Phoenician
Sample Characters
First 48 characters from Phoenician (U+10900–U+1091F)
About Phoenician
The Phoenician alphabet is one of the most historically significant writing systems ever created. Developed around 1050 BCE from earlier Proto-Sinaitic script, it was the first widespread alphabetic script — using only consonants (an abjad) — and is the direct ancestor of most modern alphabets in the world, including Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and Cyrillic.
Phoenician traders spread their alphabet across the Mediterranean world, and from it virtually all European, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Southeast Asian alphabets ultimately derive. The Phoenician script had 22 consonant letters, written right-to-left, with no vowel representation.
Data sourced from the ISO 15924 registry, Unicode CLDR, and the Unicode Character Database.
Script Family & Lineage
Languages Using Phoenician 1
Frequently Asked Questions
What type of writing system is Phoenician?
What direction does Phoenician read?
How many languages use the Phoenician script?
When was the Phoenician script created?
Does Phoenician have uppercase and lowercase letters?
Compare Phoenician With Another Script
Direction, characters, languages — side by side.
Key Facts
- ISO Code
- Phnx
- ISO Number
- 115
- Script Type
- Abjad
- Direction
- Right-to-left
- Status
- Historical
- Region
- Middle Eastern
- Characters
- 29
- Introduced
- 1050 BCE
- Languages
- 1
Unicode Ranges
-
PhoenicianU+10900–U+1091F
Script Properties
- Has Case
- No
- Cursive
- No
- Vowels
- none