or simply from, these MBA alphabets. Msheflin (talk) 07:44, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Your user page says your native language is English, but unfortunately I can hardly understand a thing you write. Nothing that I can understand of what you're saying about Arabic would seem to have any relevance for this article. kwami (talk) 07:49, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Arabic's relevance is pretty direct, I have made too long a case of that. And your response is fairly rude; native English speakers can still begin sentences with and... My use of ellipses may be excessive but my grammar is pretty impeccable. I am going to undo your changes as, essentially, a form of vandalism. I do agree that this should be referred back to the main project for consultation, but I do not see any Semitic languages listed in your repertoire. Perhaps you can't see the relevance because you can't read what you see? Msheflin (talk) 07:58, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

No, I was not rude, I was merely honest. Some of your English is nearly incomprehensible--I literally had no idea what you were trying to say half of the time. (Like the last: "you can't read what you see"--what is that supposed to mean? Is it an insult? I can't tell.) I was surprised because you claim to be a native English speaker on your user page, but what you write does not appear to be native English. Reverting edits made with incoherent justifications is not vandalism, and you have failed to give any comprehensible reason for the Arabic (no matter how long), as well as apparently not understanding why you were wrong. I suggest we get some feedback. kwami (talk) 10:27, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes... you were; no I'm not; "You can't read what you see" - no it's not an insult, it implies that you edit and judge things without reading - which you acknowledged by saying "I was too tired to notice what you had done." That's a questionable admission for someone keeping watch over this article... You can obviously tell that I am a native English speaker. I'm not going to have this fight, fine my native language is Esperanto... but the only word I know is Nivelo, as in "We are not on the same nivelo." I beg your pardon as well, sir, but the incoherent justifications you are referring to are links that you found to not be valid. You should have solicited feedback since you had the problem. I was editing uncited material; you have twice removed cited material. This is ridiculous. Msheflin (talk) 14:56, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I said "(perhaps) I was too tired to notice what you had done" as an attempt to be generous, that maybe I simply didn't recognize the validity of your edits. But in the case of Arabic in the table, you've said nothing since to make me think this was actually the case. You're making some serious claims, rewriting the entire history of the alphabet, which if not original research require some substantial justification. And the place for it is not primarily here, but in the History of the Arabic alphabet article, which is completely at odds with your claims. kwami (talk) 06:47, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

reverts

Here is what I am reverting, and why:

(Israel and Palestine)

there is no such article

However, earlier instances of written Semitic language have been found

unsupported by any refs or explanation as to what this might be

However, according to the earliest undeniable attested written Hebrew, the [Gezer Calendar], hillul is spelled with a chaf and not a chet or hah, casting doubt on the relationship of the descendant characters with the original word hillul from which they are purported to derive

appears to be synthesis & therefore WP:OR (why should the earliest Hebrew, which is not all that early, be taken as definitive?), though perhaps admissible - this is a point for discussion

(however early attestations of "r-b," according to the Semitic Etymology Database on Tower of Babel, refer to "big or many" Tower of Babel).

You're using Starostin as a source for Semitic? Well, perhaps admissible, but again, this is synthesis. Point for discussion.

In fact, depending on what dialect was being inscribed, this word might also be taken as "r-b-w-n" many (people) or even possibly an Egyptian-inspired rendering of Ribbun (Libyans).

Again, no citations. This would appear to be OR on your part.

the Arabic:

who claims that hamza derives from alep? sin/shin do not have the same source, as you claim, but dal/dhal and 'ayn/ghayn *do* have the same sources. That is, this section would appear not only to be OR, but easily disprovable OR. You're going to have to come up with something better than this. And what's the point? The Arabic is largely superfluous here, and if the etymology of the letters really is this contentious, then that is s.t. that we should leave to dedicated articles.

Except for that minor point about 'god' vs 'a god', I don't see anything that clearly improves the article, much that is dubious, and some that is clearly wrong, so once again I'm reverting. WP is not a forum for you to air your own theses, but an encyclopedia to cover what is in the literature. We're merely reporters, not researchers. If you don't like it, please ask someone at the writing project I linked you to. Someone there should be knowledgeable enough to evaluate your contributions, and perhaps have the references you're looking for. kwami (talk) 10:51, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Dude... why are you being so vindictive; to answer your personal objections to justify again vandalizing my edits:

1) Comparing two words is not original research... it is a common-sense linkage. The claim here is that hillul is the antecedent word from which hillul developed. Hillul is not spelled with a common character. That is noteworthy based on actual empirical evidence. It's a new analytical connection, not personal research. ("you must cite reliable sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and that directly support the information as it is presented") I did not add the hillul analysis (which by the way is not cited); I merely added the cited link to the Gezer Calendar - a link already present on Wiki which offers refutation of this frankly stupid hypothesis.

2) Ok Mr. I decide what sources are relevant. Find any other source for early attestations of Semitic languages? I think you will find all of them to be less academically-oriented, and less comprehensive in their accounts. And it was cited (it is impossible to cite specific searches). Anyway add your citations.

3) I can't believe you're making me do this again... Ok, hamza versus alef... let me get you started with some low-level citations (http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Hamza; http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Aleph): Aleph and Hamza were represented by the same character in Phonecian and diverged in Arabic to correct an issue with the glottal stop versus long-a. So to answer your question, Wikipedia claims the letters are related. Moving on. Anyone who reads either Arabic or Hebrew knows that sin and shin are related... again (http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Shin_(letter)). As far as I know, nobody has conjectured that dal and dhal are related in origin. You can look up those individual pages. At least according to the standard orthography, ghain is more closely related to the evolution of kha rather than 3; which makes sense based on the voicing (http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/%C4%A0ayn).

