The South Arabian alphabet branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in ca. the 13th century BC. It was used in the Sabaean and Minaean kingdoms. Early forms dating to the 8th century BC are found in Babylonia. Its mature form was reached around 500 BC, and its use continued until the 7th century, when it was displaced by the Arabic alphabet. The alphabet spread to Ethiopia where it evolved into the Amharic and Ge'ez alphabets. Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... The Phoenician alphabet dates from around 1000 BC and is derived from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet. ... The Phoenician alphabet dates from around 1000 BC and is derived from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet. ... The Samaritan alphabet is a direct descendant of the paleo-Hebrew variety of the Phoenician alphabet, the more commonly known Hebrew alphabet having been adapted from the Aramaic alphabet under the Persian Empire. ... Aramaic was for a long time (between the later Assyrian empire and the Abbasid Caliphate) a lingua franca in the Middle East; its alphabet, though itself derived from the Phoenician alphabet, therefore superseded the Old Hebrew alphabet that had been independently descended from the Phoenician alphabet. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Pahlavi is a term that refers: (1) to a script used in Iran derived from the Aramaic script, and (2) more broadly, to Middle Persian, the Middle Iranian language written in this script. ... The Avestan alphabet was created in the 3rd century AD for writing the hymns of Zarathustra (a. ... Brahmi refers to the pre-modern members of the Brahmic family of scripts, attested from the 5th century BC. The best known inscriptions in Brahmi are the rock-cut edicts of Ashoka, c. ... Rigveda manuscript in Devanagari (early 19th century) Devanāgarī (देवनागरी — in English pronounced ) (ISCII – IS13194:1991) [1] is an abugida alphabet used to write several Indian languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Bihari, Bhili, Konkani, Bhojpuri and Nepali from Nepal. ... 11th century book in Syriac Serto. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing the Arabic language. ... Tablet inscribed with the Glagolitic alphabet The Glagolitic alphabet or Glagolitsa is the oldest known Slavonic alphabet. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (or azbuka, from the old name of the first letters) is an alphabet used to write six natural Slavic languages (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ... Old Italic refers to a number of related historical alphabets used on the Italian peninsula which were used for some non-Indo-European languages (Etruscan and probably North Picene), various Indo-European languages belonging to the Italic branch (Faliscan and members of the Sabellian group, including Oscan, Umbrian, and South... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world. ... The Runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using letters known as runes, formerly used to write Germanic languages, mainly in Scandinavia, and the British Isles. ... The Geez language (or Giiz language) is an ancient language that developed in the Ethiopian Highlands of the Horn of Africa as the language of the peasantry. ... The Meroitic script is an alphabet of Egyptian (Hieroglyphic) origin used in Kingdom of Meroë. Some scholars, e. ... Turkic people living in Central Asia developed various alphabets in early ages. ... Ogham (Old Irish Ogam) was an alphabet used primarily to represent Gaelic languages that was probably often written in wood in early times. ... Hangul is the native alphabet used to write the Korean language, as opposed to the Hanja system borrowed from China. ... Canadian aboriginal syllabic writing (often syllabics for short) is a family of writing schemes which are used to write a number of aboriginal Canadian languages from the Algonquian, Athabaskan and Inuit language families. ... The Proto-Canaanite alphabet is the linear (, non-Cuneiform) abjad of twenty-plus acrophonic glyphs. ... (14th century BC - 13th century BC - 12th century BC - other centuries) (1300s BC - 1290s BC - 1280s BC - 1270s BC - 1260s BC - 1250s BC - 1240s BC - 1230s BC - 1220s BC - 1210s BC - 1200s BC - other decades) (3rd millennium BC - 2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC) Events 1295 BC - End of the... The Sabaeans were a people who lived in what is today Yemen in the final millennium BCE. They may be the same nation as the biblical Sheba. ... Minaean was a kingdom in Southwestern Arabia from approximately 1200 BC until 650 bc, centred on what is now Yemen. ... (9th century BC - 8th century BC - 7th century BC - other centuries) (800s BC - 790s BC - 780s BC - 770s BC - 760s BC - 750s BC - 740s BC - 730s BC - 720s BC - 710s BC - 700s BC - other decades) (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium AD) Events Golden age in Armenia Assyria... Babylonia was an ancient state in Mesopotamia (in modern Iraq), combining the territories of Sumer and Akkad. ... Centuries: 7th century BC - 6th century BC - 5th century BC Decades: 550s BC - 540s BC - 530s BC - 520s BC - 510s BC - 500s BC - 490s BC - 480s BC - 470s BC - 460s BC - 450s BC Events and Trends 509 BC - Foundation of the Roman Republic 508 BC - Office of pontifex maximus created... (6th century - 7th century - 8th century - other centuries) Events Islam starts in Arabia, the Quran is written, and Arabs subjugate Syria, Iraq, Persia, Egypt, North Africa and Central Asia to Islam. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing the Arabic language. ... Amharic (አማርኛ) is a Semitic language spoken in Northern Central Ethiopia, where it is the official language. ... The Geez language (or Giiz language) is an ancient language that developed in the Ethiopian Highlands of the Horn of Africa as the language of the peasantry. ...

External links

• http://www.crystalinks.com/arabian.html
• http://www.omniglot.com/writing/southarabian.htm