Talk:Proto-Sinaitic script

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Article Rewrite: "Proto-Sinaitic script"[edit]

A rewrite for this article has been suggested. How should we go about it? INFIYNJTE (talk) 00:07, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's impossible with the state of available material. What we should do is put together an alphabet discussion group, do some original research, and write our own papers. That way these articles about proto Sinaitic and Canaanite have something to refer to. Temerarius (talk) 21:29, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Onceinawhile already mentioned it, the problem with the article is the undefined scope. Right now, there's too much and too unfocused information. Personally, I think the page should just summarize what it is and the difference between it and Proto-Canaanite, summarize the discoveries, and summarize the popular hypotheses on the development. I think the "Inscriptions" section should be removed and just be links to their respective wiki pages under the "See also" section. The individual wikis should be like the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon page where it has the different translations from different researchers highlighted. Controversially, I think the "Synopsis" section should also be removed. With everything clumped together and no formal consensus between all the letters it gets really confusing and becomes somewhat difficult to manage. I feel like it's better for each inscriptions page to have tables for the letters found on them. If needed, we can link to the table on the History of the alphabet page instead of having to maintain it in two places. 72.216.186.113 (talk) 09:12, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's harder to manage getting all inscriptions pages up to a certain level, with detailed alphabet charts. Seems ambitious. We'd need a wikiproject inscriptions. Temerarius (talk) 14:11, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What are wikiproject incriptions? Explain. INFIYNJTE (talk) 14:32, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I was saying it would be a big undertaking to bring each inscription page up to a certain standard. I'm a repeat editor of Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions and despite knowing the topic back and forth I don't have an alphabet up yet. Most individual inscriptions don't have editors willing to do hundreds of edits and so on. So to get this page, and all the others, up to reference-worthy would require a little planning. Hence a hypothetical Wiki-Project to organize it. Reifying alphabets is fun but it's carriage before horse. The inscriptions themselves need study, they're not well understood. Trying to pin down coherent ideas of what proto Sinaitic and proto Whateverelse is -- it's fine, it's not inappropriate, but it's trying to make too much out of too little. Too few papers. Too little knowledge. I'll state again I'm open to collaborating with a volunteer offsite on original research to serve the same goals. Does anybody want to volunteer to start Bet Shemesh ostracon or Izbet Sartah ostracon? From a quick look the latter seems genuine, quite important, almost not referred to. If there are more than one or two papers about these I'm looking in the wrong place. Temerarius (talk) 22:50, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
yeah, you're right. I'm being too ambitious. I think Onceinawhile just wants Proto-Sinaitic and Proto-Canaanite to be more clearly defined. 72.216.186.113 (talk) 02:15, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To fix the issue once and in for all, I decided to replace the current table with a table of selected symbols from the three sets of Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions, Serabit El-Khadim, Wadi El-Hol, and Timna, and its correspondences to a reconstructed name, phonetic sounds (preserved), and the Phoenician abjad.
Feel free to revert to the old table if you feel this is too radical, although much of the old table's content was redundant and has already been transferred to "History of the Alphabet" (link to the article been embedded as a main article) since an alphabetic evolution is not wholly relevant to an article covering inscriptions. INFIYNJTE (talk) 01:32, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Where is there too much information? INFIYNJTE (talk) 14:32, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Currently, both "Serabit inscriptions" and "Wadi el-Hol inscriptions" sections have more information here than their respective main article pages. More than half the letters in the Synopsis need to have explainatory footnotes on them to make sense of why the letters are put where they are. The Reference section also has 52 items under it (ternary sources?), which is considerably a lot more than the primary and secondary sources listed in the Bibliography section. 72.216.186.113 (talk) 16:07, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Q[edit]

