International African Institute

The Letter-Order of the Semitic Alphabets in Africa and the Near East Author(s): A. M. Honeyman Source: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Apr., 1952), pp. 136-147 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African Institute Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1156240 . Accessed: 17/03/2011 06:32
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[ 36]

THE LETTER-ORDER OF THE SEMITIC ALPHABETS IN AFRICA AND THE NEAR EAST
A. M. HONEYMAN

T HE Ethiopic syllabaryemployed for writing the classicalGe'ez and also, with

certainmodifications, the contemporary South Semiticvernaculars of East Africa, formed a of was by super-imposing system auxiliaryvowel-marks upon a basic this consonantalalphabet; alphabetoccurs, alongside of the syllabic script, in the of Old Ethiopic inscriptions the Axumite Kingdom in the fourth centuryof our era, or Old South Arabic script found in the and is a derivativeof the Sabaeo-Minaean of the monuments south-westArabiankingdoms.' But although the Ethiopic syllabary is thus genetically connected with the other main branches of the Semitic alphabet,the traditionalorderof the signs, in which the consonantalcomponentand the accompanyingvowel are the primaryand secondarydeterminingfactors respectively, does not agreewith that of any Semiticalphabethithertoknown. There is no old or reliablenative traditionas to the reason underlyingthe order of the signs; no help is to be had from numericalsigns, which elsewhere,as will shortly appear, affordvaluabletestimony to the order of the letters; for Ethiopic borrowed Greek alphabeticsigns for this purpose, while the South Arabianinscriptionsused single strokes for the units, and for higher denominationsthe initial letters of the native &c.2The mnemonicword-groupsreconstructed words forfive,ten,hundred, by Bauer and others3are open to objectionon grounds of languageand sense. Other external criteriayield only tentativeand inconclusiveresults,and the subjecthas accordingly remainedone of speculationand controversy. The problem has assumed a new form, although it has not been completely resolved, as the result of a discovery made in the spring of 1951 at HajarKohlan in the Wadi Beihan,the site of ancient Timna', the capitalof the Qatabanian Kingdom. In the course of its second campaignthere the expedition of the American Foundationfor the Study of Man, under the archaeologicaldirection of Professor W. F. Albright, excavatedan enceinte in the centre of the city to the north of the obelisk; from the form of the enceinte and the multitude of dedicatoryfragments, ProfessorAlbright provisionallyidentifiedthe building as a temple of 'Attar. At a level datedby Albrightas late fourth or firsthalf of the thirdcentury-about 300 B.C. in round numbers-there was uncovered a stone gutter with rows of flat paving blocks of Yemenite limestone on either side. Some of the stones found in situ on eitherside of the gutterwerelightlyincisedwith mason'smarkson the top face;some hundreds of similar blocks were found in the court without mason's marks, and amongstthe debriswere manypaving or dadoblocks with similarmarkson the edge. It appearsthat, although they would not take any appreciabletime to make, these
I For details and further bibliography see Dillmann-Bezold-Crichton, Ethiopic Grammar (1907), I5-32; Diringer, The Alphabet (I947), 223-34; Fevrier, Histoire deI'tcriture (I948), 275-88; Driver, Semitic Writing(I948), 144-8; Ullendorff in Africa,

2 Dillmann, op. cit., 33; H6fner, AltsAidarabische Grammatik(I943), I3-I7. 3 ZDMG Ixvii (913), 50I-2; Bartels, ibid. Ixix (I915), 52-8; cf. Ullendorff, loc. cit., 210.

I95I, 207-I7.

LETTER-ORDER OF SEMITIC ALPHABETS IN AFRICA AND NEAR EAST 137

markswere made only exceptionallyto identify stones which had to be preparedto occupy some particularposition. To the right of the gutter and contiguous with it were four rectangular blocks, each of which had been markedon its top surfacewith a single letter of the South Arabianscript and the single verticalstroke used for the numeralone. To the right of this was a second row of four, a third row of five, and a fourth row of five blocks, each of which had been inscribedwith a letter of the South Arabianalphabetand, on the left of the letter, two, three, or four vertical strokesaccordingto the row in which it was set. On the other side of the gutter was another row of slabs correspondingto the first row and having similarmarks, but in a poorer state of preservation;it contributesno addition to what can be learned from the other series. The signs are too faint for effectivereproductionby photography;Fig. i reproduces a hand-copy suppliedby ProfessorAlbright. It will be observedthat the last block of the first row and the first of the fourth are quite illegible. On the firstblock of the third row the upper right cornerof the letter is lackingand the readingis not beyond some doubt.