Frankly I once again see a case of vandalism. It is not my responsibility to link to someone you find qualified because you yourself are not. You have been criticized on your talk page for this very issue. You should refer it to someone or add your own citations. You have now twice vandalized my article, and both times revealed a genuine lack of knowledge of the subjects you are editing. Not a single piece of original evidence was included and I included every citation for pieces of new analysis (not research). You have now twice removed cited work... I apologize if my additions make you uncomfortable, but you do not have the right to continually vandalize them. You can refer them to one of the numerous other knowledgeable people within the Wiki Languages Projects and perhaps let someone else take over for a change. Msheflin (talk) 14:50, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Also I have no idea what that first comment about Palestine was, I never added that first part... as far as I can recall. It may have reverted with the rest of the things I undid... but obviously I would assume it's not an article. This is becoming offensive. Please stop vandalizing legitimate efforts. Also, please stop victimizing the addition of Arabic since I find you cannot understand why the presence of a complete Semitic record of its own evolution is desirable in tracing Semitic evolution.... Msheflin (talk) 14:53, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Finally, I sent you the link to the Unas Tomb discover, so the removal of the older evidence was a poor choice on your part. I did not make the claim that the Gezer Calendar is the oldest expression of Hebrew; that claim was made by Wikipedia [1]; regardless it can be taken as a decent example of that word in an early form. Hence my comment was not so much synthesis as common sense. Msheflin (talk) 15:05, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I think I see what part of the problem is. It would appear you do not understand the purpose of the table, or that you do not distinguish scripts from the languages they transcribe: "Aleph and Hamza were represented by the same character in Phonecian and diverged in Arabic to correct an issue with the glottal stop versus long-a." No. Aleph and hamza are letters, and AFAIK independent letters, not variants like C and G. You are claiming that both derive from the same ancestral form. According to all the lit I have seen, this is false. Similarly with the rest of the alphabet: you are attempting to match sounds, rather than letters; the result are false claims about the origin of those letters.

Second, please read what WP:vandalism is. Reverting inappropriate material is hardly vandalism, and if you object, you can always bring it up for discussion. That's how things work around here. We don't accept things as true just because an editor says they are.

By making "common sense" dictionary comparisons, I can "prove" all manner of things, such as that Arabic is really a Slavic or Japonic language rather than a Semitic language. After all, isn't this what you object to about Colless, inappropriate synthesis? That is why we do not allow WP:synthesis on Wikipedia. What you need is a published source (or at least a verifiable statement from a respected author) that makes these comparisons. kwami (talk) 20:10, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I'm reposting these, I was not logged in. 1)...Flatly, no you cannot. But I'd love to see you try for argument's sake. You said the same thing about the Ruinic Scripts above which at least appear to have some sort of connection to (at least) certain Phonecian characters, I also saw this mentioned in a number of articles. But you have written as if you know better - again providing no sources; if challenged, I will go out and search for mine (but I'm currently locked out of the e-databases for my university.. so it would be difficult at the present moment). 2)It is not synthesis. Synthesis is the product of thesis and antithesis; hypotheses, theories, arguments, what have you. Evidence belongs more in the heuristic rather than ideational category. If you have evidence that Arabic is a Slavic or Asiatic language (apart from being Afro-Asiatic) then provide that evidence cited on this page. If someone has evidence to the opposite effect (which is likely much more abundant) then they will provide that. You do not get to decide what is valid. Likewise, if Colless or his supporters could provided cited evidence, then someone else could provide countervailing evidence. I am not matching sounds; I am matching letters - you'll notice that jim goes under "g" which is not the sound it makes outside of parts of Egypt (and maybe Libya, not sure). But through etymology (g-b-r in Hebrew is equivalent to j-b-r in Arabic) you can trace orthography. Also note that Yemeni Hebrew has included a character for jim based off of gim in some alphabets because of the presence of both sounds in certain dialects of Yemeni Hebrew - further support for my idea that your removal is based on a failure of understanding.

Hamza is kind of a letter... it's strictly speaking not included in most Arabic alphabets (textbook or otherwise - though I think on wiki it is listed). It can be attached to any of the vowels or used independently, these are all 'letters' from my keyboard that show common use of hamza detached from aleph: (alef) ا; (alef-hamza) أ; (ya-hamza) ئ; (waw-hamza) ؤ; (hamza) ء. Truth be told, someone smarter and more knowledgeable than I could give the actual names, but no hamza is not necessarily a detached character, or something solely attached to the alef - the alef is often detached from the hamza anyway in Arabic. Please cite your literature on the alef article as evidence against the common decent - which is not cited on that article.

This is a quote from the Aleph Wiki page probably correctly describing why alef in Arabic is a contrivance of writing and descended from a common but orthographically confusing singular Phonecian source (please take the time to read it as it is now on this page): "Historically, the Arabic letter was used to render either a long /aː/, or a glottal stop /ʔ/. This led to orthographical confusion, and to introduction of the additional letter hamzatu l-qat` ﺀ. Hamza is not considered a full harf in Arabic orthography: in most cases it appears on a carrier, either a waw, a dotless yā', or an alif. The choice of carrier depends on complicated orthographic rules..." It then basically describes how hamza mimics diacritic choices/patterns, and thus arose as a distinct character (in Arabic) from alef to accommodate different diacritic patterns based on either grammar or dialect.

It's not inappropriate... You aren't knowledgeable on the subject, so you can't really judge this. I appreciate you bringing it up on the WS projects main discussion page and hopefully more qualified people (than I as well) will join.