I think the common wisdom about qoph, that it's a needle and thread, is well supported. The proto sinaitic q that is claimed to be a monkey, sometimes it looks less like a monkey and more like one of these. https://imgur.com/a/AjoMyNz from https://archive.org/details/ERA42/page/n149/mode/2up?view=theater I know of one inscription where it does look like a monkey, but I'm not sure that's so widespread. If it were inkwell, that'd be like a pared down version of hiero number Y3 𓏞 scribe's gear. However, the fact that these examples of ink trays are symmetrical and the qophs aren't may speak against this idea. Temerarius (talk) 17:05, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The one used by the Phoenicians was definitely Colless's "Qaw", not Qup.
The Phoenician alphabet seemingly inherited the name Qup as Qop but used the shape of "Qaw", which seems to depict a needle.
However, I haven't found any Semitic word for needle that starts with Q.
Edit: Nvm, the Hebrew word for line is קו, meaning the Proto-Sinaitic script most likely interpreted the needle eye as "line". INFIYNJTE (talk) 19:58, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Qaw, a measuring line? What was Colless's reference for that one again? I didn't immediately find it in "Comparative semitic lexicon phoenician and punic". That'd be a different instrument from needle and thread. I think lopsided and loopy ones like in Carchemish.png File:Carchemish.png could reflect a needle-threading action. The measuring line as a symbol of power, as in Descent of Inanna and IIRC goddess imagery in Petrie's Researches in Sinai, https://archive.org/details/researchesinsina00petruoft/ is a curious one with staying power. What was the Egyptian conception of it? Was it a hieroglyph? Is the letter A-looking thing in Shabti's grasps in Shabty of Amunemhat, ca. 1400-1336 B.C.E.,50.128.jpg a measuring line of... some kind? Sorry if silly question.
Anyway it's A-shaped whatever it is. When I see a q-shaped measuring line, I'll be interested in seeing if the thread is visible in its eye. Temerarius (talk) 21:27, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, what do you think of Albright, Colless, Simons, and Cross INFIYNJTE (talk) 21:32, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Did they all collaborate on a paper? Albright's widely seen as full of shit. I like Colless because his paper has the šadi reference that I was seeking for some time. But I thought he was a little credulous with others' work that wasn't demonstrated. But you can't blame. I'll have to look again to remember Simons and Cross's papers specifically. Temerarius (talk) 21:38, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That reminds me, do you think it'd be advisable to keep this discussion here for openness, or elsewhere for the sake of complying with -- WP:OR and getting in trouble for calling people full of shit. I'm open to moving some discussion that isn't meant to be here to a user page (like my https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Temerarius/Early_Alphabetic) or an appropriate Discord server I know. Wide open for discussion. Temerarius (talk) 21:41, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, Albright is wrong? I thought he was the most reliable one, although I can tell since he clearly interpreted the inscriptions rather strangely (and he also associated a certain glyph with ḡ)
I guess we have a lot of re-interpreting to do INFIYNJTE (talk) 21:43, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Albright's idea was descent from the hieratic or another non-hieroglyphic Egyptian way of writing. Reasonable assumption, but Goldwasser turned it all back round to the original hypotheses. Because it doesn't make sense. It's wrong. The alphabetic theory and acophonic or apophonic principle, whatever, wouldn't be able to function if the descent were like that. Hence, everything's highly conceptually bound at the early points. That's the thing you gotta understand to see the same things I'm seeing in these. Temerarius (talk) 21:46, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Can you tell me more about the original theory and names? INFIYNJTE (talk) 21:49, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The original theory was the proto sinaitic hypothesis, so to speak. Descent from hieroglyphs to P-Sinai, where the Albright "school" (I guess he had a school) made a different calculation here and inserted an intermediary. Goldwasser said "Hold on everybody, they had it right a century ago," which happens sometimes in these fields, and that's why she's got a hundred citations on that short, simple paper. She's the reason this technical term is enough note to even be an article, probably. This is best from my memory. Temerarius (talk) 21:55, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But back then, they