, ,p>
9
I f

,n i a
ng

N HiO

seriesfrom Timna'.(Reproduced FIG. I. SouthArabian fragmentary alphabetic by permission madeby Professor froma hand-copy W. F. Albright)

In regardto the forms of the lettersone featurecalls for comment.Of those letters which are not symmetricalabout their vertical axis seven in the present series face left, as is usual in South Arabian,and two-the first in the first row and the third in form must the second row-face right. Examplesof the latterletterin its dextrograde be very rare, since it is one of the more infrequentletters of the South Arabian alphabet.But no particularsignificanceis to be attachedto the inconsistency,for reversedletters are not uncommon outside of boustrophedonwriting, especiallyin graffiti; and the men who marked these stones, being stone-dressersrather than epigraphicmasons, had no special need of a high degree of literacyand may also have been confusedby the fact that they had to preparetwo sets of blocks in reverse
directions.

No letter is repeatedin the series, and it is clear that the letters are used as serial numbersto indicate the position of the stones in relation to their neighbours. For such a purpose the conventional order of the letters of the alphabetas taught to scholars affordsa convenient serial order, and it is naturaltherefore to see in the
present series a portion of the Qatabanian alphabet of c. 300 B.C. and to compare it

with other known Semitic alphabets. Direct comparisonof the letter-orderof the Qatabanianseries with that of the North Semitic alphabetin its various forms yields only negative results; cf. Fig. 3.

I38

THE LETTER-ORDER OF THE SEMITIC ALPHABETS

There is a superficial resemblance in the occurrence of the third and fifth signs of the fourth column in virtual juxtaposition-with only one sign intervening-and in the same order as that of their analogues pe and 'ayin in certain ancient Hebrew alphabetic acrostics,1 but the reason for the coincidence is to be found within the South Arabian course of development. Comparison with the sequence of the Ethiopic syllabary is more instructive, as can be seen from Fig. 2, in which the Qatabanian series is transposed to a horizontal arrangement, provided with a transliteration and set alongside a transliteration of the corresponding portion of the Ethiopic system. It will be seen that the three surviving (a) Text (right to left):

o h o X g Row I
(b) Transliteration (right to left): - m h s g r h n k b p (c) Consonantalvalues of beginning of m h r s n h t b w k
FIG. 2.

i I T 1 RowI 1 ) 3 Row II 6I hi n V RowIII

1 s h -Row I Row II Row III Row IV

Ethiopic syllabary(right to left): 1 h s q

Comparison of Qatabanian and Ethiopic consonantal order

letters of Row I followed by the first two letters of Row II occur in the sequence of the second to the sixth letters inclusive of the Ethiopic system, and that the analogue of the seventh Ethiopic sign occurs at the end of Row II, being separated from that of the sixth bygayn, which was not taken over by the Ethiopic system. In other words the opening of the Qatabanian series is identical with that of the first seven letters of the traditional Ethiopic series, save for(i) the absence of the first Ethiopic sign h, which is probably to be read as no. 9 of the Qatabanian series; (ii) the presence between nmand s of some letter not represented-at least not in that position-in the Ethiopic series; and (iii) the presence before s of a letter not reproduced by the Ethiopic. Beyond Row II the comparison cannot be pursued with the same degree of closeness,
I Driver, op. cit. x8I, n. 5; for this divergence from the usual North Semitic letter-order no adequate explanation has been provided.

