Since I’ve decided this to be the month of the Alphabet, I will now tell you about everyones friends: The Phoenicians.

The Phoenicians were an ancient civilization who lived along the coastline of modern Lebanon, Israel, and Syria.  They primarily traded through man-powered sailing vessels.

The Phoenicians are most known for their alphabet, which was spread through the Phoenicians extensive maritime tradings.  The Phoenician Alphabet is classified as “abjad”, because it only records consonant sounds.  The Phoenician Alphabet did not record vowel sounds. The Phoenician Alphabet consisted of the following consonant sounds: ‘, B, G, D, H, W, Z,Ch, T, Y, K, L, M, N, S, `, P, C, Q, R, Š, Th.  Although our modern alphabet is bigger, the Phoenician Alphabet was made around 1050 BC, so its okay that they didn’t have a “Tzc” sound.

The Phoenician Alphabet was non-pictoral, unlike any of the other languages that came before it.  But that didn’t stop the Phoenicians from having wacky symbols, like this one!

It's like "R"!

This looks funny to us, but then again so does “W” and “L”, and we like those letters! The Phoenicians also liked to trade Wine.  From this letter, descended the Grecian “M”, and a sound like the modern day “ts” or “ch” sound.  That’s complex for such a little symbol!

Although the Phoenicians were highly developed in terms of Alphabetic symbology, they did not have a strongly developed artistic style. This is because the Phoenicians liked to take Art lessons from the Egyptians and the Greeks.  They also liked to take religion lessons from the Egyptians and Greeks, as they believed both in Egyptian Gods like Osiris and Shed, but also in Greecian gods like Adonis and Baalat Gebal.  Those crazy Phoenicians!

The Greeks called Phoenician ships either horses or tubs.

In conclusion, the Phoenicians were a highly developed and influential civilization that gave us letters like M. Thanks Phoenicia, but no thanks for polytheism!