What needs to happen now is that we both need to step back a bit and wait for more qualified people to join. If indeed I am spewing forth Arabic in English script, and if you are correct that ... as prose goes... mine is useless, then I will drop this case. But given that you admitted on the WS projects discussion page that you are not qualified to analyze this, why do you keep feeling the need to provide unsubstantiated arguments on this page. Throw it out there: what lit says hamza is an unrelated character (note it's also somewhat shaped like a bull's head or a cursive Hebrew alef)? It has a different sound in Arabic, than alef, and is a different letter. It is not a vowel but a consonant (sort of), which is why in a number of dialects other letters (consonants) take on the sound of hamza. Nevertheless, if you put the two together you get the Hebrew cursive alef in full. I know this is not evidence, it is some combination of rant and OR (the last sentence) so now your counterargument comes in the form of this literature you've mentioned; not in the form of simple negation.

In conclusion, please stop accusing me of doing things I do not do. All of this information is on other wiki pages which you have not chosen to correct with your literature. As I say, throw your evidence out there on this discussion page, or let's both step back and wait. Msheflin (talk) 22:17, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, it would appear that you are just making guesses, according to what you think is reasonable or looks good, without any substantiating evidence. (And yes, I know that about hamza, and about gim/jim. I agree with your placement of jim, but the hamza stuff is entirely irrelevant.) Unless you have sources to back up your claims, there's no point in discussing them: you are making the claim that hamza derives from the same letter as aleph (just because "it's shaped like a bull's head"?), that sin and shin derive from the same letter, but that dal and dhal derive from different letters, and similarly 'ayn and ghayn. Since you are making the claims, it's up to you to substantiate them, not for me to disprove them. If you like, take a look at the history of the alphabet article, which makes referenced claims that contradict yours.

I am curious as to why you would be "spewing forth Arabic in English script", since you claim to be a native English speaker, and to know only a little Arabic. No, your prose is certainly not "worthless", I just have a difficult time following you sometimes, much more difficulty than I would expect for any native speaker. If you are a native Arabic speaker, pace your user page, then that would explain it, and I don't mean to demean your English -- it's certainly much better than my Arabic. kwami (talk) 22:19, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, you could stop demeaning my English, if you don't mean to. I may have gone to public school in NJ, but I'm pretty good with the letter-writin'. (http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Scribal/haleem.html) This explains that early Medina Arabic supposedly included "yellow dots for the hamzas in particular" as compared with red dots for diacritic marks. It also implies that hamza is either the result of or related to an orthographic 'blip' that attaches phonological rules to the placement of various interactions between vowel and hamza: echoed by this author on pages 71 and 72, where he explains that hamza preceding alef was pronounced ya and later the hamza was dropped as its orthography was increasingly confused with alef, and distinguished by a glottal stop (http://books.google.com.eg/books?id=227GhaeKYl4C&pg=PA100&lpg=PA100&dq=origin+of+hamza+%22.edu%22+orthography&source=bl&ots=lfrD0Y6N1m&sig=CcyweYWS7t5Ocp4wNSz2k3sKXXo&hl=ar&ei=hKO6Suq6BpjSjAe5tu35BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#v=onepage&q=hamza&f=false).

All this suggests what I previously said. Hamza is sort of a letter; in the words of that Wiki page - it's not a full haraf. So as a result, you are partially correct, it should be dropped. Now please present your literature, which I assume will explain why you deleted the Arabic text from the table? How have I misunderstood what it is for? And since the Syriac and Phonecian parallels to the evolution of Arabic are quite clear, then you have your evidence that Arabic is of direct relevance to Phonecian (please check out islamic-awareness's collection of early Arabic inscription photos - it's very cool). Arabic script and dialects developed quite differently in different places, you will note that most authors, when describing the early period of Islam, differentiate between Meccan and Medinan Arabic, as well as these two from other dialects. The earliest inscription posted on the aforementioned site also shows an inscription in Syria next to Greek, which shows a very different interpretation of a common abjadic conception than that used in Arabia.

In short, present your evidence now, that the hamza's development is somehow unrelated to alef - as all evidence suggests its creation resulted from a dualism in the pronunciation of alef specifically that led to divergent orthographies when Arabic evolved various iterations of a commonly-rooted abjad (derived from these MBA alphabets). Please also illuminate what the table is for, if not an attempt to a) show the evolution of common letters (Arabic has quite a few more readers than Hebrew, Phonecian, and Ugaritic combined); and b) describe reconstructed sounds from descendants of these reconstructed letters (i.e. Arabic is more useful than anything other Latin; and more relevant than that). I take the "Semitic value" section to imply the "sound" that these "letters" made in a hypothetical proto-language (which did not exist in writing). If this is not the case then what is the English-written "Semitic value?" Msheflin (talk) 23:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Hamza: once again, you are confusing letters with the sounds they represent. In English, both C and K represent /k/, but that doesn't mean that both derive from kapp. Indeed, if we were to extend the table to include Latin, C would be in the gaml row, for the same reason that jim would be in the gaml row.

The table, as many similar tables in other articles, shows the evolution of the alphabet. Greek A and Hebrew א are not associated with ’alp because they are pronounced the same—they are not—but because they historically derive from ’alp. Yes, there is a column for the reconstructed (and rather uncertain) sounds, but this article is about the script, not about the phonological evolution of the Semitic languages. The Arabic alphabet doesn't illuminate anything about these Bronze Age scripts.

Again, it is up to the person making a claim to demonstrate it. If you think hamza (the letter, not the glottal stop) derives from ’alp, present your evidence. If you think sin and shin both derive from šimš, contrary to History of the Arabic alphabet, which suggests that shin derives from šimš but sin derives from samk, then present your evidence. If you think that dhal derives from ðayp rather than from dal, and that ðayp was not replaced by ziqq as the table currently claims, then present your evidence. If you think that ghayn derives from γinab rather than from ayn, and therefore that γinab did not disappear, present your evidence. kwami (talk) 23:25, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Listen, I have presented my evidence here before attempting to compile it for the article. The burden is no longer on me, you did not examine either of the 2 (of many) sources I presented and presented none of your own to offer a counterargument. Where is the citation.... sources? for the reconstructed sounds? Since there aren't any I assume the sounds are interpolated through (primarily) Hebrew; this is not clear but also not a sound mode of inquiry (since the oldest Arabic inscription is at the latest perhaps 700 years after Hebrew - again, I refer you to my islamic-awareness.org link). I don't think that hamza derives from the Arabic letter. It derives from a dualist orthography of the Arabic alef's pronunciation - this character unmistakably derives from the Semitic 'alf/p; hence the claim (made by other authors) summarized above and evidenced with the above links you ignored.