IN AFRICA AND THE NEAR EAST

139

but at the end of Row III we may note n and h,in juxtaposition,though in the opposite order from that found in Ethiopic. Finallyb and ', to a lesser degree also ', the same position in the Qatabanian series as may be said to occupy approximately they do in Ethiopic. The agreementsare sufficientto confirmthe supposition that the series of letters forms the beginning of the Qatabanian alphabet,and to suggest that the order of its letters is substantiallythat of the Ethiopic syllabaryand the alphabeticarchetypethereof.'
Qata-

Qatabanian serialorder Row I I

2

banian szgn

Phonetic value 1 h m
s r

Placein Ethiopic Ethiopic analogue series 2 A

Placein Ugaritic series

14

(h
oD

3 4 5 6 7 9 14
12 II

9 15 '3
24

Row II

5 6 7 8

W deest

I 11

26 '9 6
2 12

Row III 9
IO

fi e(?)

fi
U I4

n
?

II
12

13

h b k n h ?
s

n
rd Ja deest

17 4 deest

Row IV I4 15 I6 17 18
FIG.

g P

25

21

h
0

13 x6

(?)
20

3. Comparison of order of signs in Qatabanian, Ethiopic, and Ugaritic

In the Qatabanian alphabetthe main basis for the sequence of the letters is provided by the shapesof the lettersthemselves. Nos. i (1)and 2 (h) consist of a vertical
limb with additions at the top. Nos. 3 (m), 5 (s), and 6 (r) are all asymmetrical about

the vertical axis and variously angularat the sides; no. 5 has a double and no. 6 a single vertex to the right; no. 3 has a similardouble vertex to the left and might be regardedas repeatingthe two elements-vertical stroke and double bay or fold-of
arrangement is rarely resorted to except where a major break has taken place in the whole cultural tradition. And the discrepancies between the Qatabanian and the Ethiopic systems are not such as to necessitate the hypothesis of a different order in the Ethiopic archetype from that found at Timna'.

I Thus we do not exclude the possibility that the order of the letters varied at different periods or in different regions of the South Arabian area. But the inconvenience of upsetting a long-established convention is such, even where numerical values are not associated with the letters of the alphabet, that re-

I4o

THE LETTER-ORDER OF THE SEMITIC ALPHABETS

The similarityof shapeis unmistakits predecessorno. 2 in a differentarrangement. able in nos. 7-I I (g, s, h (?), b, k), in all of which a hollow squareis the basicelement; this group begins and ends with a sign which adds a diagonalstroke to the top outside of the square,andno. 9, if correctlyread,is no. 8 turnedupsidedown. Nos. 12 (n) and 13 (h) both involve a vertical zigzag. No. 17 (') has the same components as no. 13 with the hollow square set in reverse position at the foot of the zigzag; of the two that survive, no. 15 (S) and no. 16 (p), are the three interveningcharacters, distinguishedby having a lozenge as their essentialfeature.In the juxtapositionof nos. I 7 (') and i 8 (') it is possible that a new factoris operative,viz. that of phonetic similarity.IThe last sign, no. 18 (') introduces a new group of forms whose distinctive feature cannot but have been a circle; it must therefore have included w which standsnext to ' in the Ethiopic order. series, we have for the vacant place no. 4 Turning to the gaps in the Qatabanian only one sign which has the featuresof nos. 3-6 as above described,viz. d, with its unilateralaspect, the vertical line as in no. 3, and the single triangle in reversed position; it may thereforewith considerableplausibilitybe restored in that place. The missing letter for place no. I4 is less easy to supply; the likeliest candidatesare t and z with their two diagonalarms,and in either case a reasoncould be given for there being no evidence in the Ethiopic. For no. 9, as alreadystated, the likeliest readingis h; the top of the letter, especiallyon the right, is hardto discern,but on the principlesdiscussedabove h fits perfectly.In the Ethiopic the position corresponding to no. 9 is occupied by q; in Qatabanian, however, its naturalposition is with w, t ory. In any event the Ethiopic traditionseparatesyfrom w and ' 2 by its z,3 but if for the reasonsgiven below t is more likely than z for no. 14, then z may well have been contiguous to d. The Qatabanian g, alphabetthen closes with the right-angled the rectangulart and d, and finally s with its modificationz, all very much as in alphabetis offered,with all Ethiopic. A tentative reconstructionof the Qatabanian due reserve,in Fig. 4.
I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
II I2