had a DIFFERENT hangup, where they wanted to make the grand unified theory that'd connect every unknown thing, like Minoan and Cypriot scripts even, to Egyptian. These interpretations that don't make sense were supposed to be ideas halfway between those imaginary evolutions, their missing links among phoenician, the rest of the scripts. That's why I mentioned uncertain.JPG above when I came across it. This is reflective of a confusion of Babel story way of seeing the topic. Temerarius (talk) 21:58, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You should have asked me about this before when I said it didn't look like you read the papers. Wouldn've been a great opportunity. I'd love to put together some teaching materials for you. Have you found anybody else might wanna discuss this? I invited User :פעמי-עלי Temerarius (talk) 22:29, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So, Goldwasser seems to coincide with my personal interpretation: Proto-Sinaitic were simplified and repurposed forms of Egyptian hieroglyphs. INFIYNJTE (talk) 22:00, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/32623054.pdf
Apparently, Colless debunked? Goldwasser's hypothesis due to the STELA 92 INFIYNJTE (talk) 22:27, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Debunked which part lol Temerarius (talk) 22:29, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't read it all. Only small parts
but one part in the text under the STELA 92 section says "A new “link” is thus made; the “house” built by Orly Goldwasser collapses; her hypothesis is refuted." INFIYNJTE (talk) 22:32, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
that sounds so thirsty lol i can't wait to read it Temerarius (talk) 22:33, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The "Goldwasser hypothesis" taken here is that the P-Sinai scriptors were all illiterate in Egyptian? Then yes, I also hesistate. We certainly don't have enough of these inscriptions, or enough insight about them, to decide that's history. Not all Semitic people are in the "marginal" illiterate subset. Among other arguments. I don't even need to read all these 22 arguments, at least not tonight. Great tip, though. Temerarius (talk) 22:47, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think "Goldwasser's Moral", so to speak, is not to take facile interpretations of hieroglyphs due to correspondences that require literacy. Temerarius (talk) 22:48, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I still don't get why you call it "šad(a)i", even though the Proto-Semitic word was ṯd'. Sure, ṯ eventually evolved into š, but quite after the time of Proto-Sinaitic. INFIYNJTE (talk) 22:01, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Okay but do you know how they infer the supposition you're repeating? It's kinda arbitrary; proto- means it's reconstructed. I think they chose the obscure word to write down there instead of the familiar one to tread round sensitive sensibilities. Temerarius (talk) 22:04, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In Proto-Semitic or Proto-Sinaitic? INFIYNJTE (talk) 22:07, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
in P-Semitic. Proto Semitic is a reconstructed language and proto Sinaitic petroglyphs. Is that what you mean? Temerarius (talk) 22:14, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Neither Egyptian nor Semitic was done moving their esses around by these times, or--they weren't borrowing shins and sameks between them with consistency until later. So much is in the air. This includes of course some ts and zs, however you want to write them. Temerarius (talk) 22:18, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
New scholarship has suggested that Ṡamekh, Šin, Ṣad, and Zayin originally had the sounds /ts/, /s/~/s̱/~/š/, /ts'/, and /dz/.
This is the interpretation I've gone by personally. INFIYNJTE (talk) 22:25, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
does semitic ts correspond to egyptian dj? Temerarius (talk) 22:32, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know INFIYNJTE (talk) 22:33, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"In the new kingdom, egy ḏ was used to transcribe ṣ" Steiner 2001 "Another aramaic text in demotic script" Temerarius (talk) 15:45, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Whose scholarship? Temerarius (talk) 22:34, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hacket and Krahmalkov INFIYNJTE (talk) 22:40, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Page 267 of the scorpion spell from wadi hammamat: another Aramaic text RC Steiner is relevant to the phonemic development here. Temerarius (talk) 00:32, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, I will read. Temerarius (talk) 00:33, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What l-Ba'alat? Spelling in infobox[edit]