The letter hamza derives from one part of the Arabic inclusion of the character 'alf/p. It was included in Arabic to represent a letter pronounced in a complex manner, sometimes either as a glottal stop or as a long aa (I cited this above, once again... - check the book by Schiller). When Arabic evolved writing (and written letters), this dualism became complicated and so a sign separate from diacritics was devised almost always attached to the 'alf (but sometimes to other vowels to represent the sound made by the combination of the glottal-'alf and another vowel). Hence, both characters derive from the split orthography of the Arabic 'alf that later developed into hamza and 'alf as we know and love them in Modern Standard Arabic. Again, not my opinion - the opinion of the authors cited above.

On the other letters, I have presented evidence, previously, linked only to Wiki. Since you did not bother to read the new evidence I presented here, I am not going to look up sources for these other letters right now. Look at the Wiki articles from which this chart takes its cues: There are at least 2 possible (Hieroglyph) origins presented for each of the h/kh characters, yet on this table only one is listed for each. How'd that happen? And how is that any different than what you're accusing me of? It happened because the origin of the alphabet is more complex than one sound or even letter to one orthographic root.

I think that pretty much clears this... Are you saying present evidence on the actual article page? Is that what I'm misunderstanding? Read my posts from above, please. According to History of Arabic sin derives from shimsh (http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/History_of_the_Arabic_alphabet#Pre-Islamic_Arabic_inscriptions). Just as in Hebrew, the inclusion [alteration] of a dot[s] marks shin from sin (or vice versa); hence regardless of the 'sound,' the characters are related - in the context of evolution of the alphabet. I searched for ذ in the history of Arabic - not a single instance on the page outside the table of letters not related to the article (so where is the latent evolution you're reading off the page?). Likewise, not a single instance of غ. So for every case you used, there appears to be no evidence to support your claims either? Why do you decide who is correct? Also... the individual pages for each letter in those cases appear to support my claim. I have tried to respond as directly as I could, would you please grant me the same right next time? Msheflin (talk) 23:47, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The consonant pointing of Arabic is misleading, which is one reason it is such a bad illustration for this article. Sin and shin are not related: their present similarity is mere coincidence, as your own links show. They are just as distinct historically as ba and ta, or ra and zay: as Arabic became cursive, many of the letters came to be confused, and the pointing was added to distinguish them. Dal and dhal, however, are related: the pointing was added there to distinguish two uses of a single letter. You'll find this info in any history of the Arabic alphabet. Your library likely has Daniels & Bright, which covers this in some detail. kwami (talk) 09:31, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate your enthusiasm, and my library does have Daniels & Bright. But this is a singular source written by two dudes from Oxford. If I were to start going through sources for Arabic specifically, they would be either in Arabic or written by native speakers. You have given no evidence here. You have not quoted from this book, and indeed I have shown in this discussion that in the books I have cited, as well as on the existing Wiki pages, you are providing information that does not appear to exist or be corroborated. I am going to restore my changes and fix citations. If at that point, you choose to remove them for the third time without justifying by counter-citing different evidence, it will in fact be vandalism. Good day to you. Msheflin (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

For instance, this is from Alfred Guillaume; (http://books.google.com.eg/books?id=GSsVAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA5&dq=Evolution+of+Shin+Arabic#v=onepage&q=Evolution%20of%20Shin%20Arabic&f=false). Note that this evidence, unlike that you are presenting, is actually verifiable.

"So far as concerns shin and sin it may be said that Arabic provides a large number of words where the two sibilants are used indifferently; almost certainly thehy are local and tribal variants like the shibboleth of the Old Testament. A good many citations in BDB point to Arabic shin = Hebrew shin [... (also Arabic sin = Hebrew sin]. pg. 5

Now it doesn't really matter who is right or wrong, I have evidence, you appear not to. So what matters now is a brief discussion on how to best incorporate all of this into the table. As it stands now, without sources, the table should be removed anyway. So assuming that you personally will not let that happen for whatever reason, should I add a section on the justification of the Arabic addition - providing all this evidence in a linear and complete form? As for why the table should be removed, if I had the right to do so, I would post the table Colless sent to me in an email.... it is basically the same table, although it includes Epigraphic South Arabian, Sinaitic, Canaanite, Phonecian, Greek, and Latin - with no citations and based on his own original work. So actually it kind of seems like this table is a Colless table for Sinaitic being passed off as a common ancestor of both with no evidence. If we choose not to fully remove it, then the addition of Arabic would also represent the first evidenced addition of information. Again, I appreciate your enthusiasm but you have way overstepped your bounds here and increasingly resorted to repetition rather than evidence. If this book is so wonderful (D&B) please feel free to quote it or cite from it. As you have repeatedly told me, the person making a claim is required to evidence that claim; and I am not claiming D&B is relevant, you are... but I know nothing about it, because you have only mentioned its name as some attempt at a trump card... no dice. Msheflin (talk) 14:31, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

(As a final sidenote for me) If you look at early pre-Kufic inscriptions in Arabic, ra, za, dha, and da are indistinguishable (also nun (sophit... lol I don't know the Arabic grammatical term)): by way of a total absence of dots or distinguishing stroke-differences. Likewise, baa, medial and initial nun, taa, thaa, medial and initial ya (i.e. any "box" character) are also indistinguishable. So strictly speaking, the just-previous-to-modern Arabic alphabet has no distinction between these characters. The interpolation of letters is related to word/sentence/line context. It does not mean these characters are all related in some flaky way, but without tangible evidence from you I suppose that case could be made on the basis of evidence presented on islamic-awareness.org (really a phenomenal site for early Islamic and early Islamic-Arabic resources). Please present no more argumentation without either quotes or citations, and please join me in a constructive discussion below. Msheflin (talk) 15:12, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The Fixins

So, attempting to move past the seemingly irrelevant discussions above, how can this page best be made verifiable. The table is one foreseeable issue. Another is the questionable direct links between Wadi and Sinai (there are links but they cannot be proven to be direct at this juncture). Another would be why Colless is exclusively cited at the expense of everyone else.