I3

I4

1 1' a
15

) 1l h
I8 19 20 21 22 23

n ' I h Mx
24 25 26 27 28 29

i6

17

: Oh o f o

X H TI

I H m

FIG. 4. Conjectural reconstruction of the Qatabanian order of the alphabet

Some account can now be given of the relation of this alphabetto the Ethiopic successor.In Ethiopic the sounds representedby the signs nos. 7 (g), I5 (S), 21 (t),
22

dant, while two new signs were introducedfor the Ethiopic soundsp' andp. For an of the furtherchangesin the letter-order we have a sure starting-point understanding banian1,h, ,. .. Why was the letterh transposedfrom ninth, or, ifg be disregarded, eighth place to the head of the alphabet?The answer is that once again consideraCf. H6fner, op. cit., ? I2. In that order, whereas the Qatabanian alphabet begins the group with '.
I
2

(z), and 29 (z) did not occur, and these signs were therefore dropped as redun-

in the beginning of the alphabet, which is h, 1,

m, . . . in Ethiopic as against Qata-

3 i.e. the sign with the etymological value of z and d, the sound of z, and a shape deriving from that of South Arabian d.

IN AFRICAAND THE NEAR EAST I4I tions of form dictated the arrangement.In some of the fourth-centuryalphabetic form. inscriptionsthe customaryform of h is that of an inverted I of contemporary Only at this phase is the resemblanceso close, and the Ethiopic reform of the alphabetic order must thereforebelong to this generalperiod.' At the sametime, the letter to come aftery, to which it now had a close resemblance d was transferred in form.2 To fill the vacant place after s and so preserve the relative position of b and the following group the letter q was introducedfrom a later position in the alphabet. Why this letter was chosen for the shift is not at all clear,since Old Ethiopic s and q arenot closely relatedin form. If the originalposition of Ethiopic q was just afterthe last letter of the surviving Qatabanianseries, considerationsof symmetrymay have had something to do with the transference from eighth last position in the reduced to eighth place from the beginning. alphabet3 Beyond this point only the most tentative account can be offered of the further changesin letter-order,but it would seem that form is the chief criterion.Within the nos. 10o-7 considerable took place. by Qatabanian group represented rearrangement No. ' 5 () had been dropped;no. 6 (p orf) was transferred to the end of the basic Ethiopic alphabetbecause there was no longer any group of signs distinguishedby their sloping lines and becauseits shape was not unlike that of d. The letter t, whatever its original position in the alphabet,had now developed from a diagonal to a vertical cross and so was set beside b in order that the two right-angledsymmetrical forms might stand together. Next the relative positions of n and h were reversed, because the latter, in the modified form which it took in Old Ethiopic, might be regardedas standing intermediatebetween t and n. Lastly k was brought in at the end of this group after ', which it most nearlyresemblesin shape. The Ethiopic orderof w followed by ' is at variancewith the Qatabanian, of which all that we know for certainis that ' was not precededby w. If, as seems likely, a fairly simple transpositionhas taken place, it can hardlyhave been based on regard for letter-forms,since both letters developed in much the same way from circular to more angular shapes. In view of the prevalenceof labio-velar combinations in Ethiopic it is conceivablethat the desire to balancethe pair q+b by the pair k+-w was a factorin the case. Against this possibility,however, must be set' the singularly vague phonetic notions of Ethiopians',4 and in the absenceof any comparativedata from Qatabanor elsewhere conjectureis hazardous,both at this point and in the sequence t , , d towards the end of the unenlargedalphabet.The forms of the Old Ethiopic letters and the relation of their order to that of the reconstructedSouth Arabianalphabetare shown in Fig. 5. While there remains considerableuncertaintyin details, it may be regarded as establishedthat both in South Arabianand in Old Ethiopic the main factorin determining the order of the letters was that of form and graphic similarity.The reason for this is clear.It was paedagogic. Signs of similarform were set beside each other not simply because they were similar, but in order that the learnermight see and reproducethe distinguishingfeaturesand be relieved so far as possible of the risk of confusing them. The need for care and attentionin this regardis appreciated by
Griechische undAltabessinische IV, Sabdische, Inschriften
2 Cf. Bd. Littmann, Deutsche A4ksum-Expedition,

I Cf. supra, n.

i on p.