I believe the key phrase was "beloved l-b'lt," not mt l b'lt. Where did this come from? It's in the infobox. I saw it on another page too. Temerarius (talk) 20:11, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ba`alat.jpg
File:Ba`alat.jpg does appear to say mtlb'lt in the photo. It's not certain. 𐤁𐤏𐤕 is what I see on the upper right, with a partial house. Bat (goddess) maybe. If the eye isn't an eye, that mark there isn't makeup -- maybe a goose, and if the mark above it is a disk, then that could be son of Ra. Temerarius (talk) 20:35, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Under "discovery" it says beloved is spelled m ayin h. Hard to see in this one. Temerarius (talk) 20:37, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For better pictures see https://www.jstor.org/stable/26732467. If you want to understand what is written in (modern) Hebrew, try to use Image Translation in Google Translate (or any other app because Google are evil...), and if you still don't understand you can ask me! פעמי-עליון (pʿmy-ʿlywn) - talk 12:10, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Probably meant Beloved of Ba'laat INFIYNJTE (talk) 03:37, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Djed - samek[edit]

"In the new kingdom, egyptian ḏ was used to transcribe canaanite ṣ" Steiner 2001 "Another aramaic text in demotic script" Temerarius (talk) 15:46, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In other words, an emphatic s (as opposed to a voiceless s) was represented by Egyptian ḏ INFIYNJTE (talk) 18:34, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have more on s correspondences if you need. Temerarius (talk) 01:56, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We must remember that between the invention of the Canaanite alphabet and the flourishing of the Aramaic in Demotic script past hindreds of year, in which we know for sure that the pronounciation of letters like ṣ had changed. פעמי-עליון (pʿmy-ʿlywn) - talk 12:12, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Corner"[edit]

As shown in an independent example from the Luwians, the early "corner" concept could be road. https://imgur.com/a/MGMYwAx Page 93[1] Temerarius (talk) 17:29, 20 February 2024 (UTC) Temerarius (talk) 17:29, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Çambel, Halet (1999). Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions: Inscriptions of the Iron Age (3 pt.). Berlin New York: W. de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-014870-6.

Sinai rock drawings[edit]

Looking for a goad or a shepherd's crook? Try petroglyphs. They could confirm a letter.

With stuff like this, you can see how somebody actually drew a shepherd's staff, goad, flail. Temerarius (talk) 02:48, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Timna is a magnificent site! But I'm not sure what does it have to do with ancient writing. פעמי-עליון (pʿmy-ʿlywn) - talk 12:13, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Śamš as ś?[edit]

Given how the Proto-Semitic word for sun is śamš [1] and not šamš, it is possible by acrophony that the sun glyph represents an ś sound instead of š.

However, the problems with this theory include:

- The reconstruction Śamš is likely based on Arabic šams (where ś > s and š are flipped), and it might not be known if other semitic languages followed the same pattern. However, Arabic is described as a very phonologically conservative Semitic language and hence, śamš could very well be the Proto-Semitic word.

- Akkadian, which is older than the Proto-Sinaitic script, renders sun as šamaš. However, it is possible this is a modification since Akkadian shifted various sounds including ṯ, so it is possible ś got somehow shifted to š.

- It is not known how Proto-Northwest Semitic would have rendered sun, though Ugaritic rendered it as šamšu. However, Ugaritic also lost the ś phoneme and is described as replacing ś with š, whereas Proto-Northwest Semitic still had it.

- The Proto-Canaanite lachish comb glyph for ś looked vastly different, having two dots and an open shape rather than anything resembling a sun.

Thus there is some possibility that śamš stood for ś instead of š, though this needs to be approached carefully. INFIYNJTE (talk) 16:29, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE: I attempted to analyze Serabit 357 by transcribing it to Hebrew and altering between shin and sin; the best result I got is "נשמע" (to be heard), whereas sin never gave an actual result in any combination of letters.
Hence, my theory is incorrect and śamš (or even šamš) most likely represents š as initially believed. I also consider the possibility that the languages using Proto-Sinaitic lacked an ś sound, but I digress. INFIYNJTE (talk) 13:18, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Table[edit]

Complaints have been raised about the table of symbols, including too many explanatory footnotes and the confusing nature of it.

Hence I propose recreating the table with rows and columns based on the symbols found in each inscription as opposed to the Phoenician order, and using discretion to determine which sources are more accurate. INFIYNJTE (talk) 16:22, 4 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You know what I'll just go through with it since the article went inactive.
If you find the change too radical, feel free to revert. INFIYNJTE (talk) 01:28, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for all your hard work! I think it looks a lot better now. 72.216.186.113 (talk) 06:57, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

𐩸 is in which Serabit el-Khadim inscription?[edit]

The symbol is shown under the Table of Symbol's "Serabit el-Khadim" column, but I don't know if that is accurate. I can see the symbol in the izbet sartah ostracon's abecedary, but I don't see it in any of the Serabit el-Khadim proto-Sinaitic inscriptions, unless there's a source I am missing? 72.216.186.113 (talk) 15:29, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I'm aware, you aren't missing anything. I have also been thinking about this matter. I have yet to see the "ziq" symbol in any of the inscriptions.
Therefore, the symbol will be removed from the article unless we find something else, like another inscription. INFIYNJTE (talk) 03:35, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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