Re: the article, I am not married to the idea of splitting it up (is anyone getting my numerous mixed metaphors? trump card.... no dice? sigh), but its name is quite misleading. Additionally, until evidence can show that this table is not a baseless personal venture, I think it should probably be removed as superfluous given that other more verifiable tables exist (History of Arabic etc.). Additionally, though it pains me to give them credence, I will (when a new format crops up) add some info from the Theban Survey publications from Darnell. Part of the issue with the hillul hypothesis (which is from Darnell I believe) is that virtually every other inscription found in the vicinity was either organizational, family-oriented, military, or regal. That is somewhat confusing but my point is this was a trade road, there is no evidence of festivals or religious ceremonies - except of a Libyan tribe. The content of the 50 other inscriptions found is not directly irrelevant, but provides citable context. I think it's also pretty clear that all blog entries should be excluded; you'll note I have posted (actually in total probably more than Colless) on this issue on my blog, but I have excluded that information. I don't think any one individual should trump that baseline.

Additionally, I will look into this but I know pretty certainly that the Wadi script was found in the early 20th century before the Darnells rediscovered it in 1999; so there should be a trickle of information from before 1999. Colless belongs in an article on Proto-Sinaitic, and frankly he belongs there alongside other authors considered more in the academic mainstream. My interest is primarily in Wadi el-Hol, but by maintaining the connection between the two, it no doubt conflagrates a series of arguments and counterarguemnts that may not be directly commensurate. I would welcome any and all opinions on this. Msheflin (talk) 15:05, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

--

I think the entire section with the table needs to be removed as irrelevantly unverifiable for the time being. The section above should either be removed or moved to the history of the alphabet. From that point, the article will eventually need to be renamed, and possibly split. However, I think it will be very difficult to do anything meaningful with the debate centering around non-central issue, rather than the centrality of the two sets of inscriptions the article is supposed to describe. Michael Sheflin (talk) 17:12, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

If it's unverifiable, why in the world would we move it to another article?

It may indeed be worthwhile splitting the article, with a 'Middle Bronze Age' section in History of the alphabet, and separate articles for Sinaitic and Wadi. How though is the current title misleading? These are the alphabets of the middle Bronze Age. I'm glad you now agree that the Arabic is irrelevant. kwami (talk) 21:12, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

No I meant that the table itself is not verified, and hence (at this point) irrelevant to the article. If it stays, Arabic is still at least as relevant as everything else. The title is misleading because it implies this is a page for all Middle Bronze Age Alphabets, which it is not; it is a page for two possibly related Egyptian-inspired alphabets for (possibly related) Bronze Age Semitic dialects - even the dating of said scripts is pretty contested.

But look... I'm getting really discouraged here because I've provided a lot of evidence on a number of pages you've commented on, but still seen no sign that you recognize you're misreading the evidence already available on the letter evolution pages, or the links I posted on this discussion page. Hence, if I again edit and add citations, and you again remove them (this time the citations that I've already added on this discussion page), it creates an edit-war, no? I'd really prefer to see some budging on either side of the argument.

You're partly correct, the other pages on the evolution of the letters are somewhat ambiguous and themselves not well verified, but that shouldn't mean you can keep blocking my attempts to improve this page - if only as a springboard to finding the information to improve other pages (which you will see I have already done). This is all very discouraging, and having seen your other edits and the reactions you have provoked, it is clear you are a linguist working from very general sources. Please look at the information I have provided. Michael Sheflin (talk) 23:00, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Also, this is a very good article discussing, in part, the very complex relationship between predecessor Semitic scripts and Arabic (http://www.awu-dam.org/trath/71-72/turath71-72-005.htm). It shows a table of the relationship of Hebrew and Arabic that directly vindicates my argument that dhal and dal are not orthographically related, as neither are 3yn and 3*yn; whereas sin and shin are - and samekh may be as well. Once again... I am afraid to attempt any edits because I fear you will zealously overrule my evidence again, and I will have to figure out what comes after that... Michael Sheflin (talk) 23:06, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't read the Arabic. However, the history of the script is pretty clear. For one thing, the letters retain their numerical values from the original Semitic order. For another, we have the evolution from Nabataean through early Arabic. But again, how is any of this relevant? If you want to take it up on the History of the Arabic alphabet page, fine. But it adds zilch to this article, except for readers who happen to know the Arabic alphabet, and we don't normally cater to such specialized audiences. If we did, we would need to add the dozens of other scripts which are just as connected. kwami (talk) 23:34, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll edit this article later. Please either cite or remove your reference to a quote from Daniels & Bright as I will be doing so later. If you invalidly revert any of my changes, I will take it up with whomever one takes this sort of stuff up with. Cheers. Michael Sheflin (talk) 23:39, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