I39

(I9I3),
3

Tafel vi. Viz. q, w, z, y, g, t, d, $. 4 Ullendorff, loc. cit. 211.

THE LETTER-ORDER OF THE SEMITIC ALPHABETS every teacher of handwriting and is stressed in the orthographic sections of introductory grammars to languages in foreign scripts. That the same consideration was shown in the early stages of the South Arabian and the Ethiopic alphabets suggests that the art of writing was not the exclusive perquisite of a cultured class but was rather more widely disseminated than is sometimes allowed.
X42

7
8

Io

12

I3

\/ /\ ~1rhIP VA r ~b a p~g ~ki

9
I

19

IO

14

I3

12

I7

I4

15

I6

17

I8

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

h Do
I
20

H P s.m- -^M
i8
23 24

El(-T
28
27

25

26

i6

FIG. 5. The Old EthiopicAlphabet.The forms of the lettersare reproduced from

the Axumite alphabeticinscriptions,and below each the serial position of the is indicated Qatabanian sign in the reconstructed corresponding alphabet

The principle of sign-sequence according to graphic form is to be seen in operation in the earliest known phases of the Semitic alphabet, for it is exemplified in the alphabetic table in Ugaritic cuneiform script recovered at Ras Shamra in the course of the 1949-50 excavations under the direction of M. Claude F. A. Schaeffer, and reproduced in Fig. 6.I The order of the signs in this cuneiform alphabet agrees remarkably with that of the classical 22-letter Phoenician alphabet from which the Greek alphabet and our own are derived. At the same time the tablet confirms the view of those who maintain that the Ugaritic cuneiform alphabet is not a derivative of the 22-letter alphabet, for the signs representing sounds which, in later Canaanite, had coalesced with their phonetic neighbours and thus did not require separate graphic representation, occupy an integral position in the Ugaritic alphabet and are not placed as additions either with the signs to whose phonetic value theirs most closely approximates or in a group as a secondary feature at the end of the series; thus, no. 4, whose sound h later shifted to that of A, no. 9; so no. 26 (cf. no. 20), no. i8 (cf. no. 22), no. I 3 (cf. no. 25). Whether the Ugaritic alphabet is to be regarded as a cuneiform adaptation of the ancestor of the Phoenician alphabet and as following the sign-sequence of the latter, or whether the sign-sequence originated with the Ugaritic system itself is less easy to decide. The position of signs nos. 28-30, which are not characteristic of the later Canaanite alphabet, might suggest that they are additions to the Semitic series made by scribes at Ugarit for the requirements of Hurrian and other non-Semitic tongues; on the other hand, the position of nos. I6 and 26a, which are used mainly for non-Semitic words, suggests that signs for nonSemitic values were an integral part of the series and so that the convention came
I This table is reproduced by permissionfrom The OldTestamentandModern ed. H.. Rowley Study,

be foundin TheManchester Guardian of 4 March1950,

(I95I), p. xiv. Detailed discussion of the tablet will

pp. 6 and4; Gordon in Orientalia,xix (I950), 374-6; Virolleaud in GLECS, v (1950), 57-60, with
observations by Herdner, Dhorme, and Cohen.

IN AFRICA AND THE NEAR EAST

143

into being at Ugarit or in some such environmentwhere Semite and non-Semite were in contact. At the same time there are indications,albeit not of a conclusive nature,that the originatorsof the Ugaritic cuneiformwere not uninfluencedby the model of a proto-Phoenicianscript of pictographic origin and acrophonic basis.
1.
2.

>yy

a
b

17.
I8. .

n
z

3.
4.
5.

g
b

'9.
20.
2I.

S
< i

rrr
,_ ':
T

p S

6.

22.

7.
8.
9?

w
z

23.
24. 2
L.

q
r
t g

T
--

h
t y i k

10. I1.
12.

26. 26a. a --

g5 t 1

27.
28.

13.

<

14.
15.
I6.

1 yTT
-T m

29.
30.

art s

<(
FIG.

s
6. The Ugariticquasi-alphabet

But cuneiformimpressionscannot hope ever to reproducesuccessfullyany but the simplest and most geometricalof non-cuneiformpatterns.Whether the degree of imitation in the forms of the Ugaritic script be greater or smallerand whetherthe sequenceof the signs was an Ugariticinnovation or was inheritedfrom some other system, it is clear that there was an attempt to relate the forms of the signs to the
positions they occupied. The juxtaposition of kindred forms is most apparent in for the bottom wedge-and in that of nos. 21 and 22, in which a pair of parallel wedges is variously stanced. In other groups certain similarities of form or constituent elements may be observed, thus-

the case of nos. 9 and io-the latterof which has the same shapeas the former but

(a) nos. i and 2 both have two horizontalstrokes, and no. 2 has in addition the upright stroke found in nos. 3, 4, and 5;

I44

THE LETTER-ORDER OF THE SEMITIC ALPHABETS nos. 4, 5, 6 and 28, 29, 30 each comprise a group in which a wedge occurs thrice in the same stance; nos. 12, 13, and 14 each have three wedges variously stanced; the groups formed by nos. I5 and i6, nos. 21, 22, and 23, and nos. 25 and 26 each have two wedges in differing relationship and orientation; in the case of nos. 15 and I6, i8 and 19, 25 and 26, 28 and 29 the basic design is the same, and differentiation is achieved generally by turning the group through 90?.

(b) (c) (d) (e)

Such an arrangement of signs is admittedly schematic and artificial, but any arrangement of a series of forms is a matter of schematization and convention. It cannot be called unnatural, because there is no natural or logical way of arranging such a group, and anyone who tries to make a more systematic arrangement will be hard put to it to carry out his system without deviation or exception through all the 30 signs. The letter-order found in the Ugaritic alphabetic tablet was taken over by the 22-letter Phoenician alphabet and its descendants, including the Hebrew and Aramaic alphabets in Asia and Africa and the Greek alphabet in Europe. For arithmetical purposes the Greeks made use of the alphabet in a way which is of particular significance in the present connexion. They appreciated the disadvantages of a strictly representational system of numerical notation, in which, for example, the number threeis indicated by making the sign of one three times over, orforty by four occurrences of the sign for ten. In the so-called Ionic or Alexandrian system of numerical notation they produced a numeration which not only avoided the cumbrousness of the representational method but involved no separate system of signs to be memorized, was independent of the positional principle of local value, required neither zero nor additional sign for tens, hundreds, &c., and yet could express any number below I,ooo by not more than three letters without ambiguity and in a way that lent itself readily to arithmetical computations.' This was done by reviving or borrowing three signs and allocating, from the total of 27 signs thus produced, nine for the units, nine for the tens, and nine for the hundreds, all in alphabetical order; higher numbers could be indicated by modified forms of this basic system. The usefulness and acceptability of this invention may be gauged by the fact that by Hellenistic times the Jews of Palestine had adapted it to their own alphabet, eking out its inadequacy by giving separate values to the special final forms of certain letters (cf. fig. 7), and again by the fact that when the Caliph Walid (70 5- 5 of the common era) proscribed the use of Greek in the public accounts he made a specific exception in the case of the Greek numerals.2 It was from the Nabatean descendant of the 22-letter Phoenician-Aramaic alphabet that the classical Arabic script evolved and derived its cursive tendencies. The letterorder of the proto-Arabic alphabet followed that of the Aramaic and Syriac, with an apparent anomaly in the case of the fifteenth letter, which in the proto-Arabic alphabet is not the simple sibilant s but the emphatic s., while the eighteenth place is occupied by the emphatic d. For the six further sounds which required graphic representation in Arabic, new signs were produced by using diacritic points to differentiate the new signs from nos. 4, 8, 9, I6, 21, and 22 of the proto-Arabic alphabet; at the same
I See especially Boyer's article on ' Fundamental ' Steps in the Development of Numeration in Isis,

xxxv (I944), I53-68, with the literature there cited. 2 Theophanes, Chronographia, Paris ed., p. 314.