As for the topic, feel free to add any other middle Bronze Age alphabets. The article is not meant to be exclusive, but to cover scripts that are so poorly attested that separate articles might not be warranted. However, your idea of "invalid" seems to be anything you don't agree with. Sorry, but that won't fly. kwami (talk) 23:43, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Dude... There's no acceptance of the dating. Even if you accept everything spoon-fed about the dating of each, the Sinai inscriptions are at the cusp of Middle and possibly Late Bronze Age. So the title is misleading - and perhaps even poorly aggregates the Sinai inscriptions on that basis. My idea of invalid, is your summary ruling against cited sources. I still have seen 0 sources from you - except perennial references to a general book on world writing systems (not a good source outside of a general article on that subject - even if it's more than 900 pages long). I'm not going to split up the article as I do not have that power, but I think it's only fair that the table section be removed, and everything for Colless be put in the Sinai section pending citations - otherwise slated for later removal. Michael Sheflin (talk) 23:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not giving you more citations because you should be able to work it out for yourself. D&B will give you plenty of more specific citations. This is the conventional wisdom -- it may be wrong, but it's up to you to demonstrate that. And what if it is? It doesn't belong here in the first place!

As for the dating, yes, of course it's contentious. We can certainly modify or rename the article accordingly. Can we first at least agree to drop the distraction about Arabic, so we can concentrate on things which are actually relevant to the article? kwami (talk) 00:03, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Lol. It's almost as if one of us has had a prefrontal lobe lobotomy. Thank you for adding that citation. Now I will not remove the quote... I don't have the book, you keep referencing that so it's on you - not on me - to provide evidence from that source for existing info on the page if that is your desire. Otherwise the existing info is either OR or not verified.

As for the Arabic, no. I have never understood your point that it is irrelevant (and have empirically shown you it is actually not irrelevant), and you clearly have never looked at any of the sources I have sent you expressing scholars' opinions of this relationship. C'est la vie. I don't think you have a point here, I think you can't read Arabic and that bothers you. I'm not trying to show off by adding it, only add relevance to a broader audience. (You have argued it has limited value... I presume you left out the prepositional phrase "to you.") But clearly Greek - an irrelevant non-Semitic offshoot (of relevance to the History of the Alphabet, but not to this article) - clearly does. I've never gotten the point... Arabic is more relevant than Greek and as relevant as Hebrew. Michael Sheflin (talk) 00:14, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not. If this were Arabic WP, we of course would have Arabic. If it were Russian WP, we would have Cyrillic. What's relevant depends on the script of the text. From your argument that Arabic is as relevant as any other Semitic language, we should add all other Semitic alphabets. But why? That can be found in History of the alphabet. What's most important is Phoenician, as that's the starting point for many treatments of the alphabet. Next comes Hebrew, because that's the script of Semitic transliteration in English. Next comes Greek, as that's intermediate between Phoenician and Latin. Arabic is, from an English-speaker's POV, a side branch, no more relevant than any other script. Now, if it were commonly accepted that Arabic preserves letters that Hebrew has lost, that would be a different story, but your claims to that effect are quite obviously wrong. Perhaps you got the info from one of your sources, but it looks like you're just making stuff up. Anyway, I'm tired of beating a dead horse here. The Arabic—and certainly your original interpretation of Arabic—stays out unless you can get consensus from other editors that it's relevant. kwami (talk) 01:21, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok. My internet cut out for a few hours, the beauty of being in Egypt... I understand your point now but I think you're missing a broader point. What is most important is certainly Phonecian, as the empirically verifiable link between these two scripts and most other modern alphabets (excepting American (North and South) and East Asian original alphabets) - that is the standard account, and the reason that the only academic publications cite these scripts as the sole ancestors, right or wrong. Hebrew is not a standard language of translation, though it's totally contextual on the audience - I sent you a link and I do not see Hebrew not associated with either religious polemic, audience context, or direct link. I'm not making anything up; just because you couldn't read that one article I sent with an actual sourceable table doesn't mean you couldn't see both Hebrew and Arabic on the table... - and see the character relationships. Michael Sheflin (talk) 02:39, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

You know what, I realize that last part was unclear. Arabic the same as Hebrew, can often be associated with polemical arguments. So when I see both, alongside others, I am just overjoyed. I appreciate your commitment to the quality of information on Wikipedia, please don't get me wrong. However, it seems to me that my first foray into editing has ended in an odd process. Usually I would expect one's argument to weaken as I provide evidence to the contrary - or at least change - just as I do if presented evidence to the contrary of my argument. But this has not seemed to happen here. I am not asserting anything, except arguments I have heard in academic circles. Even if this "link" between Latin and the others were relevant, which it's not because the key is this is English Wikipedia so that transcription language is English and not "Latin" (same alphabet, confusing), Hebrew is not really part of that link. The link is Phonecian, so if we're going for directness it would be Hieroglyphs->These(possibly Wadi->Sinai)->(maybe Canaanite as well->)Phonecian. That's really it. Then it would be appropriate to have a transcription into sounds understandable to the English-speaking audience. Personally I don't see anything else as logical, but I get your point. I have requested editor assistance, we'll see what happens. Michael Sheflin (talk) 03:14, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Diagram Issues

I think the diagram needs to be removed and replaced with two diagrams, as there is no evidence that the inscriptions are related by proximity - this is a Colless argument not verified by other sources. If we can't get the pictures, someone needs to find new diagrams. In particular, most exclude the drawings around the vertical inscription that may be of key relevance (and can be seen with greater clarity in the pictures linked below the diagram. Michael Sheflin (talk) 00:14, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Solutions and suggestions ...

Michael Sheflin asked for a third-party opinion, so here goes:

• This long-running discussion makes me think of a few things in general:
  • Michael is a newby, so the wiki policy of don't bite the newbies seems to be relevant, and it looks like for the most part, Kwamikagami is sticking to that, apart from personal comments about Michael's English. I can relate to the fact that it is sometimes hard to figure out what someone's point is, and that may be what Kwami was trying to say about Michael, but I think it's out of line to say that someone's English is non-native, or that someone's knowledge of Arabic is similarly less than desirable. So my point on this one is this: stick to the point and leave personal comments out.