IN AFRICA AND THE NEAR EAST I45 time the two forms of no. 22 were placed just after no. 2, which they so closely resembled as eventually to require careful differentiation by means of diacritic points; the two forms of no. 8 were similarly placed after no. 3 and no. 20 after no. 4, which it closely resembled. To all of these letters numerical values were assigned: to the original 22 as in the Hebrew and Syriac systems and to the six new signs, according to their position in the rearranged alphabet, the values from 500 to ,000o inclusive. This letter-order, with the letter-values, is indicated in Fig. 7, and is the order which is attested in the original Maghrebi order of the Abjad system of numeration, so called after the first four consonants of this order of the alphabet. A
I. 2.

D'

B b g d h
w
Z

C 2= .= 1=

D
2 = ..

(c:)

=500

345.

3=
4=
6 -=

() =
-

600

3 = 700 ())

6.
7.

1=
T=

trsp. before (S trsp. after

= 800
L. J

8. 9.
10. II. 12. 13. 14. 500 = I

h
t

ni=
t3 =
-==

7=j

8=: 9=I
I0 = z2 =

y k 1 m
n s

trsp. to last place

3o=J

6oo = M
700 =

3=

40 =

5o=0(
(.) _ = 900 (d) trsp. after a

15. 16. 1718.

19. 20. 21.
22.

8oo =

p P
s

60= D = 80 = 7=
p = ' = =

900 =

q
r s t

I00

j
j

200 =

trsp. after .
j =I,000

= 300 = = 400 = 0:

trsp. after ,

FIG. 7. The letter-order of the North Semitic and Proto-Arabic alphabets A Serial position. B Phonetic value. C North Semitic alphabet. D Numerical values of North Semitic and basic Proto-Arabic letters. D' Numerical values of Hebrew final forms. E basic Proto-Arabic alphabet. F Diacritic additions, with numerical values, and transpositions, as in the Maghrebi tradition

In the eastern domains of the Muslim Empire the allocation of emphatic s to the fifteenth place in the alphabet, with the implication of its philological equivalence to
L

146

THE LETTER ORDER OF THE SEMITIC ALPHABETS

Syriac semkat, was unacceptable, and from the early Abbasid period, if not earlier, the letter sin was assigned to this place, with a consequent rearrangement in the eighteenth and twenty-first positions, which were assigned to sadand sin respectively., A similar elementary interest in phonetics caused the sounds d and z to be regarded as corresponding to the non-emphatics d and z, and in the extended alphabet dad and za were accordingly placed after dal and before gayn. Thus the Maghrebi and nonMaghrebi systems of numeration diverged in the values they attached to six letters: gayn
Maghrebi 900
,0ooo

za
80oo 900

sin
,000

sin
300

dad sad
90

6o

Non-Maghrebi

300

6o

8oo 90

For a time the two systems were in conflict and these six signs were liable to misinterpretation, but in the end the eastern system prevailed and the Maghrebi system of values, as used along the north-west African littoral and in Spain, was relegated to the status of a provincial survival. The prevailing system of Abjad values does not represent the last stage in the evolution of the Arabic alphabet. The extension of Islam and of the Arabic tongue among non-Arab peoples produced an interest in the characteristic features and essential structure of the Arabic language. Among the distinctive marks noted by this rudimentary grammatical inquiry were the use of certain consonantal signs to

LL;

$C C G

(a) Maghrebialphabet

.9

*sL ? j
?

.o J

; ?)

C~ C

C~ ~o

(&

(b) Non-Maghrebialphabet
and non-Maghrebi, i.e. accordingto the Maghrebi Fig. 8. The Arabicalphabet of letter-sequence. East Africanand Asiatictraditions

indicate vowels, the use of certain others in an auxiliary capacity to produce inflections in verbs and substantives and to supply inseparable prepositions, and the broad distinction between ' solar' and ' lunar' letters, as evidenced in the pronunciation of words with the definite article. The letter-order of the alphabet was reorganized on this basis,I yielding an emboxed or telescopic order, in which the vowel letters '--^, y (preceded by h) enclosed the auxiliary letters b, t (with t)f+k, 1, m, n, which enclosed the remaining 'lunar' letters j, , h , + ', g, f, q, which enclosed the remainanddentalsin theirpairsarranged as before Thus the vowel-lettersw and y, were trans- sibilants
ferred to the end of the alphabet. They preserved their former relative order and were preceded by the other ambivalent sign h as also in the Maghreb. The unvoiced sibilants were placed after the voiced sibilant z, and were followed in turn by the emphatic by form rather than phonetic disposition. The ' auxiliary ' letters k, 1, m, n, were transferreden bloc to precede h. Contrast Weil's statement in Enc. Islam I (I913), 68.