That was not meant as a personal attack, and it was on point. Michael wanted to know why I wasn't taking his POV seriously, and the reason was that I couldn't respond to something I couldn't understand. His writing made me think he wasn't a native English speaker, but I was confused by his user page, which says he is; I thought by bringing it up I might get some clarification. Also, I never said his level of Arabic was insufficient: I said mine was. kwami (talk) 01:20, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

• • Sometimes, discussions about articles and edits get pretty heated, even without personal comments. If you can't handle it, take a wikibreak. This is what I do, and it works for me.
  • Divide up the topics for discussion - it makes it much easier for people to comment without having to read lots and lots of stuff they aren't interested in. For example, if I want to comment about /el/ and /ba'al/, where in that long discussion would I want to put my comment?
• I think one of the best things that can be done for this article is to divide it up. Put the meat of the Wadi al-Hol in an article by itself, and the Proto-Sinaitic script information in its own page. What remains of the Middle Bronze Age alphabets is a general summary of why these two are thought to be related, plus thumbnail sketches of the content of those two articles, with appropriate Main Article type links. I think this will focus the discussion. For example, if Colliss has written about one but not the other, all refutation and support of Colliss's arguments will be guided to the right discussion pages.
• This topic is one of many that has scholars screaming at each other. There are ways of summarizing the opposing arguments that allow casual readers to understand the controversy without getting information overload.
• In relation to both of these scripts, the article suffers from a dearth of citations, appropriate or otherwise. The various assertions are interesting and serve as a stepping-off point for finding the actual sources, so I would oppose the deletion of every single unsupported citation. After all, it was only a few years ago that Wikipedians started to insist on citations - before then, there was a whole lot of original research, some of which still persists without proper citations.
• I for one would like to know how many examples of these inscriptions have been found. From the current state of this article, it seems like there is only one of proto-Sinaitic (which was found in two locations, which can't be right) and that there are only two Wadi al-Hol inscriptions, which we can see in the illustration provided. There is also a citable reference in some National Geographic website about Semitic anti-snake inscriptions in part of Unas's tomb in Giza. Maybe that should have its own page, too, with an appropriate link.
• I don't buy this business about Arabic being irrelevant. It reminds me too much of how European researchers dismissed all Arabic scholarship about the Arabic language itself. However, any references to Arabic in an article on a topic from the Middle Bronze Age have to keep in mind the huge time difference. For example, the hamza was a much later development, so it sheds about as much light on Wadi al-Hol as the development of the letters J, V and W.
• I don't accept the table at all - the article is about an intermediate step that is not represented in the table. The table represents conjecture about connections between two known endpoints, Hieroglyphic and the Semitic alphabet (for lack of a better term). Besides, if the hypothesis is that the proto-Sinaitic script evolved from hieratic writing, then why is that script not represented in the table?
• I don't accept the business of naming these letters. Unless there is evidence to show that these symbols even had names at the time they were used, the names are anachronistic. If the names were in fact attested at a different time in a different script, the person promoting the use of the names has a big burden. In terms of Wikipedia, all we have to do is say that a particular citable scholar has made the connection, and if the connection is disputed, we can point to a citation that says that too. It is our own editorial discretion that says how we portray that dispute, for example,
  • A says X, but others disagree, for example, B.
  • It is not clear whether X is true, as claimed by A, or whether Y is true, as claimed by B.
  • Scholars disagree on whether X is true (A supports, B opposes)

Sorry, but I have run out of time. More later. --Cbdorsett (talk) 16:10, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Two points from the above:

Arabic is just as relevant as other descendant scripts, but no more so. If he had just added Arabic, my only objection might be filling up the table with information which can be found elsewhere on WP and which isn't particularly relevant here. However, the actual problem is much greater than that: Michael is asserting that letters from these scripts survive in Arabic, even though they are not attested from Phoenician or Nabataean. That's a hell of a claim to make without any references, and considering how he flip-flopped on his letter assignments, is something I suspect he simply made up.

AFAIK, the names are educated guesses, and reflect the conclusions of each author: an Egyptian prototype is found for each Semitic letter, based on the Semitic translation of that glyph starting with the consonant represented by the letter. The names of the letters are then assumed to be the Semitic translations of the glyphs. For example, ðayp means 'eyebrow', and the glyph for eyebrow resembles a Semitic letter that Colless believes was replaced by z, which he therefore assigns the name ðayp. I can't evaluate how robust such identifications are, but agree they are potentially problematic. kwami (talk) 20:05, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Dude... First off, using Wiki as a main source is a bad idea, because frankly it's an abysmal failure as far as this subject goes; as far as I can tell. Let me paint a quicker picture (and this time you don't get to claim a lack of Arabic prevents you from reading my link). Nabataean alphabet is an offshoot of Aramaic alphabet (according to Wiki); Aramaic alphabet is an offshoot of Phonecian, an offshoot of Proto-Sinai/Canaan. Now (while I personally see all this as more complex), according to Wikipedia, Old South Arabian alphabets are also offshoots of Proto-Sinai. So... this would be a language table from the Smithsonian, showing the development of other Old South Arabian scripts toward both Hebrew and Arabic; you'll notice some scripts do not have some characters that Arabic retains (you'll also notice as I mentioned before that remote dialects of Hebrew have characters for these sounds as well). One hell of a claim, huh? Actually I'm not making it though. Since you don't read my citations, look at the picture - http://www.mnh.si.edu/epigraphy/figs-stones/x-large/color_xl_jpeg/fig02.jpg . (BTW this is exactly the same table I sent you from the Damascus Writers' Union - one of them stole it from the other). Michael Sheflin (talk) 20:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Again, are we discussing scripts, or languages?