IN AFRICA AND THE NEAR EAST I47 d letters d, The 'solar' contrast z. between the d, r, z, ", s, (, , ing resulting alphabet, which is that prevailing at the present time in all countries outside of the Maghreb, and the earlier Maghrebi arrangement is exhibited in Fig. 8.1 Other arrangements were proposed from time to time. Thus various grammarians from the tenth century onwards sought to interchange the positions of the penultimate and the third last letters of the alphabet.2 A more radical rearrangement was that employed by Abu 'Amr al-Khalil (d. 791 C.E.), the' founder of Arabic grammar ',3 who in his lexicographical Kitab al-'Ayn arranged the letters of the alphabet according to the successive positions of the speech-organs in enunciating the corresponding sounds, beginning with 'aynand ending withjya.4 Though adopted by al-Azhari (d. 980 C.E.) and Ibn Sida (d. io66 C.E.), this strictly phonetic arrangement of the letters did not commend itself generally. And so, although the old order of the letters was altered beyond ready recognition, the philological and phonetic interest did not entirely displace the simpler paedagogic rule of juxtaposition according to similarity of graphic form; and the alphabetic tradition as imparted to the majority of learners of Arabic is one intended to facilitate the acquisition of elementary orthographic and grammatical knowledge at one and the same time.5
I Note, however, that the table does not reproduce the characteristic Maghrebi forms and variant diacritic punctuation of certain letters. 2 Brockelmann in ZDMG, lxix (I915), 383-4; cf. Schwarz, ibid. 59-62. 3 Brockelmann: Geschichte Literatur derArabischen i (I937), 159; see also Bd. i (1913), Supplementband,

I00.

4 Cf. Weil, loc. cit. It is worth noting that the considerations which led al-Khalil to place s and z, q and k beside each other were operative also in the production of the regnant tradition of Arabic alphabetical order. 5 The substance of this paper was communicated to the XXIInd International Congress of Orientalists in Istanbul on 20 September 1951.

Resume
L'ORDRE DES LETTRES DES ALPHABETS S]IMITIQUES EN AFRIQUE ET EN PROCHE-ORIENT
UNE serie de dalles de pavage gravees qui ont ete mises a decouvert a Hajar Kohlan, l'emplacement de l'antique Timna', ville capitale du royaume sud-arabiquede Qataban, au cours de fouilles entreprisesen I951, ddmontrentl'ordre des lettres - inconnu jusqu'ici -du commencement de l'alphabet qatabaniend'environ 300 ans avant J.-C. En dehors de quelques divergences significatives, l'ordre est celui du syllabaire ethiopique qui est Le principefondamentala la base de l'ordre derive d'un original alphabetiquesud-arabique. qatabaniendes lettres et le nouvel arrangementde l'alphabet de l'ancien ethiopique, qui a ete effectueprobablementvers le quatriemesiecle de l'ere chretienne,est celui du rapprochement graphique.La raison pour l'importancede ce principe est son utilite pddagogique,et son influence est visible dans le quasi-alphabetcuneiforme ougaritiquedu milieu du deuxieme millenaireavant notre ere. L'ordrede cet alphabetest essentiellementcelui des alphabets phenicien, hebraique,grec et aramaiqued'une dpoque plus recente. Dans un contexte semitique cet alphabetde 22 lettres ne subit aucun changementpendant deux millenaireset fut adopte par les arabes.Le contactavec les populationsnon-arabesau cours de l'expansion islamiqueet la conscience linguistique qui en resulta, ont fait que des facteurs phonetiques et linguistiques, aussi bien que des considerationsde la graphique, ont joue un role dans la determinationde l'ordre des lettres de l'alphabet arabe augmente,plus particulierement dans les parties du monde islamiqueen dehors du Maghreb.