First, you'll notice that they correlate Arabic sin and shin to different Hebrew, Sabaean, etc. letters, contradicting your claim. But it would appear that what they're doing is correlating letters according to which phonemes they represent, not according to their historical relationships. This is the opposite of what you were claiming to do; and even if you do go this route, you still have the sin/shin problem. The development of the Arabic script is well attested, and not all of the letters which are now distinguished by pointing were separate letters in Nabataean. (AFAIK sin and shin were, like ra and zay, but dal and dhal, taa and thaa, hha and kha, ayn and ghayn were not.) Take ancestral Greek and modern Italian as an analogy: The Greek letter Κ dropped out (if we ignore foreign borrowings), being replaced by Γ, which became Italian C. However, Italian has a new letter derived from C, G, which has the value of Greek Γ even though it derives historically from Κ. What you're doing with Arabic is the equivalent of saying Greek Γ became Italian G (which is true), but that Greek Κ became Italian C (which is false). kwami (talk) 21:45, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

We're discussing scripts, but the only way to actually verify that characters are related is to perform comparative etymological experiments and gauging patterns in different letters in clearly related roots (i.e. provide evidence of the correlation). This is the case with gbr/jbr/kbr, all in various Semitic languages (there is a lot of evidence for this correlation in academic literature, I am not trying to make or stake a claim). I believe what this table is doing is correlating phonemes via the Arabic and English alphabets (which is what the table (any table) does anyway). Don't jump out and in the next comment say I'm ignore the issue of attested letter-transition: for Greek and Latin this may be clear.

But for languages several hundred years earlier than that, how can one "verify" the relation of letters (i.e. when writing must be sparser as writing had not become widespread - and was linked to a limited number of primarily Semitic languages)? It kind of seems to me that this is what is done for Latin and Greek anyway, right? Borrow-words, cross-relationships and different spellings -> gauge patterns, publish on letter relations. This is the same thing the Smithsonian and Arab Writers' Union is doing; we don't have to accept it flat out.

If there is academic literature suggesting different relationships (sigh... like Colless's actual publications), then we should produce different tables. But this is one table. I will email the Smithsonian soon (because I actually figured out some possible words for the few untranslated Thamudic ones), however I think what they are doing is using cross-related attestation of words to show the progression of the (common) letters used to write those related words. It's both language and alphabet; and while we might not (or might) need the meta-debates over the linguistic relationships, it would be worth including academic debate (including from the Smithsonian) on the character relations, I think. (sorry, on friend's laptop - Michael Sheflin) 41.196.211.23 (talk) 22:36, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. These are much more intelligent articulations of some points I had been trying to make. Simply to clarify some of your questions: There have been a lot of Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions found... Ironically that's one thing Colless's blog is good for, he has a lot of pictures. Those two depicted (incorrectly together) are the only two Semitic inscriptions found near the Wadi, alongside a wealth of Hieratic and some Coptic (the Theban Desert Road Survey from Darnell explains this and shows all the Egyptian inscriptions). They do not both possess all the same characters, so there is some question about whether the scripts can be certainly linked; but I have seen no evidence that [the two Wadi inscriptions] are linked by either time or proximity.

I will take a break, possibly permanently, as I frankly just don't care anymore. I've always only used Wiki to find keywords and keyword cross-relations (and correlations), but this experience has nullified any hope I saw in this resource. Michael Sheflin (talk) 16:26, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you both seem to have some idea of the literature in this field, just be aware you can't settle or add to existing agrumentats. If you each make uncited assertions but the other knows someone in the field believes that, don't delete the work but try to source it or put it into context. This may ultimately produce the most detailed article- many of the explanations here if sourced could go into the article AFAIK. If in fact a notable fad has been shown to be wrong, it is still worth inclusion along with the evidence that showed it to be wrong. Notable conjecture, as long it is not OR is fine, that is what most of science is and indeed there are articles on disproven ideas. Tangential information is always an editorial call, I think you were arguing about pronunciation or something, but personally anything relevant and sourceable would seem worth putting in somewhere. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 16:44, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

A couple pts (still h n h time t read it all): the table is limited by Unicode and images. If Unicode supported hieratic and Wadi, they would be in the table.

Splitting up the article: that would mean creating a Wadi el Hhol script article. Michael is of the suspicion that there is no such script, that the two inscriptions are not connected, so that wouldn't solve the primary issue here (except by removing proto-Sinaitic from the fray). kwami (talk) 01:27, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

And to contradict myself... I'm immediately dragged back in... Oh woe that is Wikipedia... I said the inscriptions were not related to each other (as part of 1 unified inscription); I never said the scripts employed were not related, and they were found within the same general area just not on the same rock (which is what I should have said initially). The table cannot be limited by unicode as would not otherwise show up. It would require a library of the available characters. For that, Colless's drawings could be satisfactory (he has a table I have in my email if he gave permission); but it doesn't solve the actual identification of the letters - which is disputed.

Colless's version, as in the table, is cited for Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions and he basically extrapolated his viewpoint (over the published viewpoints) to Wadi el-Hol. He makes some compelling, but utterly unverifiable, points. If Wikipedia actually produced two pages, with two tables, showing the published versions of the letter identifications, it could help produce some new citable academic scholarship through the first freely available comprehensive list of imaged letters. But I think you should revert your ideas to discussion rather than editing, because the editing process feels (overall) a bit controlled and heavy handed. Michael Sheflin (talk) 01:33, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Again, a language barrier. I don't understand what "I think you should revert your ideas to discussion rather than editing" means. Do you mean I should not remove your edits (even disprovable ones), but only discuss them here? kwami (talk) 01:38, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

A